Holy crap!!!! 4x4 lumber in the road little long

[Dragonfly]

OK once again my bike is down due to a bent front wheel.  Before I tell you why Let me tell you about the conversation I had on tuesday...

In my apartments there is a mid 80 Gs550 that had a little universal windscreen that I had been looking at. All of a sudden the screen is gone.
I see the guy working on the bike and decided to stop and see if he would sell his screen... nope he crashed and burned the week before.
When asked what happened he said he hit a rabbit....

Hit a rabbit.

As I was leaving after our brief conversation I think "you shouldent crash from hitting a rabbit".

Well Wednesday morning rolls around and I suit up for the daily commute to work.
I live in salmon creek and ride I-5 to and from work daily, and if you know anything about the construction up there, than you can imagine how bad it is at 7:00 am.

I am merging onto the freeway at 50mph, and have to get between a semi and a car about 30ft apart. Not a safe following distance but you have to find a hole in traffic like this.
Well not 10 seconds after I merge I see cars swerving in front of me, and out from under the car in front of pops a 6' 4x4 stradeling my lane completly and part of the next.
At which point I think "oh shaZam!". As I barely have time to realize what is happening I have about 500 thoughts go through my head in that half second, and the loudest thing I thought was quote "guy who hit the rabbit".

So first instinct is to almost completly let go of the handle bars (hands still attached though) and keep the hell off of the front brake.
Well I hit it and rolled right over catching about 5 " of air, and landed it, were I imideatly pull into this 12" space they call a shoulder.

Bike was fine, but a 5" portion of the front wheel is bent back and in about 3/4".


I did quite a bit of heavy pondering on what happened and everty time I do I think how lucky  Iam to be alive right now. With the Semi behind me, and being completly surrounded by cars, If I fell I would be road kill....

Wow one hell of a wake up call.

Moral, I guess there really isnt one, but be careful and ride safe!!!!

Micah

[JohnNS]

That's one of my biggest fears riding in lots of traffic, especially on the highway where semis seem to shed their tires quite often, leaving the carcasses laying in the middle of the road  

Sucks about the damage, but you should be proud of yourself. Some damn good riding to come out of that one unscathed. You did well not to just panic and freeze up...or slam on the brakes and pitch yourself over the bars when you hit it.    

Man, you must've been doing some shaking after that one!  

[Dragonfly]

I left a long very expletive ridden message in my Fiance's phone, half crying half yelling....

How fun!

[Kerry]

Were you able to pull the lumber off the road, or would that have meant certain death?

I've mentioned before the time that my Dad was following a semi and then decided for no special reason to change lanes.  Out from under the semi came a pallet in the lane he had just left.  Whew!

Great job on staying upright.  

[TheGoodGuy]

I have had a 2x4 also.. but i wasnt at that great a speed and was able to avoid it.

The best one that i had to avoid was a wheel and tire combo that bounced off something on the other side of teh freeway, it hit a car and then rolled across my lanes.. the only thing that let me see it iwas the fact that in Low Beam I got a very wide beam.. hence i could see it ..

By the way i nearly got upsetted once by squirrels.. damn geico ads'.. they must be watching.

[tt_four]

only thing you can really do in that situation is throw your weight over the back tire, as it'll pop over stuff easier, if you have a second, and good reaction time, you could've stood up and bounced the bike right before you got to it, but that's more of an "i saw it coming, but knew there wasnt' any way around it", not really as easy in heavy traffic


f***ing retreads! :x  :x