Hitting debris / objects / animals / people

[Jayy]

What's the scariest thing you've hit or had a near miss on your bike?

Apart from a Chinese cyclist, it was about 4 days ago whilst traveling up the M6. It was pretty windy and I'm travelling in the middle lane at about 70/80 and this van infront of me moves into the slow lane. Out of nowhere, this 2ft long piece of wood was just bouncing down the middle lane. I had to swerve to avoid hitting it.

After getting over the initial shock of missing getting taken out, I see this huge flat bed lorry with loads of pre-made wooden frames to go on house roofs. I assume it fell off the back of that lorry.

Had a few close calls with birds flying very close to me whilst gunning it down country roads and a near miss with a cat but that piece of wood was terrifying the way it was bouncing all over the place.

[leonski]

A seagull almost got me in the face, last month. That kinda shook me up.
I believe its happens a lot to riders. I don't ever be in that situation again.
____________________
there is nothing like the smell of 2stroke in the morning
current beasts..lol de-restricted ludix classic 50 fastest ped ive ever ridden
yamaha ybr 125 working progress .......

[carlosthejack...]

Gravel. Diesel. Quarry mud. Pigeons. Cagers. Squirrels. Acorns (trees shedding shitloads near me this year). Oil drums. Car seats. Carrier bags. It's all scary at speed...
____________________
Responsibility. It's a difficult reality for some. I'm running the 2014 Sheffield Half Marathon on behalf of Bluebell Wood Childrens Hospice. Please sponsor me, even if it's just a quid.
DonnyBrago: "I think you may be confusing rain and napalm..." Paulington: "It's not what you ride, it's how you ride it."
Current rides: '05 VFR800 VTEC, '57 Mondeo 1.8 TDCi #58LEGEND

[mistergixer]

Hit - a pedestrian who stepped out into the road in front of me because they were too busy poncing around with their ipod. I had just enough time to grip the bars tightly, dip my shoulder and think "fuu" before i hit her.

Near miss - a bathtub that blew off the back of a lorry in front of me. Admittedly I was in a car at the time, but it was a borrowed car and I wonder what the reaction would've been if I'd returned it with a bathtub sticking out of the windscreen.
____________________
Space Monkey #7
Don Eladio is dead. His capos are dead. You have no one left to fight for. Fill your pockets and leave in peace. Or fight me and die!
Mistergixer's videos on YouTube

[lynn]

Um a black cat! it ran straight out and under my front wheel the bike went straight over it , no chance of avoiding it! i was gutted!
Luckilly i was only doing around 20mph so stayed upright , just badly sprained my thumb
____________________
CBT Passed 06 -08-10 (again), Theory Passed 12-04-11, Mod 1 passed 03-05-11, Mod 2 Passed 25-08-11
1993 Kawasaki zr550 Zephyr

[Ariel Badger]

A child 35 years ago, his fault but he ran off. I went to the cop shop and reported it even though I was strictly not riding a bike I had a licence for.
More recently... A big hill in Worcestershire.
____________________
Bikers make great organ donors, get 115 on your licence today.

[Tarmacsurfer]

Scariest was a pheasant.

Picture the scene. A sunny day and a GPz 750 Turbo being caned mercilessly along the A4155 from Henley toward Reading, wonderfully clear road and as any local can confirm it has a number of great corners. Just about half way along the route (the Reading side of Shiplake) there are a couple of sweeping corners on an incline and it was here that my feathered nemesis decided to so successfully ruin my day.

Come through the right hander and give it a fistful (keeping it on boost) and the back end squats down and throws us up the hill. Start to set up for the left at the top (a challenge at this speed even given the fact these bikes handle like they have a hinge on the swingarm pivot. That should help them turn faster shouldn't it?...) and there's a whirring sound from my left as a maniacal brown shape screams banzai and explodes straight into my chest from the hedge line. Not satisfied with this display of avian dominance it starts to clamber up my chest and it's head goes into the slightly open visor of my lid as the wings buffet frantically while it screeches defiance into my nostril. As you can probably imagine, this rather detracted from my ability to either see the road or follow any sort of "line" through the corner. In fact, it detracted so damn well that I went straight through the hedge at the top - luckily not too thick - and continued the battle on freshly ploughed soil. Not the best thing to run a motorcycle into at speed. The front washed out quite quickly and threw my new friend and I at a fairly low speed into a furrow, landing on my face with the hell bird still crying "Freedom!" under me. This shut it up in the audible sense while opening it up in most other fashions.

Thankfully, beyond a few cracks in the fairing and a missing mirror the bike was actually OK and other than shaken nerves and looking like I'd been hit in the chest with a sack full of blood and feathers I'd come through the ordeal victorious, albeit with a sore nose.

TL;DR - NEVER trust a pheasant.
____________________
I'm immortal. Well, so far.

[Bubbs]

Coming back from work on the Embankment road going towards Chelsea just by the section where you ride by the trees and a branch snapped high above me, I was oblivious to this, and it came down and smacked me on the top of my head where you'd header a football. I had the shock of my life, swerving all over the road trying to avoid cars and buses while at the same time trying to throw this bloody big branch off me. It hurt!!!
____________________
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

[Benson_JV]

A bed frame.

On one of my lessons, not half a mile away from the school, I was doing about 40mph and in the space of a second, I see a guy start flashing his lights then theres a bed infront of me. It had blew off the roof of a car that was coming up the road and by luck, straight into where I was about to be.
First emergency stop that.

Bastard never did stop.
____________________
Willson - "If you go out on that CBR600 in the winter, you're going to do more miles on your side than on your wheels."
Riding: CBR600FW Driving: Audi A6
Previous Bikes: '96 Bandit 600, '96 GPz305

[carlosthejack...]

[CarlosCBR]

About 5 bird strikes of various sizes/breeds. Most notably a blackbird that twatted me full on in the shoulder at about 75mph. Made a nice bruise.

Most scary though was down a dark fen road about 10pm, pitch black and a hare decides to make a bee line across the road from the ditch. I was doing 80mph and had no time at all to react and ran straight over the fucker. Was easily the same size as a staffordshire bull terrier i would say.

Turned round to see how it was and i had completely annihilated anything beloww the poor hares rib cage however the bastard was still alive! I was going to stamp on its head to put it out of its misery but just couldnt bring myself to do it....... so i ran it over twice more.

Came to check on it the next day and the combination of being run over 3 times by me and countless other vehicles it was quite a peculiar shape. Did have a pic at the time but cant seem to find it anymore.
____________________
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OPv5mDPQ14

https://www.facebook.com/carl.simmonds.7

[allotriophagy]

On the M6 on my way to Edinburgh, just past Stoke I think, about 7am on a Sunday morning. Almost deserted. I'm in the middle lane for no real reason other than to save the hassle of overtaking the few lorries that are about.

Up ahead, I see what looks like a car doing a U turn from the fast lane, across the middle lane, to the slow lane. "That can't be right", I think. Then I realise the thing is fucking spinning towards me.

I manage to swerve and avoid it (without changing lanes) and see it is a taxi coming to a halt on the barrier in the middle of the motorway. The driver is moving inside but I can't get to the hard shoulder because there are a few cars to the left of me. Plus what was I doing to do? Get my bike to the hard shoulder, run across the motorway and then...what? Just stand next to the taxi? I dunno.

I pulled in at the next services and googled things like "how to report motorway accident" but couldn't find anything useful. I should probably have called 999 or something, but I could see the taxi driver moving and they have radios and phones and it would be easier for a car approaching it to stop and help.

Still feel a bit shitty about it. Didn't see anything on the news like "Taxi driver dies in motorway fireball, shitty motorbike rider sought by police".

[MarkJ]

On my lessons someone was chopping a tree down at the side of a road with a chainsaw held above his head, whilst stood on a wall. He lost his balance and threw the running chainsaw backwards so he didn't chop himself to bits, right into my path

I also came round a corner to see a dining room table in the middle of the road, with two blokes running back from a big van it had fallen off.

Many suicidal birds, never hit them on the bike but hit a small bird and a massive herron in the car.

Usual rabbits and squirrels running in front of me.

[Mrjoolz]

Riding through lanes between Charing and Lenham, driving past a row of houses in a lane, and suddenly a car drives straight out of a driveway waving goodbye to people in the doorway, and it just blocks the road !!!! nowhere for me to go other than down the side of car,taking out wing mirror, and ended up across bonnet, upside down in a hedge covering a barbed wire fence.

Ankle out of place and knee smashed up.

Time seemed to slow down once I grabbed brakes, but most annoyingly, not in a way like matrix, where I can manover bike into a safe position on road to miss the dam thing. !!!!!!! :o(
____________________
Previous Bikes: TZR125, KMX125, RGV250, RD350YPVS, GXSR750H, GSXR600SRAD, R1 (2000), GSXR1000 (K1), ZZR600, CBR1100XX Super Blackbird

Current Bike: Suzuki GSX1300R Hyabusa.....

[Chalky.]

Not been too bad on the bike thankfully.

If I'm in a rubbish car I like aiming for pigeons and magpies and see if I can hit them.

[pepperami]

Out on my old GT 250, I was buzzing along when a Renualt GT5 turbo went passed me.
I thinks to myself "I can catch that"
As we come out of dual carriageway and onto motorway, ie the Great Chertsey Road onto the M3, I catch him up .

He`s popping and banging and stuttering so I`m thinking I can beat this one.
When all of a sudden a plimsole? comes from under his back wheel and at great speed hits me square in the chest
The next thing I know is that I`m sitting where the pillion usually sits and I`m not holding the handlebars .
All this is going on at 80+ mph (allegedly)
I shuffled forward and grabbed the handlebars and turned off and stopped.
When I opened my jacket & shirt I have the mother of all whelts on my chest and it took weeks for it to disappear .

It never accoured to me that it was a very dangerous situation at the time?
____________________
I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[Tenko]

I'm anticipating a large satellite later today...

[carlosthejack...]

[carlosthejack...]

[Snorty]

I was caning it (that was 75/80 on my 125) down towards Pickering from RAF Fylingdales at about 2 in the morning, full beam on as it's dark as well.

All of a sudden I see these eyes glow at the side of the road and in what seemed like seconds but probably not even 1 second the possibilities and the reality of what it was struck me: a deer.

I thought "don't you dare run out you fucker" but by the time I'd seen it I was already too close to slow down if it had decided to run out, which IT DID. I don't know what happened I just remember thinking "i' dead" and I just felt quite a whack at the front of the bike, but somehow stayed on... glanced behind me and saw the deer at the other side of the road... that shit me up.

Also narrowly missed a brick coming down a slip road onto a dual carriageway, must've been doing about 90 as well, that wouldn't have been pretty!

[P.addy]

Hit a child.. around 6 years old.

Was riding at a legitimate 25/30 in a residential area near a field, no one in sight, mate on the back of bike.
Leaning a little for a fairly wide but long corner...straighten up and this kid on a push fold up scooter flies out of a side road, across the grass verge and straight in front of 190kg of metal moving at speed

Cue mass amounts of front brake, rear lifts off the floor, front slides along the road but stays upright Nose cone/wheel headbutts the child at an estimated 5mph

Screaming parents then ran out of their garden and had a go at the child, to be fair he shouldn't just fly into the road, but he is young... parents said sorry to me...to which I replied "You need to watch him...if I was any slower he would be seriously hurt"
Then... she told me its the 3rd time this has happened

Lovely parents

[Vincent]

While driving up a road a while back, I noticed a sheet of newspaper wafting about and dancing in the wind about 300 yards in front of me. As soon as I got near, it wafted towards me and went up and flat over my visor, blinding me completely I can remember thinking before it hit me how wierd it would be if it hit my helmet too. I managed to pull up with no problems luckily.
I had a mate who ran over a cat once and when we pulled up, it was still caught underneath his bike with half it's head rubbed away
I've had bees inside my helmet which isn't much fun, hit a brick on the motorway and on a more serious note, lost a mate after he hit a cow doing an estimated 90mph
Not something I'm proud of but I've also ran three people over, 2 on bikes and one pedestrian. None of them were my fault, no serious injuries and all three were almost completely unavoidable.
____________________
Space Is Deep

[pinkyfloyd]

I almost hit a deer on the 125 lump. I was chugging along minding my own business on a country road when I heard a rustling beside me in the bushes that flanked the road. I eased off the throttle, just in time it appeared as a huge deer came bounding out of the undergrowth in front of me exactly in the place where I would have been had I not eased off.



Needless to say I took it gently gently for the rest of that road.
____________________
illuminateTHEmind wrote: I am just more evolved than most of you guys... this allows me to pick of things quickly which would have normally taken the common man years to master
Hockeystorm65:.well there are childish arguments...there are very childish arguments.....there are really stupid childish arguments and now there are......Pinkfloyd arguments!
Teflon-Mike:I think I agree with just about all Pinky has said.

[stonesie]

I've only had a rabbit so far, sat at the side of the road untill I was about to pass then it darted straight under my front wheel, little fucker lost that fight.

[yen_powell]

https://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b165/yen_powell/old%20pics/P1060100.jpg
____________________
Blackmail is a nasty word........but not as nasty as phlegm!
XT1200Z and a DR350 in bits