Ok, here’s the story. Milletary just picked up a 2006 Raven R6 and wanted to go for a ride. My plan was to get my bike swapped over from track mode to street mode after work on Friday. Well, I got tied up with the kids and then I got lazy and went to bed early. So I screwed around most of the morning swapping tires, wheels, and wrenching on my bike. Jeff came over and it took me longer to finish than I had hoped. Pat even stopped by to pick up his trailer. I wish we could have chatted more, but I had already kept Jeff waiting for too long so I got geared up.
Jeff and I were planning on running down RT 250 to Hundred and back. We ran down 519 to 18 to RT 50 and were cruising along. I was leading and we went past school and through the sweeping left and the next thing I saw were a number of large tree branches spanning both lanes of the road. I have to admit that the first thing I thought when I saw it was “I should have seen this sooner”. I don’t know if I was looking in my mirrors, or looking past it (it was a color that was not far off from the color of the road), but my first reaction was that I put myself in a bad spot by not spotting it sooner.
Although the branches (probably about 6 ish inches in diameter, or larger) spanned both lanes of the road, there were a couple opening between them. The one I hit went from the shoulder of the right lane almost to the double yellow. There was a narrow opening between it and another thicker branch/log that was taking up most of the left lane. Unfortunately, I was all the way on the right side of the road, and by the time I spotted it, at the speed I was traveling, I did not believe I could thread the needle. My mind was made up instantly that I was going over it. I got on the brakes for a second, but there wasn’t enough time to scrub off much speed and I knew I wanted to be off the brakes with the front as light as possible when I hit it. If I was better at wheelies I might have been able to save my front wheel, but no such luck. I stood up on the pegs, squared it up, and took the hit.
I really don’t know how I made it through the right hander after that, but I guess it took just enough time for the air to exit both tires that my bike wasn’t a complete handful through that turn. Then the trick was getting stopped without crashing on 2 flat tires and 2 bent wheels. I did touch the front brake for a second (instinct); I got off it quickly and on to the rear brake. It still wasn’t easy and I wasn’t sure I’d keep it up, until it was over.
Luckily Jeff was able to hit the little gap by the double yellow – almost. The branch I hit hopped up and hit his right foot. Hopefully nothing was broken, but he’s going to have a couple sore toes.
Jeff said I should take his bike back to my house to get my trailer and he’d wait with my bike. I gave Jeff’s new bike a pretty thorough test ride and it passed with flying colors. We got my bike in the trailer and back to my house with no problems.
Not one of my better rides, but it could have been worse…
Now I'm shopping for wheelsets. Missed a nice $300 set on 600RR.net yesterday...