Animals

[ZenMan]

Coming home from a toy ride 2 yrs. ago,10:00 pm         on a logging road,bugs thick as fog poor headlite on a Honda Nighthawk,rounded a turn,3 LARGE MOOSE in the middle of the road. Took the one on the right,hit him in the butt,took my left boot off, never did find it. Broke front forks,new W/S left ex. pipes,gas tank, side cover,ferring. Got 2 broken wrists,broken ribs,left leg fracture and other sore spots . The moose died so i don't feel so bad,was sore for a long time. Was my 69 th. birthday,some gift.

I think we have a winner!  

  to the board, Biker. Nice entrance.  

[BikerEd]

Thanks for the welcome, still cherish each day i can bike. Bought me a 1200 Bandit S for my 71 st. birthday, hope i am up to the task.

[SHREDDER]

Yeah that moose story takes the cake!  

[Katamaniac]

I caght a Starling in the top of the helmet a couple years ago. It snapped my head back pretty violently. Had a sore neck for a couple days.

One year later on the same road about 1/8 mile from where the Starling incident happened, a Turkey Vulture flew out of the ditch and I had to duck to miss it. I guess I was interupting it't lunch.

[stormi]

Who hasn't hit an animal with their car?  I think the question was meant for motorcycles.  Thankfully I've never had to encounter an animal whilst on the bandit.

Up until about 10 years ago, I had never hit anything in a car.    Then one day, I was driving along, and a gopher ran out and hit the side of my tire as I was driving.  So I'm still not sure if that counts as a hit, or a been hit.  Gave a porcupine a love tap though...

[Caper#5]

I wouldn't want to hit a moose in a car let alone a motorcycle. Welcome to the board, glad you fared out better than the moose.

[ZenMan]

Do insects count?

I just remembered a funny and embarrassing incident when I was a kid about a hundred years ago...

I was always into the fast jap bikes, and a few Nortons, Triumphs, even an old Beemer R65 for a time, but I've never owned a Harley. Some of my friends did, though, and one particular older buddy of mine was always bugging me to get one. He said the chicks loved 'em, and it would improve my social life. He had a chopped Panhead that he was real proud of, so I was suprised that he offered to let me borrow it for the weekend... he swore I'd get one for my own once I experienced all the girls that would throw themselves at me.

So there I was cruising down main street about 45mph in a small town in Ohio named Lisbon... no helmet, bandanna on my head, aviator sunglasses, and greasy jean jacket with the sleeves cut off. Well sure enough, three cute girls walking down the sidewalk turned at the sound of those pipes and smiled, waving at me.

Of course I waved back and gave them a big smile. At that moment a huge junebug hit me right in the teeth.

For those of you that don't know what a junebug is, it's a really big round flying beetle about the size of an acorn, with a really hard shell. When this thing hit me in the mouth it almost broke my front teeth, but instead it smashed open and burst, giving me a mouthfull of slimy bug guts and pieces of wings and legs. It took me completely by suprise! I started choking and trying to spit the disgusting mess out and forgot to watch where I was going... I looked up just in time to see the back of the parked car before I ran into it, sending me over the bars and sprawling onto the trunk.

After I slid off and picked myself up, I looked across the street and the girls where laughing their asses off. I looked at the bike and the springer front end was a mess... one spring was hanging off and the forks were bent back at a 45-degree angle. I was just bruised up a little, more embarrassed than anything else.

I called my buddy and he came with his pickup. It took me 3 months working at the gas station pumping gas and doing oil changes to pay for a new front end and other damage on the Harley.

I was only about 17 years old, but I can still taste that freaking junebug to this day. Needless to say, I've always worn helmets with face shields since then, and I never did buy a Harley.

[Caper#5]

You have June bugs too?? Yup they hurt alot, ugly too! I don't drive alot in the night so I've never hit one on the bike. Does a peddle bike count??

[Mongo]

Besides bugs, I think I hit a bird once, and hit a rabbit in the car once.  I've came close to hitting a skunk and a armidillo.

Hey Solman I thought they had bigger problems in your neck of the woods?



Oh that's a little South of me also!

[Daytona]

[mccuts]

I've only hit bugs with my BANDIT.
Hit a dog a many years back.  2 of us on a Yamaha RD350 going aroun 60.  It was a fairly large Irish Setter that ran across the road at night.  When I saw the dog I tensed up for a crash - but nothing major happened.  I felt the handlebars jitter a little and then we stopped up the road a ways.  The front fender got the dog ( good old metal chrome fender ). When we headed back to look for the dog it was on the other side of the road and the fender had sliced its head open.  The dog had been thrown about 16 feet, and the bike had a minor bend in the front fender.  The only thing I could figure is that the amount of mass we had just bounced the dog out of our way.  Or maybe I was just a lucky ?????

[Banditguy]

I hit a dog on my Bandit 10 yrs ago at night. Never even saw it til it was about 30 ft in front of me, I was doing exactly 52 mph when I saw him, grabbed all the brakes I could, punted him into the ditch about 30 feet. The bike went into a BIG wobble, I thought I was going down but managed to keep it up. The dog was prolly 50lbs or so, killed him instantly.
I  guess I was lucky not to crash, but of course I tell my buddies it was my superior riding skills.

Now I have slightly bent forks, so I go thru seals a little more often than normal(I guess thats why)?

[drewpy_dawg]

I've almost hit a couple stupid humans on my bike before.  2 in 3 months on my last bike.  I attribute alot of it to the fact that bike was too damn quiet.  (FZ6 is a pain to make louder).  I've never before or since had a problem with pedestrians but the Hyosung is nicely noisy and the bandit is nicely loud.   The v-max I had had a nice rattle in the exhaust most of the time I owned it (pedestrian whistles?), the KLR had an aftermarket pipe as did my first bike, a Intruder 1400.  I'm a big fan of audible bikes...not for the ability to possibly be heard by the idiot in the cage beside you but for the announcement effect in slower situations.  (That, and a gunning it with the clutch in is more effective than ANY of the japanese/korean horns to get someone's attention when light changes).

[stormi]

I almost hit a couple of kids that ran out into the street while driving the Mustang the other day!! It's not a quiet car, and I was in 1st gear doing about 20mph.  I think what it comes down to is more people should engage their brains before they leave the house, and pre-teens/teens are the biggest offenders.  ;)

I too have found that the horn on the bikes is nigh on useless, but for a different reason.  If I have to "panic brake" I find that my hands are in the wrong position to be able to hit the horn.   ( I -think- that happens because when I panic brake, I tend to do it motocross style, in that I stand up and push my weight onto the pegs as much as possible to stop the back end from coming up.  That rotates my hands into a position that puts the horn too low for my hands.   Or,... it could just be that I'm defective.  ) Since my hand is already on the clutch, I rev the hell out of the engine, and usually what I braked for realizes the error of it's ways.  

I did that recently when I cube van decided to swing wide left to turn right into a driveway with no warning.  He used 3/4 of my lane as I was trying to pass him, I got to practice my panic stops and  realized how useless the horn was.  He noticed the revving engine though, especially when it bounced off the rev limiter.

[PitterB4]

Summit Point Raceway is known for wildlife on the track.  Two years ago, one of the coaches for the org I ride with was flying down a straight on the smaller (Shennendoah) course.  Was on the throttle, turned around watching the form of the Beginner rider behind him.  Had NO idea there was a deer standing in the middle of the track.  He just got back on the bike earlier this year.

Then on 6/8, I was riding the Main course (very fast with a LOOOOOONG straight) there.  Second session of the day, one of the control riders in my group hit an opposum at the fastest part of that straight prolly doing in the mid 140s.  I was only a few seconds behind him.  Cut that sucker in two.  The pieces were at least 6 feet apart!