What's the craziest thing you've avoided?

I live in the middle of a bunch of old gold mining towns and seeing a covered wagon, cowboys, etc isn’t really all that uncommon on the road (they’re part of historical reenactments that go on all the time up here, tourist crap). Recently I’m riding a favorite loop of mine, through a series of back-to-back tight turns and as I exit one getting ready for the other I have a real WTF moment . As I come around I see the obstacles right away, I stand her up as much as possible and I get on the brakes hard (gotta love the great VFR brakes!!), there’s no shoulder and cars in the opposite lane. In front of me in the middle of the lane are a bunch of dudes on those 19th century bicycles!! Those with the huge front wheels and seat way up high, like this crazy thing:


Was a good reminder to be prepared for anything.

Kinda got me thinking, that might be the most bizarre thing I’ve had to avoid on the bike. What are some other weird things people have come across?


- Kevin

 

Dove, Quail, Buzzard.

While driving into Selma,AL, a ring-neck dove flushed out of the wildflowers and hit my face shield. As I recovered from that, a quail smacked into my faceshield.

A buzzard then narrowly missed my head immediately thereafter. My wife and friend Kathy were laughing so hard that we had to pull over to let them compose themselves. The buzzard looked pretty big and ghastley that close!:censored:

Weird, I'd say so!

 

To date....on the bike.......... I would have to say a Porcupine, but I really didn't avoid it I went right over it @ about a buck 20. I've always been paranoid about hitting small critters, thinking it would make the bike go wildly out of control. But the VFR didn't even miss a beat & I continued to power thru the uphill curve I was going thru. I did stop shortly there after to check over the bike after prying myself off the seat from the "pucker" factor. I normally have to worry about deer your options there are limited, stop, slide or play superman & hope it works out in the end( or as one my friends did go fast enough to cut it in half, very disgusting mess to clean up but he rode it out. Just needed new forks & triples to fix it; the speed he figures was around 175-180)

 

South Booneville Missouri a few years ago a friend and I spot a guy at the top of a hill frantically waving his arms over his head, so we pull over to see what's wrong, turns out he dropped a full semi load of soybeans on the other side of the hill completely covering both lanes! A car ended up hitting the beans and backed it in to the ditch, we were very lucky!

 

Holy crap man, that's both disturbing and cool at the same time!

 

I had to swerve to avoid a canoe once.
I was riding on Highway 101, in Marin, just north of the Golden Gate bridge. Come upon a truck with a canoe in the bed, well back of the canoe was in the bed, the front was over the cab, tied to one of those racks you see on work trucks. Canoe was tied upside down, so that the front of the canoe was scooping up a ton of air. As I came around a corner, I came upon it in the lane to the right of me. I was thinking to myself, "that isn't too bright, that canoe has to be getting a lot of lift at this speed." I didn't even finish the full thought before the front of it lifted off, still tied to the crossbar of the truck rack, tumbling backwards, right into my lane, tumbling along all helter skelter. BIG swerve on my part, missed it entirely. Wayyy to close for comfort. As I swerved, I imagined the headlines "Motorycylist killed by flying canoe!"

Lots of tires, mufflers, road kill, etc.

 

Flying canoe!

The flying canoe proves the old adage that you can't make up anything stranger than reality. I've not dodged a canoe,soybeans, or a porcupine, but it never ceases to amaze me what ends up on the street!:yield:

I always thought that Duane Allman and Barry Oakley getting killed by a Peach truck and watermelon truck was pretty bizzare, and decidely Southern. That's why I try to avoid watermelon trucks!

 

My best was a long time ago in New Zealand. Just toodling along on a nice twisty road in the middle of knowwhere, not very fast, and come around a corner and see a bull on the side of the road. Slow right down. Now bulls are usually pretty good about staying off the road but this time just as I am passing him he decides to cross the road in front of me. Bloody thing looked like the side of a barn. I clipped his hind leg, did a bit of a wobble but was OK. So here I am right beside the bull going at exactly the same speed about three feet from each other. Poor bull had an absolutely terrified look on its face. Mind you I probably did too. It's a laugh now but gave me a hell of a fright at the time.

 

Montana ... following some cowboy on his horse pushing cows up a two lane road. After a while, he motioned me to go through ... me like a fool did .... after weaving through the cows (which are really BIG to this city boy) and reaching the front of the herd I accelerated about the same time as the bull in the front who was charging me!(saw him out of the left corner of my eye).... luckily I had more acceleration that he did! Also, not strange.... but hey, came around a corner and threaded the needle between two deer at 75mph ....

 

Cows and Deer

Those cows and deer are pretty solid.

 

Last summer I was going west on I-10 on the out-skirts of Phoenix. I was going around 80 mph on my GS 500 when about five cars ahead of me a flatbed truck lost 6 or 7 boxes of toilet paper. At least 3 cars hit the boxes of TP which launched what seemed to be 100 rolls of toilet paper everywhere. I made it thru the cars that all hit their brakes and i don't think i hit any TP on the ground, but I did get hit with at least 10 or more rolls. I got to the side of the highway got my nerves back and had a few people stop to see if i was ok. after a few minutes we all kinda looked around and started laughing our asses off thinking " what could we have done in a past life to deserve this"...

 

while crusing in the fast lane behind a BMW .I had 3 or 4 4x8 sheets of pink foam insulation lift off a trailer in front of the car in front of me . every one around was on there phones and no ond reacted . I swerved 3 laines full throtle and avoided the whole thing .I did not want to try to stop on top a sheet of insulation.

 

Oooo not such a good thing. On this one ride to St. Helens, I was getting it done and as I was setting myself up for the finishing touchs on this one nice slight up hill sweeper 100 degree blind corner I see this guy on a bike going down on the double yellow, WTF! quick to react, I tighten up my line while backing of on the throttle, all the while I follow him with my eyes looking over my shoulder, I'm almost stopped by now and I see him fly off with bike over the cliff. say super man style. I flip a bitch and head back, stop quick dismount thinking oh shit this is not good. I look over the edge some 30+ feet down I see him wedged between to frige size rocks just sitting like in a lounge chair I yell down, stay put! help is on the way. By now cars and other bikers were stopping too. we got him out, one lucky dude, only had scatches on him, thou the bike looked like it went through a meat grinder, he had angels that day that set him down in the best place possible, talk about freaky happening right in front of ya. I didn't ride all that fast the rest of the day..

 

Not long in Aussie but

Ive run over a couple of snakes (already dead)

Dodged a large number of dead Kangaroos on the road.

Havnt come close to hitting a live roo yet tho, cause ive only ridden during the day.

Just missed a big lizzard, Musta been a Goanna or somethin.

Saw a dead dingo - theyre a big dog!!!

Wild life here is scarry. least back home in New Zealand, you have only the odd possum and rabbit to look out for.

 

Exited a corner on my way down to the Snowy ride last year to find 2 live kangaroos on the other side of the road, plus another one just off the road. I slowed down real quick, crept past at 10km/h. One roo started to hop after me once I had passed them, I didn't hang around to find out what he wanted.

Also came around a corner last year & saw a sheep wandering all over the road. Baaaaaaaaaaaa

 

I still can't believe that guy came out O.K. , if anybody could have seen those rocks, they never would have believed that guy even survived,:shocked: I always tell my friends from Ca. that story.

 

Dumb Kid

Not sure if this falls into this thread, because it was my own stupidity that got me there? I was riding in Oahu Hawaii, group of guys always met on a Sunday and just rode round the Island. Some of the guys were brilliant riders and I was young and dumb trying to keep up. Anyone who has ever been to Hawaii knows of H3 that cuts through the mountain range, and on the other side of the tunnel hits you with different weather than what you just left going in. Sorry I'm digressing! any way as you go back down the mountain range the road wraps around itself like a cork screw, I recall doing about 120 coming out the tunnel then the left hand turn cumes up pretty fast, I was already in a full lean, off the throttle starting to drift over the three lanes not daring to hit the breaks, I drifted so bad that my wheels were under a fire truck, there were four Hawaiian fire fighters laughing and trying to reach out and touch me. I pulled it out from under there and sped off in embarrassment, I too slowed down for the rest of the day.
But I leant a lot from watching those guys.

:redface:

 

Kangaroo's, Goanna's, and Dingos's....... too funny. I would probably ride off the road just looking at them and not where I'm going :wacko:

 

I lost count of how many dead kangaroo's I rode past on the weekend. They don't look too funny after being hit by a truck :wacko: