[Rainbow Island]

Hello everyone. Just thought I would share my experience with y"all. We have a group with about 9 bikes, sometimes more, sometimes less that meet every Thursday evening and go for a local ride to a surrounding town. We just go and eat somewhere and return to where we started, visit a little, then everyone goes their way. So, yesterday evening, we done just that. We traveled about 32 miles, ate and was coming home when it happened. We had been following a pickup truck for a few miles. The truck gave a right turn signal at a four way and had begun to move to the right. Now, understand, this was just a pig trail that went into the woods, not a major road at all. As the truck began it's right hand turn our lead rider proceeded to go around the truck. Me and my wife where right behind him and we had also begun to go around. At this moment, for what ever reason, the young girl in the truck suddenly made an abrupt turn to the left. Our lead rider braked very hard and turned to the left to try to avoid the pickup but was unsuccessful and hit the truck very hard. I just missed the truck myself. We think he will be ok but he is tore up really bad and in the icu right now. I spent the whole day at the hospital today as did several others. It's an awful feeling to see your friend laying in the gravel bleeding from everywhere and not knowing if he is gonna live or not. That seen just keeps going through my head. The tires sliding, the impact with the truck, the helmet flying off his head upon impact, and knowing that I was just feet away from being right in the middle of it with my precious wife on the back with me. Someone could have bought my
'06 Gold wing real cheap last night because I was through riding. But after sleeping on it, I'm not sure now. This was the third mc wreck in our area in a month. The other two didn't make it. I have a lot of mixed emotions right now so if I've stated something that sounds crazy, please understand that I'm still pretty shook up from all of this. I learned two lessons from this. Never assume that someone is gonna do what it seems they are gonna do and make sure you have your helmet strap snug enough to keep it on in a wreck.

 

[Rainbow Island]

Also learned a third lesson. If you have a cell phone with small numbers like my Blackberry has, its almost impossible to dial 911 when you are shook up. Set 911 on your speed dial and know which one it is ! I'm really not sure this would help but it might.

 

[Chopin]

This post changes the moment of all that is going on here tonight for me.

 

[cloud09]

Sorry to hear about your fellow buddy! my best wishes he pulls through mate, we ride cause we love too and i'm sure your buddy says the same thing, you are absolutly right about the lessons learnt and its good that you can share those.

Keep your chin up mate and best wishes again

from a Aussie GW owner

 

[RKP000]

Rainbow,

I too hope your buddy pulls through! Sorry for being a bit long winded here.

I hit a deer two years ago on a M109R doing about 70MPH. Deer jumped out of some talls weeds on my right, right in front of me and I center punched it. Killed deer, did about $4800 dollars in damage to my bike with only 255 miles on it. I never went down because I did not have time to brake. Had I seen it earlier, I most likely would have panic grabbed the front brake and surely have gone down. Anyway, I pulled over, all covered in @#$%, SHAKING BAD and my leg felt broke where it had smashed into tank as deer passed from front of bike to back on right side. After police arrived (yes I had a hard time dialing on my Blackberry) I actually rode the bike to the dealer and dropped it off (lights dangling, deer fur stuck all over etc.). Iwas extremely lucky - someone was watching over me that morning.

I got the bike repaired, my black and blue body parts healed and the bike was parked in my garage for a while. I kept thinking about the hit and did a lot of soul searching - should I ride again? I started it up a couple mornings, then chickened out and drove my truck to work. I eventually rode again, about 2 months later, saw another couple deer on the way to work one morning - shakes came right back and sold the bike the following weekend. Told myself I was done riding bikes.

I was without a bike for almost 2 years (had bikes for last 28 yrs) and I was missing riding bad so I bought a '10 Wing this past April.

I've seen a few deer on the way to work with the Wing but the shakes are gone now. In my opinion, take a little time off your bike if you are nervous - BUT DO NOT SELL IT! Given some time, I think you will want to hop back on it. You'll just be more aware of your surroundings when you ride now. I tend to ride a bit slower at times now where in the past I rode too fast and I make sure I have room around me now if I have to make an evasive move. I ride like the cars on the road are out to nail me.

We all take a risk every time we ride - whether due to some idiot in a car (and there seems to be more on the road now), bad road conditions or our own mistake, but I think the ride is worth the risk!

RIDE SAFE ALL!
Rob

 

[crownfire]

I'm very sorry to hear about your friend. I Hope he will get better soon.

I also was in a wreck last March. A woman pulled out in front of me and while I slowed down a lot, couldn't quite stop and hit her. Shook my up pretty bad, but if I was in a car at the same time and place she still would have pulled out in front of me and I still would have been in an accident. So I keep riding but I do watch a little better at intersections and ride slower. I will add along with the others, just wait a little while and I think you will get back on.

 

[Rainbow Island]

Thanks guys. Believe it or not I think I have overcome my fears already, at least for the biggest part. I too quit riding for several years on account of an accident with 2 deer. I didn't hit either one but I went right between them and could have reached my arms out both directions and touched both of them. I was young and dumb and was going about 110 mph. Didn't ride again for 22 years. I was really comfortable on the bike today on the way to see my buddy at the hospital, well, at least til I got to where the accident happened Thursday evening. I will have to admit that I got a little jittery there. I will just have to get over that though because it happened 200 feet from where I turn to go to work 4 days a week.

 

[budoka]

Fair marks to you for doing some soul searching RI. Best wishes to your friend and all your crew. I've dodged lots of cages in my years and come away unscathed, with only damage to my nerves and underwear.
That all nearly ended on Saturday morning with a deer. I was leading the poker run for our local rally, and just a the outskirts of town ther is a new traffic control (speed) zone. Typically the guys want to run "hard" and my job over and above guiding was to try and maintain some semblance of pseudo legal speeds on the road. So between looking ahead for the normal radar trap, getting our group of 8 riders close to the posted limit (glancing in the rear-views, hand signals) and glancing at the speedo, in a nano-second there was Bambi right in front of me/us. I did grab a handlful and foot-full of brake and hauled in the clutch, but it wasn't really in time. The deer scrambled past my left side (by maybe a foot) as I thought "oh S***! We all had the same though, because we all were close enough together that the leader (me) in a go down situation would have likely resulted in most or all of us in a pile.
Yes we were in staggered formation with spacing, but in a heartbeat you can see what the seconds and distances come down to. At 60 mph (100kph) you're covering 88 ft/sec. We were doing 50 mph (80kph) and decellerating when I looked up and saw the dear. If I'm super quick to react (I know I'm no Valentino Rossi, so that's not likely) I grab brake and clutch in maybe 1 second including recognition of danger and reaction so there is 75 feet or so I/we've covered when I see her. Two riders on my right rear saw the deer come up out of the ditch, no one else did until it squirted out the other side, all they saw was my brake lights. I was close enough to the deer I could hear it's hoofs scrambling on the pavement as we passed.
That's part of the reason why I seldom ride with more than one or two other bikes in a group. It's also why I don't travel at excessive speed in a group; if someone needs to go faster than the group, they are wlecome to pass and run ahead (and stay there). Had we been travelling at full highway speed at that moment, I wouldn't be posting this.

 

[crownfire]

Glad to hear you were going slow enough to avoid Bambi.

 

[Rainbow Island]

Glad to hear you were going slow enough to avoid Bambi.

Yeah, me too ! We have so many deer around here. I have counted as many as 27 going to work and I only drive 20 minutes to work. You can always count on seeing at least 6 live ones and usually 1 or 2 that have been hit. With the dead ones, you have to deal with the buzzards and crows all in the road. Not only that but having a plywood mill between my house and my work, there is always limbs in the road that I guess fall off the log trucks. So many things out there to get ya so it sure pays to keep your eyes on the road and not let things distract you. RIDE SAFE !