What items have you dodged or hit on your commute?

Over the weekend, I dodged a roll of carpet that was laying across the left lane and the left shoulder. Thankfully it was daytime and low traffic and an easy gentle swerve around it.
I got close with a tire carcass in the dark later that night.

These stories are what nightmares are made of.

This guy wasn’t so lucky:

https://advrider.com/f/threads/asap-rim-split-on-highway-f700gs.1472735/

I brought my Rockster home on a Saturday and got plates and insurance on Monday. Tuesday morning I hit a deer. Gotta love ABS! Caught her on the left rear hip, the bike went wobble wobble and then kept on going, never went down! I stopped as soon as I could and put on the 4-ways, walked back to get the tip of the front fender out of the middle of the road and went on home. There's a chunk of carbon fifer missing, Some day I hope a hunter finds it embedded in her hip!

Critters are pretty common in our part of the world:

Big Horn Sheep


Cattle




Sheep


Deer aftermath


We had four buffalo hit a half mile down the road from our place a few elk as well. The buffalo were hit by a car. Two elk strikes were fatal to the riders.

akbeemer said:

Critters are pretty common in our part of the world:

....Two elk strikes were fatal to the riders.

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Geez. Were those during daylight, or nighttime?

ridesolo said:

I brought my Rockster home on a Saturday and got plates and insurance on Monday. Tuesday morning I hit a deer. Gotta love ABS! Caught her on the left rear hip, the bike went wobble wobble and then kept on going, never went down! I stopped as soon as I could and put on the 4-ways, walked back to get the tip of the front fender out of the middle of the road and went on home. There's a chunk of carbon fifer missing, Some day I hope a hunter finds it embedded in her hip!

View attachment 80876 View attachment 80877

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Ouch... just commented on your Rockster pic in Oilheads. Glad you only have to repair that and not you!

I was on the Red Indian Lake west road a number of years ago and had a moose come out onto the road ahead of me. fortunately I had room to slow down and let him go on his way after running down the road for a bit.

2017 - winter suprise

Riding my 09 RT to work on Bond Rd, North Kitsap, just past SR104 turnoff to Port Townsend.. 0600..dark.. just caught a glimpse of a tire rim in the middle of the road and fortunately only caught it on the edge. What kind of knucklehead leaves a wheel rim in the middle of the road?

This weekend I stopped and removed a big chunk of metal from an intersection. It weighed about 5 pounds, was disk shaped (6 inch diameter and 2 inches thick), and had a bolt sticking out the center on top. It might have been a flywheel from a small motor. I would have taken a photo, but the driver of a truck stopped at the intersection offered to dispose of it. It would have done some serious tire damage if anyone hit it, car or bike.

Ken

Dodged innumerable objects in the road - tires, an Igloo cooler, lumber, dead animals, including a dead alligator at the Texas-Louisiana border. Many a pickup trucks and LOL (little old lady) - had an LOL pull out in front of me in an intersection and then STOP in the middle. I was hard on the brakes, about ready to T-bone her, when at the last split-second she speed off. Many deer, elk, cattle, horses. Had a deer dash out ahead of me, slip and fall on the pavement, and scamper off right before it became deer-burger. I was leaned over in a hard right-hand curve, concentration totally on the turn, when just inches ahead flashed an elk. Very sad to report I lost a buddy after he collided with an elk; it would be like running into a Mack truck. Had a buddy killed when a buzzard hit him in the head. I've been lucky (or blessed) in over 50 years of riding - some minor crashes, scrapes, broken bones, contusions, road rash, but I've managed to walk (limp?) away to ride again. Stay safe. Ride focused. Ride with INTENTION.

On way to Springfield after a few construction zone crawls, the last outside Ozark, AR, we rerouted for Russellville for the night. Chuck was done for the day and pointed to I-40 for remaining 50 mile run. We rarely hit the I’s if possible….because there’s always a story afterwards.

I’m a five over averager and flow with local habits guy, Chuck sometimes passes me with a WTF if I ease up more.
Anyways, he used to lead all the time and he asked me to get us through Arkansas. I got up to the limit and bumped up to the pace. It took less than fifteen minutes and my Wingman roars by following two rabbits. About then I saw a slight swerve ahead and a yellow five gallon pail of something coming my way at warp speed sliding along. I corrected in a micro second and saw it behind me getting collected by one of the many tractor trailers we were staying away from!
First thing Chuck mentioned was the bucket… had fallen off a flatbed in the right lane and bounced by him.
We enjoyed a fist bump and a Hallelujah for surviving another run on the Truckerstate!. BTW, I had seen the State Patrol in the median just before he passed me( he noticed him too and got out of fast lane)we were looking behind and luckily no visit and definitely no contact from pail-o-pain. Might’ve left a mark at pace of flow.

A chunk of fresh asphalt. One warm summer afternoon I exited the highway and came to a stop at the red light at the bottom of the ramp. When the light turned green and I took off, there was a noticeable bump in my ride. At first, I wondered if I had lost a chunk of my rear tire. I pulled into a parking lot to inspect things and found a 3-inch diameter chunk of asphalt stuck to the rear tire. Apparently, a paving company truck had dropped a bit of asphalt on the off ramp and I didn't notice it.

“What have you dodged?”

Several years back, a piano crate on the middle lane of I-59 in Chattanooga.

Pucker factor of 10 +.


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Voni and I were on US 62, headed eastbound towards New Madrid, just north of the Missouri Bootheel. I was in the lead. There was a large flattened cardboard box in the oncoming lane, just as I was meeting a semi-tractor-trailor otherwise known as a big truck. As I went past the semi blew the cardboard up into the air. I missed it but it planted itself on the front of Voni and her motorcycle. It was pressed against the R1100RS headlight/fairing and Voni's helmet. This I could see in my rear view mirrors and it almost freaked me out. She on the other hand reached up with her left hand, the right hand still on the throttle, and pulled the cardboard sideways off her helmet so she could see, and then cast it further sideways back onto the roadway.

I have no idea what I might have done with vision totally obscured but she cast it aside as if it were no big deal. But we both stopped to make sure everything was right with the world and that our unbderwear was still unsoiled.

This past August, in northern Ontario, for the second in my riding career, a black bear, followed by her cub, ran across the road in front of me. Riding at the speed limit with the brakes already covered, allowed me to preserve two of Canada’s wildlife.

My almost end of riding incident happened within two kilometres of home. I was on a four lane city street, in the express lane with a car close behind me in the adjacent curb lane as we approached a T intersection. A parked van was waiting to make a left turn out from the side street (in our direction) and the curb lane driving vehicle had its’ right turn signal flashing. As we approached the intersection, the van executed the left turn and then stopped directly in front of me, blocking my lane. Brakes were already covered and were immediately applied but as I got closer to the parked van, aware I would be unable to stop in time, I told myself this was really going to hurt.

At this point I instinctively released the brakes and hoped, gambled, that the right turning vehicle had made made the turn and had cleared the lane. I then swerved around the backend of the parked van into the right lane and then continued on my way. What amazed me was when further down the road when i stopped at the red light and put my foot down, the leg wasn’t shaking as much as I would have expected.

In retrospect, I was fortunate that this was a Sunday morning and this normally busy road was relatively free of its’ normal traffic which allowed me to successfully pull off this manoeuvre.

My brother and I were coming down off a mountain on my favorite local twistie. Running the speed limit as we were entering the valley, he in the lead, we both saw a motor down in the road a little right of center of our lane, rider on the side of the road upright.

My brother was left of center in our lane and passed by this hole in the road that had to be 2'x2' square and 3 feet deep [ like a sink hole opened up ]. I was headed for that hole in the right center of lane when my brother communicated "HOLE" [ I was maybe 4-5 bikes behind him and we're both at 40-45mph ]. Aggressively counter steering, I missed that hole by inches if that.

We pulled over, then turned around to see if that rider was okay [ I have WFR medical training ] and help him get his bike out of the road. The hole was deep, he'd hit it and did an end over end, the front end of the bike mangled. He was completely ATTGAT'd up. He was fine, no broken bones nor road rash [ young buck about 25 ]. We got the bike off the road, and emergency services were called.

We stayed until emergency services were on scene. Fire truck or ambulance threw two cones out in the road to warn other motorists. We got back on the motors and continued on.

Two weeks ago I was on I-30 going to a company event at the big boss' house in Rowlett. A pickup truck ahead had a bunch of empty cardboard boxes flying out, one just missed me at 70+ mph. Around here folks load up their pickups with trash, boxes, etc. they want to get rid of and drive down the freeway with the tailgate down. This avoids a trip to the dump. I always try to get away from such vehicles but sometimes the debris will cross into other lanes as it did this time.

Several years back, a piano crate… Empty, not that it would have mattered.


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What have we hit ..... a dog, it ran off ... an owl on the Cherohala Skyway (actually it hit us), it flew away as well ... a turtle. Poor thing came out of nowhere. (Car in front was hiding it from view.) Not a good way to learn what a forged aluminum wheel costs .... a Golden Eagle dived Susan in Black Rock and scrapped her helmet. We interrupted it's meal and it wasn't happy.

What we have almost hit .... a deer on US90 near Marathon TX. We were doing 90 and it was at a full run. I braced, then -- nothing. We didn't hit it. It wasn't in the mirrors. Just gone. It must have jumped us. .... a Bighorn sheep in North Fork ID. We were doing 70 a couple of hundred feet behind an Ford F150. The Bighorn came from the right side and was beginning a run across the road right in front of us. We missed it by about 3 feet.

What we've dodged .... an upside down wheel barrow in Florida. It was doing a dance on the utility trailer so we were leaving room for it to dance. It finally found a way off the trailer and slide perfectly down the highway to a stop in the grass. We sped up and when we got tot he truck we pointed back to the empty trailer. He looked shocked and slowed for the retrieval. Other dodges, bunny rabbits, downed trees, potholes, snakes, a wild boar on Deal's Gap, a cow one dark night, and lots of stuff I've forgotten.

I'm not sure what category three tornados go into, but they dodged us. One in Texas, one in Georgia, and one in Arkansas. Like they say, luck is better than skill most days.

Too many things come to mind, but if it were so my 9 lives are overextended.
In the early 70's living off base in the Eiffel Mtns, we had about a 10K commute. Two small towns to pass through early in the AM.
The Germans take their cows out to graze at the crack of dawn and bring then back home at dusk. I had a Kawy 500 triple and my roommate was on a CB750. The week before I tipped the bike into a ditch and wrinkled up my front fender. Waiting for the new one, I rode sans fender.
For some reason this morning the locals had not yet swept up after their cows as they usually did. Cold, my visor fogging up, and running late we shot into the last corner to the little town only to hit all of that recycled bovine lunch from yesterday.... still steaming. With no front fender, yesterdays lunch went from my bootlaces to the top of my visor. And packed in the cooling fins, caked on the center pipe, bottom of my headlight......you get the picture.
As we stopped at the gate for ID check, I thought the gate guards were going to pass out they were laughing so hard.
Our shop had a inspection formation first thing, and running late we hustled in the back door only to be called forward.
More serious laughing and a failed inspection. Took a while to live that one down.