I still have some adrenaline in my system so forgive me if I'm a little incoherent. Just got back from an "incident" where I hit a dog and I'm still amazed I didn't go down.
I was on a 2-lane road, 35mph. It's a busy through-street with subdivisions all around. Up ahead I saw a couple of cars stopped in my lane, so I pulled up behind them and saw that someone had a dog (illegally) off leash and the dog was in the road. The dog finally went back to it's owner on the sidewalk, so the cars took off, and I followed behind them.
The next instant I see a dog homing in on me and I have about 1/10th of a second to think. In that instant, I remembered the MSF advice about dogs -- slow down, then speed up as they approach so their intercept vector is thrown off. Only, I had no time to slow down or speed up, so that option was out. I could have swerved, but all I could think of was hitting the dog while leaned over and lowsiding so I rejected that option.
What I did do is let off the throttle (I was only going like 15-20) and steer straight. I almost hate to admit it, but it didn't occur to me to brake -- in retrospect I don't think I could have gotten on the brake fast enough to make a difference anyway. And at some subconscious level, my brain said "no way that dog is dumb enough to hit me" so perhaps that's why I didn't go for the binders.
In any case, my brain was completely and utterly wrong, because the next thing I know I hear a yelp and my handlebar spontaneously turned left almost to the lock.
It was one of those classic, "so this is it, I'm going to die" moments that I hope never to experience again. The feeling of total helplessness as I was no longer in control of my motorcycle nor my fate. Somehow though, the Ninja recovered... through either hand of a Kawasaki engineer or perhaps the hand of God, she stayed up after shaking her head at someone's stupidity (either the dog, or the dog owner's, or my own).
As I pulled over and stopped, my first thought was remorse over killing somebody's pet but that didn't last long as the dog ran down the road in front of me and the owner (teenage male) tore off after him. Remorse turned to anger as I envisioned the skin I almost left on the road and the damage that would have occurred to my bike.
I got off to calm down and wait for the owner to return so I could ask if the dog was ok, but he never did. I stuck around for a while but the dog and owner had turned off some side road which led into a rat maze subdivision so I had no idea where they went.
So, my mistake was not regarding the dog as a threat after it left the road. I assumed that owner had control of it at that point and we all know what happens when you assume. That's mistake number 1, which led to mistakes 2 and 3 which were failing to go slower and cover the brake. Mistake number 4 was not believing a dog really is dumb enough to try to bite my front tire. I'm still in shock that any animal has such low instincts of self-preservation that evolution would allow it to survive long enough to breed. But, next time I'll recognize dogs for what they are -- homing missiles.
So, I still feel bad about (possibly) hurting the dog, but on the other hand, what was that kid thinking when he chose to break the city leash law on a busy 35mph road?
Ugh. Way to ruin a nice weekend morning ride.
I was on a 2-lane road, 35mph. It's a busy through-street with subdivisions all around. Up ahead I saw a couple of cars stopped in my lane, so I pulled up behind them and saw that someone had a dog (illegally) off leash and the dog was in the road. The dog finally went back to it's owner on the sidewalk, so the cars took off, and I followed behind them.
The next instant I see a dog homing in on me and I have about 1/10th of a second to think. In that instant, I remembered the MSF advice about dogs -- slow down, then speed up as they approach so their intercept vector is thrown off. Only, I had no time to slow down or speed up, so that option was out. I could have swerved, but all I could think of was hitting the dog while leaned over and lowsiding so I rejected that option.
What I did do is let off the throttle (I was only going like 15-20) and steer straight. I almost hate to admit it, but it didn't occur to me to brake -- in retrospect I don't think I could have gotten on the brake fast enough to make a difference anyway. And at some subconscious level, my brain said "no way that dog is dumb enough to hit me" so perhaps that's why I didn't go for the binders.
In any case, my brain was completely and utterly wrong, because the next thing I know I hear a yelp and my handlebar spontaneously turned left almost to the lock.
It was one of those classic, "so this is it, I'm going to die" moments that I hope never to experience again. The feeling of total helplessness as I was no longer in control of my motorcycle nor my fate. Somehow though, the Ninja recovered... through either hand of a Kawasaki engineer or perhaps the hand of God, she stayed up after shaking her head at someone's stupidity (either the dog, or the dog owner's, or my own).
As I pulled over and stopped, my first thought was remorse over killing somebody's pet but that didn't last long as the dog ran down the road in front of me and the owner (teenage male) tore off after him. Remorse turned to anger as I envisioned the skin I almost left on the road and the damage that would have occurred to my bike.
I got off to calm down and wait for the owner to return so I could ask if the dog was ok, but he never did. I stuck around for a while but the dog and owner had turned off some side road which led into a rat maze subdivision so I had no idea where they went.
So, my mistake was not regarding the dog as a threat after it left the road. I assumed that owner had control of it at that point and we all know what happens when you assume. That's mistake number 1, which led to mistakes 2 and 3 which were failing to go slower and cover the brake. Mistake number 4 was not believing a dog really is dumb enough to try to bite my front tire. I'm still in shock that any animal has such low instincts of self-preservation that evolution would allow it to survive long enough to breed. But, next time I'll recognize dogs for what they are -- homing missiles.
So, I still feel bad about (possibly) hurting the dog, but on the other hand, what was that kid thinking when he chose to break the city leash law on a busy 35mph road?
Ugh. Way to ruin a nice weekend morning ride.