Sad to report I hit my 1st critter yesterday

[Stig / Major Tom]

A raccoon.
On my way out through the dark city, between street lights, looking into car lights..
Only saw him a split second before I bumped (significantly !) up over his midsection.
He was not standing...so he'd already been hit, or I'd feel even worse.
Hawk recently mentioned after a night ride, that he was outdriving his light at 35mph.
Exactly.
I was at maybe 30mph when I could not avoid this guy....and my Piaggio has an excellent 55W60 headlight.
I find night riding in the city much more difficult than riding in the countryside - where I have avoided any number of raccoons over the years. Add rain to the dark..and I 'll only ride on nearly deserted city streets, early mornings!

The 16"front wheel stayed stable... he was pretty big.

Stig

[rjs987]

I agree.
Sometimes it is easier to see critters at night outside the city. For one thing I can leave the high beams on all the time as long as there is no traffic. Can't do that in the city where there are just too many others on the roads for the high beams. Then there's what you mentioned about... the combination of on coming lights and going between street lights (light and dark transitions) makes it difficult to constantly adjust vision to see everywhere.

[Neil955i]

It’s inevitable if you do any reasonable mileage I’m afraid Stig. My tally over 50 odd years on the bike is relatively low. The worst being a low flying kamikaze wood pigeon that hit my ZXR750 wing mirror stem at a closing impact at close to 100 mph. I stayed upright, but the blood, guts and feathers were all over me. It was carnage!

[klaviator]

I've hit a number of critters over my 42+ years of riding.  As far as I remember they were all during the day.  I've also had a number of near misses.  In the last few years the most common near misses have been buzzards eating road kill and not taking off until the last minute as I approached.  I normally slow down for these or many of these near misses would have been direct hits.

[Stig / Major Tom]

It’s inevitable if you do any reasonable mileage I’m afraid Stig. My tally over 50 odd years on the bike is relatively low. The worst being a low flying kamikaze wood pigeon that hit my ZXR750 wing mirror stem at a closing impact at close to 100 mph. I stayed upright, but the blood, guts and feathers were all over me. It was carnage!

Geeez÷>@#$%& .I'm trying to eat a donut here!
Stig

[Iahawk]

Geeez÷>@#$%& .I'm trying to eat a donut here!
Stig

and I was taking a big spoonful of my breakfast cereal when I read that!!

[rjs987]

Geeez÷>@#$%& .I'm trying to eat a donut here!
Stig

Was it a ... filled donut? 


Just remembered the latest 2 hits. One was a small bird. Didn't see exactly what kind since it just flew in suddenly out of nowhere. I felt the impact but didn't effect my bike in the least, more like hitting a bump in the road. All I could see in the mirrors was the bird rolling across the highway in a ball of feathers.

The other was a Wisconsin river otter. You think deer are unpredictable about what direction they'll go... this otter was way worse. First it just sat in the middle of my lane, then turned and started to run back to the woods but changed its mind and turned around again to run to the river alongside the road. And then the other, no, then the back. All in the space of maybe 3 seconds. It was a direct hit right over the middle of the critter. Squish! The entire time I kept the bike going straight since I knew it would run off in some direction that I didn't expect. But didn't expect both directions ending up under my wheels. Another bump in the road.

I don't count hitting big bugs even though they are one of the reasons for wearing a full face helmet (June bugs are like large rocks and actually put chips in my helmet).

[Neil955i]

Geeez÷>@#$%& .I'm trying to eat a donut here!
Stig

Apologies for that Stig, but in my defence I did leave out the worst part which was the smell...

[Stig / Major Tom]

Apologies for that Stig, but in my defence I did leave out the worst part which was the smell...

well OK...now there goes my bacon 🥓-

S.

[Neil955i]

well OK...now there goes my bacon 🥓-

S.

I was expecting some retort like that!  Har har (to quote Karl)

[aschrauth]

I remember when I hit my first critter.... a Skunk. It was night and I didnt see it crossing the street. At the time I was living at home and used my dads truck to run some aarons, Lets just say it took over a week to get the smell off of it.