| Author | Message | ||
     Corporatemonkey |
Well not really, but I did have a magical ride. One that I will remember for ever. I guess tonight was my night. I went for a nice ride, started having fun and decided to go a little further. Ended up going 437 miles. For those of you that have ever been on the North Cascades Hwy (wa-20) you will understand. The evening was just perfect, weather, the roads, minimal traffic, just perfect. Even the other drivers were courteous. I though I was in Europe for a while. Cars would pull a little to the right to give me room to pass. When have you ever seen this happen in the states??? Most of my trip my Cityx was just flogged, 5k+ rpm, knee nearly down. At one point coming back thru lake Chelan I had a 14min period at WOT. Yippee that was fun. Not once did my Buell hiccup. It did get a little thirsty at those speeds, but a little premium made it happy again. Erik would be proud... The only strange part was when I hit 2 birds. Yes 2... The first one was a starling type bird, very small (I don't know what it was) it flew right into the bottom edge of my helmet, hitting me in the atoms apple. I already have a bruise forming. The second bird was a quail of some sort (had the head tassel) a group of the was by the side of the road. I was traveling too fast to slow down, and the last bird to take flight hit my left mirror. It forced me into on coming traffic, luckily there were no cars. After I stopped to check my shorts, I found the bird had only scratched the left mirror. All in all I can't figure out if something was watching out for me, or trying to kill me. Either way I had one hell of a ride. Now I just have to figure out how to clean the bugs off. | ||
| Swordsman |
That is so utterly strange! Glad there was no real damage (like your skin on the pavement!). A guy I work with claims to have been behind a bike on the interstate when the rider was hit in the top of the head by an oncoming bird (pigeon?). The contact was so hard it knocked the guy backwards, pulling his hands from the bars and sprawling him across the seat. The bike wavered like crazy, but the rider managed to sit up and keep everything under control. He pulled over, as did the guy I work with. The rider had NO idea what happened... the bird was beyond his scope while wearing the hemlet. I'd have pissed myself for sure! ~SM | ||
| New12r |
Buells seen to draw out animals, I too have hit a bird with my helmet! Many of my pals have had many critters jump out in front of them as well. | ||
| Bdabuell |
I bagged me a squirrel this weekend...little blighter made a suicide run straight out in front of me. I saw him for a second then felt him go under.  About 5 mins later I came within a hair of hitting a buzzard/vulture of some kind (turkey buzzard I think)...being tangled up with him would not have been fun  | ||
| Samiam |
Hey next time you're cruisin' Hwy 20 look me up! Sam | ||
| Southern Marine |
I came close to bagging a deer, or did she come close to bagging me? Oh well, still had a great ride.  Glad you were safe on yours. | ||
| No_rice |
i caught a black bird in the windscreen at 160 on my yzf a few years ago. that was interesting. knocked a hole right through it and covered me with guts. only thing left was the feet and some tail feathers sticking out of the screen. | ||
| Ginzero |
Very cool, I too had similar enlightening rides! I havent had any run ins with animals but.. While riding on a street next to the back end of driving range I got hit on the helmet with a golf ball... whoever hit that must've been a pro or something.. it had to go over a HUGE driving range fense!!! | ||
| Pwnzor |
I ran over an opossum on my Ninja 600 several years ago. Bike jumped about a foot in the air, or at least it felt that way. Not as scary as the time when I caught a 10 inch long piece of retread from a tractor tire square in the chest on my Yamaha XT 600 doing about 75 on the freeway. It almost knocked me off the bike, held on with just a few fingertips, and it burned my chest so bad that I actually had a few blisters from it. I still have that piece of rubber, couldn't bring myself to throw it away. | ||
| Hattori_hanzo |
Had a dove explode off my flyscreen while doing 75mph. POOF! Poor guy never had a chance. When I made it to my destination, I had a perfect set of angelic wings imprinted in dust on the flyscreen and a few feathers stuck on my leathers and helmet. | ||
| Greenlantern |
Riding to Marcus Dairy in CT years ago on my ZX6 had 5!! count em 5!! Squirrels commit what seemed like ritual suicide under my wheels on a 10-15 mile stretch of road.Had the jeebies for days.Caught a Seagull in the face on the Ocean parkway on Long Island 4 years back on My VFR. 75-80 mph, full face helmet suddenly became opened face helmet. Sudden rush of air in face was actually more alarming than large bird which was a nanosecond of "white blurr" in my recollection. No crash but I always wear glasses under face shield now. Well I got away from that with a sore neck and shoulders and spousal justification for a new Arai Quantum...( Never found the Gull!)  | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
Photos of the aftermath. Here is what happens when you travel WOT through eastern washington. YUK!!!   Oil cooler was seriously clogged. Some time with an old toothbrush set it right.  Question for those in the know. If you look at the left side of my frame, you will notice it is discolored. I guess I got a little aggressive with holding the tank at speed. Any ideas on how to clean it with out scratching it? I tried a soft sponge and soap, didn't do dick... | ||
| Maddiemsu |
My pops took a bird of the face on a ride in Montana once. Good thing he was wearing his brand new full face helmet for the first time or he might look a little different! Same ride a bird got in front of me like they do to cars sometimes and then peal off but I was a little too fast for him and ran him down with the front tire and POOF! Buell 2 Birds 0 | ||
| Pwnzor |
Is the discoloration from the dye in a new set of leathers? If so, dab a tiny amount of kerosene on a soft rag and rub it out, be ready with some mild detergent water to wash off the petroleum residue, should work. Then wash and wax it as normal. A good coat of wax on everything pretty much makes my bike wipe clean very easily. Those bugs would be off my bike in less than 10 minutes. Something I've done before in a bug swarm situation is pull a nylon stocking over my left side airscoop and secure it with a rubber band. At least it keeps most of the bugs out of the airbox. | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
actually is from my aerostich. What I can't figure out is my knee area is silver (suit is black with silver panels), yet the marks are clearly black. I think it may have polished the frame a little. I will try some kerosene. Thanks for the idea As for the airbox I thought the 06+ didn't use the scoop for the airbox? I thought the slit behind the fuel cap was for that? | ||
| Hdbobwithabuell |
I almost hit my neighbor's dog but ran out of gas after chasing it for an hour. | ||
| Pwnzor |
*rim shot* ba-da-bump!  | ||
| Jandj_davis |
I tell you what, squirrels are worse than deer in making decisions. I hit two of them in one semester on campus while riding my BICYCLE. I killed the 1st one (he tried running through my spokes, got blood all over my pants) and injured the second one pretty good. No one on campus believed that I had hit a squirrel on my bicycle until I showed them the blood spots on the curb/road/bike. | ||
| Mattwhite |
I've managed not to hit any animals yet, but the birds always scatter when I get close. I've even had geese start running out of my way and they never hurry across the street. I have a 9 with the stock pipe, so it's not loud. Must be something about that V-twin character that scares them. | ||
| Tbolt_pilot |
Back in 2004 I made the mistake of riding to work (22 miles)when the cicadas were out. You know, the big a-- jarfly things about the size of your thumb that emerge every 17 yrs. Hundreds of millions of them! I hit about 4 of them at 70mph and I thought I had been shot...Helmet, shoulder, leg, and hand. The hand really hurt. I didn't ride again til they were all dead a few weeks later. | ||
| Homing_turtle |
Excellent! Highway 20 (North Cascades Scenic Highway) is awesome. I especially like the first few miles from Lake Diablo, heading back east. The entire thing just screams "RIDE ME". Staters know this, of course. We did this road on a Spokane > Keller Ferry > Nespelem > Winthrop > Lake Diablo > return loop. Serious arse pain by the time we got home, but thats just the price you pay sometimes. I got me a bird that trip too. Swallow came out of the bushes just outside of Nespelem and clipped my shoulder somewhere north of 100mph. Felt like a light punch, but the effect was spectacular. To the folks behind me who saw the bird vaporized. (Message edited by homing_turtle on August 30, 2006) | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
Homing_Turtle - luckily there are few places for the fuzz to hide near Lake Diablo. They recently improved the road surface, so you must make another trip out there. | ||
| Homing_turtle |
We were there June 24th. More recent than that? Because that road was pristine. Railing the curves at at WOT, cept that wicked 30 mph sweeper down on the lower east end, ya know, the one that takes about a week to get through (Near the Liberty Bell rock formation). | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
Well then you have seen it in its current condition. When I was there, I was surprised at how little traffic there was. |
