Back In The Saddle

Well I actually stayed in the saddle but didn't go out as much as usual as I waited to heal up after hitting that deer. I rode a few days after the encounter with the deer but kept my rides short to give myself plenty of time to heal up. Did a brake job on my little Chevy S10 yesterday and been working in the garden. Life goes on. Went through my inventory and gathered all the parts I'll need to fix my bike and who knows what I'll find at the bike show & swap meet this coming weekend.I'm a lucky guy!This is what I was thinking this morning as I rolled down the road on my 1975 Moto Guzzi 850-T . The other day I was on my 71 Yamaha R5 Life has been pretty good to me in these 76 years I've been here on Planet Earth.

The Battle With The Buck

This morning, July 5th I got all ready to take my 1965 Yamaha YDS3 out for a ride. It was a beautiful morning for a ride and after having my last cup of coffee off I went. Got about 2 minutes into the ride when this huge deer ran out of the woods right in front of me about 10 feet away. I hit it going between 35 and 40 mph and went down hard. The bike left me and slid over into the other lane as I slid along the road to a stop next to the deer. The deer died in under a minute and I got bad road rash on both of my forearms and one hand and both knees . People stopped Some guy from the fire dept wanted to get the ambulance and I said no. That would cost a couple thousand bucks and then there would be thousands more for the ER. Been there done that. I knew I was ok . I was thinking straight. I was able to lift the bike up and once I did that a guy helped me roll it to the shoulder of the road. The cops showed up. I told him what happened and that I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. There were no other people or cars involved so it was my call. I was real close to home so I called my wife. She came and the cop left. I got the bike running and rode it home with my wife following me and blood dripping down my arms and one hand. Put it away in the garage and went inside and showered. Boy did that hurt! Got all the wounds real clean with soap and hot water then put anti biotic cream on everything before bandaging it all up and here I am 2 hours later sitting here in my chair all fucked up but OK ! The deer died and I rode home so I fucking won. It was painful that night and I got no sleep.The next day I went to this urgent care place and let them check out the wounds.I had done a good job on them and all was well.They gave me a tetanus shot and bandaged it all up again.Told me to go to this Wound care thing.I decided to deal with it on my own and last night I took all the bandages off like they told me to do after two days.I did it in the shower so I could get the stuck ones off without hurting myself any more than I already was.Let it air dry after a good long wash out in the shower with soap & water, put lots of Neosporin on it all and re-bandaged it.Now its starting to heal up and doing pretty good.Changing the dressing daily at this point and it's all good.I got real bad road rash on both arms but other than that I came through it ok. So,here I sit dead in the water. The bike came through it pretty well too.It will need paint work on the white part of the gas tank and some body parts. The chrome work was undamaged so it's all fixable without too much effort. Here are some photos of the bike and what road rash looks like. It looks nasty and it is but things happened so fast my brain couldn't process it so there was no fear or pain. It was a blank from the instant after I saw the deer to coming to a stop on the road next to this big deer. I hit it straight on while on the gas getting ready to shift into 5th gear. The impact slowed me down really fast and is why I wasn't hurt much worse.I was probably only going 10 or 15 mph when I hit the ground and the bike took off on it's own. It's always something !

And here we are in the middle of August.I'm riding , all healed up , and thinking about heading over to PA to the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Show and Swap Meet. Life goes on