More Close Calls On The Road
You do NOT want to hit one of these guys.
Oh my god that was close!
Yeah, we’ve all said that one time or another. So of course there’s a thread on Adventure Rider where folks tell their tales. Here once again I dip into the thread to pass along some other people’s oh-my-god-that-was-close stories.
- I was riding over 8700′ Ebbett’s Pass on Highway 4 in the California Sierras. Came around this corner and there was a big brown cow standing on the steep hillside on my right, and as I approached the corner she lost her footing, slipped and rolled sideways down the hill and ended up in my path. I was able to brake hard and swerve and miss her. Man did she look scared, poor thing! She got up and staggered off to the other side of the road, none the worse for wear.
- Chickens. Crossing the road. True story.
- Coming out of New Mexico on 550 just crossed into Colorado ,came around a curve ,there was three portapotties laying in the road. just had room to go in between two of them.
- I destroyed a barbecue grill with my first bike. I pulled into the garage, put the stand down and as I stepped off I planted my foot in a fresh spot of oil. I fell forward onto the tank, pushing the bike forward, somehow folding the stand again, and falling over. Fortunately it was 1980 and I had a tall sissy bar than folded my dad’s barbecue grill into a neat V shape. I had been riding for approximately one month at that point.
- Dragon fly; not strange at all, but he was still alive and crawling around inside my helmet. He was still distracting me when I nearly struck the moose.
- One dark stormy night in the early 70’s I’d nipped out on my old mans Honda C50 step thru. On the way home there was a queue of cars in front of me so I did what any impatient 17 year old would do and rode slowly past them. Suddenly I was off the bike and sitting on my arse in the middle of the road. Unknown to me, the storm had brought a tree down which in turn brought down some phone lines which were hanging just at neck height. Due to it being dark and raining I hadn’t seen them but luckily I’d been going slowly when I was almost garotted. No harm done apart from a black line on my neck from ear to ear.
- I was riding a ’79 KZ650 (fantastic bike by the way) down I-40 toward Knoxville out of Strawberry Plains, Tennessee when I had to lay on the tank to let a huge goose fly over me from the right. The bird continued on about 6 feet above the road across the median to the east-bound lanes and directly into the path of a semi in the fast lane. The collision occurred behind me so I didn’t see it, but I looked over my shoulder and saw thousands of feathers streaming off the sides and top of the truck as it drove on.
- About two years ago, Hwy 20 between Boise and Idaho City. Came around a left sweeper and the road was brownish and looked like it was moving. Crickets! About a 1/2 mile path, across all lanes. Slippery and gross! Didn’t crash but was a great reason to wash the KLR.
- …..the sun was low and behind me…….a woman was on the ‘sidewalk’ to my side and was looking directly at me, she’s seen me……I got closer and she stepped straight into my path……I hit her at 30mph……..she was ok…….but !!!.. It turned out she suffered badly from a sight defect and was trying to cross the road to a meeting for the ‘blind’ and she didn’t see me for the low sun……..I was riding a police bike at the time……I felt bad……….judge me.
- That was nothing, though, compared to the infamous Chicken Guts Ride, as it came to be known. Myself and a couple buddies were riding bicycles and going pretty hard. We were all in shape back then, just past our road racing primes. Pete and I had dropped our friend Jon on a climb and were out of the saddles pumping hard up the hill when, suddenly, we found ourselves riding through rotted chicken innards spread all across the roadway–the stench in the sun was ungodly. Chicken guts on hot asphalt make for an extraordinarily slick riding surface, and so we were forced to sit back down in our saddles–otherwise, our rear wheels just spun when we pedaled. Even in the saddles, our wheels spun a fair amount and, so we slowed to a bare crawl, struggling to stay upright and hoping we’d get through it before the incline and gravity did their work and we fell into the mess. We made it–the worst of it was 50-75 feet long or so, but it seemed an eternity. We probably should have warned Jon, but we figured it would be more fun to watch and so we did. He made it, too, with plenty of loud curses.
Yes, there are totally unexpected adventures awaiting you out there. Stay alert.
Biker Quote for Today
If you can still hear your fears, shift a gear.
