The first deer strike was the worst. A bit more to the horror, in 1997 I bought a brand new Harley Davidson Sportster Sport. I loved it; tearing around the county, loud pipes and all. But, it was not the most comfortable motorcycle, especially for 2-up riding. I was pretty sure I wanted to start touring and while setting up the Sportster Sport for touring would be possible, it would be expensive and change the bike into something that it wasn't.
I had a small issue with an almost-new front tire on the Sportster so I went to the dealership to have them take a quick look at it. On their showroom floor was a new Superglide T-Sport. This was an un-Harley Harley. It had textile quick-detachable bags, a small fiberglass fairing and adjustable windshield. It was intriguing, but after talking with the dealership owner about it I didn't give it much thought.
By the time I got home however, my brain was screaming, "You need this motorcycle, you can still tear around the county and use it for touring!" I called them the next day and a day or two after that, my Sportster was gone, replaced with the Harley Davidson Superglide T-Sport.
Six days later, with 261 miles on the clock, I was on my way to work on a very cool morning. It was still dark out and as I was going past a wooded area, I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye, then the image of a deer in my peripheral vision.
WOP!
I relived that wop many, many times over the ensuing months.
I kept the bike up initially, but I think what happened is I ended up going over the deer after the initial impact and pushing her forward. I recall looking to my left and seeing my 6-day-old bike sliding down the road with sparks flying off of it. I put my hand down to get up and that was when I realized I was also sliding down the road. After ensuring my slide down the road was done, I got up a few seconds later. My leg hurt a lot and my pants were shredded; my leg was bleeding, but not too bad. I walked over to my bike, unsure of what to do next.
A minute or so later the first vehicle on the scene was a school bus filled with little kids, all staring at this motorcycle guy standing next to a dead bloody deer and a wrecked bike. I don't know why, but I told the bus driver to just go on, don't bother calling the cops. The couple cars behind the bus didn't stop (thanks), but the first car headed south was a volunteer fireman. He made sure I wasn't dying and helped me right the bike before driving me a mile down the road to the firehouse. An ambulance came and checked me out. I didn't think I was too bad so they put bandages on my leg and were off again.
It took forever for the police to show up as I live in a remote part of the county with little road patrol. When he did show up, I asked if I could come back later in the day and shoot the dead deer out of spite. The tow truck was the same guy who had recently towed a car due to a brake problem. I told him I never wanted to see him again (jokingly) and he relayed that was why he sometimes hates his job.
A few hours later, my leg had swollen to nearly twice its normal size. I drove myself to the Emergency Room where about $4000 later, the only thing broken on me was my big toe on my left foot. There was significant strain/sprain in my left leg which was the more significant problem. Oddly, the damage to my Superglide was almost exactly the same in dollar amount - including cleaning all the deer blood off of it. The only good outcome was that I wasn't too fond of the "Diamond Ice" color (aka, generic silver). Since every colored part was destroyed except the rear fender, I bought a factory painted fender and changed the color to a dark blue. The dark blue against the black wrinkle finish on much of the bikes accessories looked ten times better.
Several years later, I hit a second (yes, 2) deer on my motorcycle. The situation was very similar, about 10 miles away from the location of the first strike. This time I was on my Honda ST1300. I was on my way to work again, and a deer ran across the road, followed closely by a second. I grabbed all the brake I could and got the bike slowed down some.
WOPARUNCH!
This time the outcome was different. I kept the bike up but assumed that the front end was trashed. The deer had died much like her sister a few years earlier after a flying twist across the road. I turned around and headed the short distance back home and pulled into the pole barn. There was a lot of hair and blood on the bike, but the only actual damage was a small crack on the windshield which remains there to this day. My truck was incapacitated at the time due to a perforated transmission cooling line so I got back on the bike and rode to work, blood, hair and all.
The damage was negligeable to my truck on this most recent incident. Both the deer and I got out of it with little more than a real scare. I popped my fog light back into the bumper of my Tacoma and the deer ran away. Apparently he didn't learn his lesson as I saw him two days later on the side of the road dead, about 100 yards away from where I hit him. His large growing rack in full velvet was beautiful. I was going to stop and take the antlers, but it was gone the next day.
When my crazy motorcycle guy personality collides with my gentleman farmer lifestyle, bad things can happen. I'll count my blessings on all three of these incidences.
No comments:
Post a Comment