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The morals of the story:
1. STAY HYDRATED!
2. Don't get hooked into 'get-there-itis.' When you know you need water, or rest, or food, or whatever...don't put it off because you want to make 'just one more' point along the way first.
3. Make sure your insurance is up to task. My health insurance was an 80/20 policy, basically a 'catastrophic' plan. To this day I don't want to add up all the stuff I wound up having to self-pay, and pay I did.
4. Did I mention to STAY HYDRATED? If you live in a hot and/or dry climate, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to keep an emergency bottle of water stashed on the bike in case you're far from civilisation.
You might want to check what the rutting season is in your area and, if it is infested with deer, possibly think of parking the bike during that period.
I guess many of us can remember how sex drove us nuts.
I went back and duplicated the route from last weeks near-miss today. Minus the encounter of course!
I was wondering why I did not see the incoming ground level missile sooner that day. I pass the peripheal vision test yearly with a high "score" and can see the wording on far away signs way before most of my buddies...been fun for years. Drives Helen nuts "freakish" being the description she uses.
Anyways...that particular area has a huge sloping drop off along the left side of road and you cannot see what's below road grade at all to the treeline 100' away. That buck was running full stride up the embankment and I had no chance until he was incoming at that crazy angle.The width of the left lane was all I got.
BTW, I was on extra-mega high alert spider tingly senses mode as I approached the ZONE today...and thankful again it went like it did last week!
Had one of those moments today...a deer encounter.
It ended way better than the one a few years back that put me in a ditch.
12:30 PM on a two lane state road with paved shoulders leaving a small town near Canyon Lake,TX...traveling at posted 65MPH. Weather was low clouds and rain in area ( I had just gone thru a shower a few minutes before, but roads were dry at this spot)
Anyways, I was scanning as usual and as I move to my 11 o'clock I see something coming quickly at an angle right at me. I rolled off the throttle,squeezed the front lever and had just enough time to veer to the left as we intersected...It was one of the largest Hill country white tail bucks I have seen lately. I put him near 170 lbs...sorry, didn't count the points! He couldn't have gotten any closer to my windscreen...pretty surreal to say the least!
I clipped his right rear hoove with the front wheel...felt the bump! I was maybe at 40MPH as this happened.
I maintained lane position and rolled back on the throttle...looked in mirror to see him still running in stride and off the road towards the tree line.To say the least, my heart rate was jacked up!
Of course he had two does trailing him that went right behind me and almost got tagged by the truck behind me.
Had several folks come by me later when road widened to 4 lanes and gave me a big thumbs up and a head shake. I continued with the ride...my senses definitely on a high level buzz.
It's that time of year...be careful out there!
I wonder if the deer had a similar discussion afterwards?
Hi All-
Been riding now for about a year and a half--have a great 1994 R1100RS and have put about 12,000 miles on it in the last year--very careful always and no accidents other than me stopping next to what I thought was a pile of leaves, putting my right foot down as I came to a halt, only to get my foot caught on a branch and ending up laying the bike down on the pile of leaves--embarrassing but no damage except to my pride--UNTIL....
My bike is put into a shed each evening which is on legs which keep it about a foot above ground level--The entrance to the shed entails driving up a four feet wide ramp about 10 feet long--at the end of the ramp is a slight incline to my driveway about 4 feet away--needless to say, I'm very careful backing the bike out of the shed and down the ramp--when I get the bike to the end of the ramp, I have to push the bike over the edge of the ramp about 4 inches to get it onto the ground and aimed in the right direction at which point I fire it up and away I go--WELL...
It was pretty cold last week, so instead of firing it up when I'm on solid ground, I started it in the shed. No problem..had the choke set so engine was revving about 2,000 rpm--all dressed up and ready to go-- took it down the ramp and put it in gear while I took it off the edge of the ramp--when I pushed it over the edge of the ramp the clutch slipped out of my fingers and the next thing I knew I was heading for the edge of the shed and ended up on the ground with the bike--I was unhurt, but the fairing was demolished--rest of bike unhurt--it happened literally in a split second--lesson learned...pride slightly lessened
Tony
My, yet another way to screw up with a ramp - and I thought I had all of them perfected! (See fairly recent "Don't Drop the Bike" thread for an article I wrote for the ON.)
Sounds like you back the bike down the ramp with your rump in the saddle, feet paddling along. right hand on the front brake. Do you feel comfortable doing this if your ramp is wet? Is there a problem getting that last four inch push from the saddle? Don't mean to be critical - maybe your method works great in all weather conditions if the engine is off or the bike is in neutral until the front tire has cleared that edge. Just asking. We all need an all-weather game plan at home.
And check out that "Don't Drop the Bike" thread and the subsequent comments. It may well save you, as a relatively new rider, from several other low speed drops that have nothing to do with ramps.
Bike season has just started here in upstate NY. I have noticed a problem with my riding: I sometimes fail to cancel my turn signal. I've got to focus more attention on avoiding that error, since it could get me in big trouble in traffic... My old K75 had self-canceling turn signals, while my '03 will keep blinking away for hours if I let it.
Harry
I immediately began to let off the throttle, and leaned hard trying work my way back into my lane, but found myself wandering into the opposing left lane.
I immeditely began to let off the throttle, and leaned hard trying work my way back into my lane, but found myself wandering into the opposing left lane. I refrained from hitting the brakes, not sure what would happen at those speeds in a curve. As I was leaning hard trying to slow and work right, a car suddenly approached from the opposite direction headed right for me. I honestly thought, "This is it. I'm going to die." I'm not sure at this point what I was doing, other than leaning hard tring to get back into my lane with fractions of a second to get out of the way. "