What have you hit while riding? NGC

[Texas Turnip]

We'll go back to 1959 when I started riding my Harley. I was riding on a rural gravel road when a farmers dog ran into the side of the bike bending the crash bar and breaking the fuel line. The farmer said it was country and you didn't have to pen your animals. He didn't have a phone (this is 1959) so I walked 4 miles home and my dad came out and hooked a rope to me and the bike for the ride back home.
We are sitting drinking cheap beer when I'm thinking of revenge to the farmer. So later that night I got some corn from the crib, shelled it and thru it on the road by the farmers. The next morning at daybreak the chickens are enjoying their breakfast and I come plowing thru with the Harley sending feathers and guts all over the place.

In my million plus miles I can't name all the stuff I've hit.
Armadillos give you a lift in the air for a second. Cats, squirrels, rats are just a thud.
Was riding on a gravel road in WY when I encountered thousands of butterflies. The tips of my boots and even my hands were covered in dead ones.
I hit one skunk and it went flying in the air just missing another biker riding behind me. No smell, lucky,eh? Seagulls make the bike shake.
At one time, 50% of my riding was at night so I've hit my share of road debris.

And the worst thing that I've hit was two years ago when a pickup that had stopped at a stop sign and then pulled out in front of me only 3 miles from my house. 15 broken bones and I'm still not on a bike.

Tex

[kballowe]

  MMmm chicken, they taste like chicken don't they?

That's what I heard, and it was making us hungry.  We went riding around, looking for a place to get some chicken but ended up at a Chinese restaurant.

THAT wasn't chicken.

[fubar guzzi]

  Hit a pedestrian in the mountains of New Hampshire---pitch black,no moon/stars could barley see the headlight at the end of the handle bars,two guys walking down middle of road,unknowing I went between them     I wonder if they made it??????  Had a fight with a semi    took a real beating with that one,however the truck couldn't get away fast enough(we call that a phantom hit n run) I was in I.C.U.7days---sent towing bill to ALL State road service,they refused to pay up cauce I didn't report the accident to them within 48hrs---I was in I.C.U.   

[MGrego]

On my V11 Lemans, came over a slight rise in the road at highway speed and there were a half dozen turkey buzzards directly in my lane trying to take flight and avoid colission.  Ducked my head down and wham !  -- Feathers in my rearview mirror and a wobbling buzzard headed for the ditch.  Felt like I gut hit over the helmet with a sandbag....

[Siamese]

Just a squirrel.  A couple days ago.  He ran out like it was his mission to get hit, but turned around when he got to my bike.  Too bad for him, he jumped up when he turned and got hit squarely by my right foot. 

Other that that, in forty years of riding, nothing. 

[Siamese]

Oh...something hit me.  I'll try to keep this short and pithy. 

Trail riding in 1968 when I was 14 with my dad and some of his buddies.  I'm last in line.  Riding along at 20mph or so in the Michigan woods, and I saw out of the corner of my eye, something coming out of woods straight at me at high speed.  Whack...a large hornet hit and stung me in the neck.  I was geared up, and only a small part of my neck was exposed.  I stopped my bike and the others stopped.  Dad was mad at me for stopping but his buddy marveled at my bad luck.  Ouch.

Kept riding, and the EXACT same thing happened.  It came out of the woods way too fast to dodge and got me in the same spot.  I stopped.  Dad pissed.  His buddy put some mud on a bandana and wrapped it around my neck.  Felt better.  Kept riding. 

Maybe twenty minutes later.  EXACT same thing happened again.  Because of the bandana almost no skin was exposed, but this third hornet, hit and stung right on my neck.  I stopped.  Dad fuming and silent.  I let the group know that I was done for the day, and returned home.  Dad still silent, but his buddy said he'd do the same.

Twenty-five years later I run into the buddy, skiing in northern Michigan near where I met the hornets, and on the chairlift, he asked me if I remembered the hornet incident.  I said, yes, and asked him if he remembered how many times I got hit.  He said "THREE"!  Over the years I sometimes wondered if it was really three (because three would be ridiculous) or just two, but this confirmed it. 

Wasn't until even more years later that I wondered if somebody/something was telling me to turn back and go home. 

[slowmover]

On a 71 Triumph I hit just the corner of a foot long 4x4.It flipped up and it went flying past my left ear.No harm done but to this day I keep a BIG space cushion.

[BrotherJim]

As mentioned in other posts, good ol' four-point Odocoileus virginianus center punch at about 60mph on my Suzuki Bandit 1200.  That was a doozy.  Next was a fatty Didelphis virginiana dead center on my Yamaha TW200 at about 50mph.  Just a next day flat rear tire after that one.  The craziest thing was when I was riding my Triumph Thunderbird Sport on I-69.  In the left lane at about 70 mph in heavy traffic, a group of a-holes in a retired, beater P71 a couple cars ahead hoisted a laser printer out of the back window and dropped it on the shoulder.  That thing exploded and immediately spun into a mass of plastic, glass and metal shrapnel, with pieces of it hitting my bike, face-shield and jacket.  No injuries or damage, but probably one of the more memorable, unnerving things that has happened to me on my motorcycle.  If a near miss counts, I was coming home from Lexington, KY on I-74 on the trusty Bandit, soaking wet in a thunderstorm, when just ahead of me a one-piece fiberglass tub/shower unit hauled by a pickup truck took flight and landed hard on the pavement a couple of car lengths ahead!  I was able to dodge that mess, but decided I had better take a breather and took shelter under the next overpass.   

[cloudbase]

I had a kamikaze bird fly right into the side of my helmet on U.S. 69 in Commerce, right by the Mickey Mantle statue.

[lucian]

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[tcunnien]

Hit a deer and a few seconds later hit the road. Bike totaled, deer totaled, Myself, two broken wrists and legs that looked like I was attacked by a cheese grader. Still remember the pain when they were cleaning out the asphalt particles out of my legs. I couldn't get enough morphine that night. Haven't wore jeans riding since. A painful lesson to learn but a lesson none the less.

[guzzisteve]

Hit the asphalt today,  front end washout, front brake only, should have used the rear. Nothing like sliding in for a R/H turn at a stoplight. Belly flop on right ribs. Real slick road and my 32K mi Metz 880 front getting sorta hard. It'll go another 5K but pushing it you can make it slide(not good).

[Sheepdog]

About the biggest thing I ever hit was a 1966 Baracuda. It was in college and a cute girl waved. I didn't see the 'Cuda until I hit the rear bumper and found myself on the hood...

[v7john]

Following a friend when his registration plate fractured at the bolt holes and took off. I could see it coming but, as we were both "making progress" and much too close to each other. I couldn't miss it. Hit me edge on in the face and broke my goggles. Got away with just a black eye.

[Moto]

1 human being, the local Triumph motorcycle dealer. He was drunk, I was young and reckless. Nice guy. Flipped him over the handlebars and into the gutter.

2 dogs.

No injuries to me in these encounters. My victims were not so lucky. Long time ago.

Moto

[Bill]

Have hit a couple of snakes toward their tail. In  both cases my fellow rider behind me said the snake(s) instantly turned in an attempt to bite me or the bike. Hit a huge tortoise on the edge of it's shell,  he flipped up and knocked my foot off the peg. Kinda' funny if he lived. On two occasions I've come up on buzzards that instead of flying off to the side lifted straight away in front of me. Last thing I saw was a  buzzard right level with my eyes. I ducked down, closed my eyes and somehow I missed them. Me thinks the big windshield's  upper draft pitched them over my head.  Recently had a car stop in front of me for no reason on a green light at a clear intersection. That one hurt, bike totaled. Deer do concern me so in deer  country I'll not ride at night nor sunrise sunset. Also I slow my pace if it looks deery. The damn forest rats are so  unpredictable.
Bill

[nc43bsa]

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That'll buff right out.   

[adaven]

About 40 years ago on 101 north of Willits a large flying stinging insect flew into a hole in the crotch of my jeans. I dropped the bike and pants and and the insect next to the highway.

[cloudbase]

Not nearly as bad as what almost happened to this guy.

https://youtu.be/r4pnQ3zBU9M

[nealwp]

I hit a deer. It yanked the handles bars out of my hands and my bike and I went for a tumble at about 55mph. I broke the little and big bone in my right leg. It was a life changing event. It took two years to fully recover. My Bassa faired much better than I did. The engine guards and hard bags save a lot of damage. I could have ridden it home if my leg wasn't broken.

[chuck peterson]

Card table..

Upside down on the hiway..

With the legs open..

[Vagrant]

Two dogs, two Mallard ducks a turkey butt at least four small birds several snakes about a dozen grey squirrels and too many bees that took out their hateful last sting on various of my body parts.

[MacGlennon]

Just went down this past Monday. According to my wife, the cops said that I hit a street sweeper. I have no memory of this event, all I recall was heading home- parts of that ride and then waking up in the ambulance while the paramedic was attending to me. A friend that saw me in the road said that I was sitting up and talking to the cops but I don’t remember any of that.
I’ve got some road rash but I really didn’t slide- just hit the thing and went over. Bruised tailbone and a concussion and that’s pretty much it to me.
The bike (2017 v7 Special)- bizzarely unscathed. The hit was right at headlight level so took out the headlight and instruments. Forks straight, f wheel straight, even the handlebars appear unbent oh yeah and a small dent in the tank. The only bummer is that the electrical connectors that live up there on top of the forks are damaged so it seems a partial wiring harness replacement might be necessary.
All-in-all, myself and the bike seem to have come out of this pretty well. I don’t know really what happened, which bugs me, but maybe I’ll have to come to peace with that and use this as a notice to be more vigilant.

[Gliderjohn]

From MacGlennon:

Just went down this past Monday. According to my wife, the cops said that I hit a street sweeper. I have no memory of this event, all I recall was heading home- parts of that ride and then waking up in the ambulance while the paramedic was attending to me. A friend that saw me in the road said that I was sitting up and talking to the cops but I don’t remember any of that.
I’ve got some road rash but I really didn’t slide- just hit the thing and went over. Bruised tailbone and a concussion and that’s pretty much it to me.
The bike (2017 v7 Special)- bizzarely unscathed. The hit was right at headlight level so took out the headlight and instruments. Forks straight, f wheel straight, even the handlebars appear unbent oh yeah and a small dent in the tank. The only bummer is that the electrical connectors that live up there on top of the forks are damaged so it seems a partial wiring harness replacement might be necessary.
All-in-all, myself and the bike seem to have come out of this pretty well. I don’t know really what happened, which bugs me, but maybe I’ll have to come to peace with that and use this as a notice to be more vigilant.

WOW! Glad all came out as well as it did. Hope you can find out more from the investigation of what may have happened.
gliderJohn

[MacGlennon]

Thanks, John. That’s the the thing about this that has me so spooked. That there was this thing that apparently I didn’t identify as a potential crash unfolding in front of me. I have nothing to review- no way to know what I did or didn’t do to avoid this accident.
Obviously it’s on me. As motorcycle riders we go out there every day. It’s our own abilitiy to predict or foresee hazards and situations that could lead to a bad result that keep us from harm. All my training and years of riding should’ve helped me avoid this. Maybe I’ve taken my skills a little for granted or allowed my self to believe that it couldn’t have happened to me- I’ve been riding for over 40 years and never struck another vehicle.
It’s humbling.

[hzbloke]

I was going fairly quick when a crow hit me on the left shoulder. It hurt so much that, even though I was wearing a jacket, I really expected to find blood or at least bruising. But there was nothing. So if you ever want to beat someone up and not leave any marks forget the phonebooks and use a dead crow.

Again going fairly quickly I was close enough to having a serious run-in with a kangaroo that its tail knocked my mirror around.

I was riding 20 meters or so behind a mate on a road covered in locusts (over near Omeo about 10 years ago). He was fine and just rode through/over them. But his passing scared them up a couple of feet in the air. The front of my bike and my legs looked as if I'd been slimed, but with lumps.

[wavedog]

Riding long hours cross country years ago, I hit the wall.
When I used to fly the mail, I hit a deer while landing on Center Island in the San Juans.
The most memorable was when I was 17, riding a Honda CB 350 and picked up a 19 year old girl that I sort of knew. She was hitch-hiking (it was the early 70's). Dude - those were good times.
The rest is just the usual stuff, birds, snakes, debris. A friend I was riding with ran over a porcupine. That was exciting.

[steven c]

 The ground a few times. And bees, 2x4's, birds, something cartwheel from under a car and hit my boot, that hurt, glad I didn't have sneakers on.

[Noguzznoglory]

had a hawk glance off the top of my windscreen once. but once while looking up at the weather in order to choose my route home i ran over an island that seperates the lanes of a divided highway at an intersection.
the front wheel hit with a major bang that i thought would have to bend or break it. when the rear hit the curb it bounced the back of the bike up in the air and bounced me up off the seat so high it felt like my feet were above the seat. i dropped back down, landed on the pegs and kept going. no damage
wife was following on her spyder, scared her half to death

[Steve Scott]

Riding home impatiently from Baltimore MD to Middleway WV late one night, maybe 12:00 AM or so Westbound on Rt 70 in the rainy darkness and going way too fast. I barely had time to notice a tractor-trailer tire lying on its side in my lane... didn't even have time to cuss, just started to get my butt off the seat and weight on the pegs (accursed Jackal forward-sets!) and FLOP! I hit it. Not BOOM! or Bang! but FLOP! It was only the tread from a separated retread and it just collapsed when I hit it.

Slowed down a bit after that.