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Re: [St] Road debris
On Sep 11, 2008, at 7:26 AM, David Jonas wrote:
What's the worst piece of road debris you've ever hit?
Back in 1985 my wife was going to school in LA and I was still living
in San Jose. I'd go down to see her every other weekend, usually
leaving Friday after work, which meant a lot of the ride was in the
dark.
This was when I had my '83 Vision, which is a good thing because the
fairing on that bike allowed you have your legs pretty protected.
I always took I-5 down there, and usually was quite a bit above the
legal speed, especially since we were still under that asinine 55mph
limit back then. (Doing 55mph on I-5 is a good way to fall asleep at
the wheel)
On one trip, somewhere down in the Bakersfield area I was cooking
along at about 75mph in the dark, when all of a sudden I got
enveloped by a dust storm. Before I could even react, a 5 ft diameter
tumbleweed appeared right in my path. The impact was a lot more than
I would have expected from a dried bush. I had bits and pieces of the
tumbleweed hanging from me and the bike and I had to pull over not
only to remove it all, but to catch my breath from the shock of it.
That one I went through. The largest obstacle I ever went over was a
log on Route 1 while I was riding the opening season ride with Blake
on our KLRs. But opening season on Route 1 (not to be confused with
Hwy 1 on the coast) is always full of surprises, and that's what
makes it a good KLR road. Had I been on the Sprint, I might not be
writing this today.
The largest obstacle I didn't go over is a 20ft long 1" galvanized
pipe that came off a trailer and did a nice bounce on the highway in
front of me. That was probably the scariest of the all because it
wasn't just lying on the road and I could just picture getting
impaled by it.
Matt Knowles - Ferndale, CA - http://www.knowlesville.com/matt/
motorcycles
'99 Sprint ST - for going fast and far (2CZUSA)
'01 KLR650 (A15) - for exploring the North Coast backroads
'97 KLX300 & '01 Lakota - for playing in the dirt
'79 KZ400 - just because it was the first vehicle I ever owned
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