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Re: [St] Road debris



Things in the road

Patience

Riding down Texas Rt. 6 to College Station, I encountered a left lane
hog. After tolerating this for too long, and knowing the road dropped
to two lanes ahead, I gassed the Tiger to shoot the gap by passing
this guy on the right and then get around the right lane cars ahead.

Only when I moved back toward the left lane to pass the right-lane
cars could I see the truck tread carcass sitting between the lanes. It
was a full width tread circle, sitting on its side. If I went back to
the right lane, I would hit the slow guy. If I went to the left of the
tire, my arc would take me into the median. If I hit the brakes, the
left lane guy would be gnawing on my luggage.

I hit the throttle and center punched the tread. With its mass,
suspension travel, and ground clearance, the Tiger burbled slightly
and was rolling on south. Later I found the tread smear on the bottom
guard ? and the dent in the rear rim. Patience. Patience.


Line of sight

I was headed up the Pig Trail [Arkansas Rt. 23] from the south on my
old BMW R80ST. Where the road goes into the woods and starts the
turns, I was in happy attack mode.

In the shade of the trees of the first turn somebody had lost a load
of sand. Hello. An inch or two of sand, spread nicely across the
tarmac in my whole lane, me thoroughly committed, the berm dropping
away to the tree trunks. I had entered from the inside of the lane. If
I hit the brakes, it would low side or slide upright into the trees.
My saving was the patch on the right side of the lane, where cars had
pushed the sand off for the width of a car tire. The beemer drifted
sideways to that patch, and I tightroped that line the past the sand.

We learn slowly to start from the outside of a turn for the line of
sight, and not to dive into a dark hole assuming clear, race-ready
pavement.


That was a shock

Coming back from a weekend in Arkansas, rolling south of Tulsa on
I-44, thunderstorm ahead. No rain gear, but hey, who cares, it's warm
and I'll soon be at home where there are dry clothes and a washer.
Hmm - lightning ahead. Bright. Big. Better hurry. When I got to the
place where lightning struck, it struck again - one of those
no-delay-between-flash-and-boom, right-next-to-you things. But this
time, I got a spark on top of my head. INSIDE the helmet. Too late to
matter, I ratcheted up another couple of miles per.

Maybe sometimes that old 'it was just his time' thing could be true.



Fire in the hold [non-moto]

We were rolling west on I-40 in Tennessee in the old Econoline, and a
semi passed us. As others have noted, sometimes you can smell trouble;
within a mile or so, one of his rear axles blew out flame and smoke.
He didn?t know it ? I chased him and flagged him down. He had gotten
brake work recently, and that brake was dragging, making enough heat
to explosively combust the axle grease and blow the cap off in a
made-for-TV ball of flame. It was still burning when he stopped.

I figured that was one more good reason not to dawdle next to a semi.

bp

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