Ride With Thal: 2017-06-18

My first multi-day adventure of the season is to Americade. I departed solo and will meet up with Liz in Lake George, NY the following day.

Beautiful day. Allot of bikes on the road. On the way to Lake George I'm on a more remote road noticing the grass on the sides of the road seem to be unusually tall. The local towns and counties usually keep grass gut back. Makes it essayer to see deer or any other critters grazing or thinking of crossing the roads. Do to the salting of the roads the deer tend to graze the sides. Like all mammals they too require salt and will crave it. They can find an ample amount within the grasses growing along the road.

I'm slowly but steadily gaining on a pair of bikes. I'm thinking I'll eventually need to slow and ride with them or eventually pass them. But, by no means am I in a rush. They temporarily disappear around a bend. As I round the bend I'm once again looking for them. Something doesn’t look quite right. I'm quickly scanning from left to right and back trying to get my brain to compute what is strange about this view. I don't see the bikes as I should by now. Something is moving in about the middle of the road. I quickly determine it to be a struck deer. Then to the right one of the bikes are off the road. OK, where is the other and is that deer going to get up and if it does which way is it going to run? Amazing in such a short among of time how much your brain can be computing!

I rolled off the throttle and down through my gears. First pass the injured deer, I'm ready for evasive maneuvers if this beast bolts into my lane. As my rear tire clears the downed struggling deer my attention moves onto scanning the tall grass for the downed rider. I pull off the side of the road, flick on my emergency flashers and leave the rest of my lights on and flashing as I have a strobe headlights. Figuring the better to be seen as other motorists will be approaching.

The biker hobbled out of the grass on his own. As I walked up to him I tried to assets his condition. He seemed ok. All parts attached that are supposed to be attached with no extra parts hanging out. I asked how he was. He assured me he was ok. He advised he never went down. He apparently hit the deer and ran it right over. Probably luckily to the rider as the deer did not hit him or the bike. He was extremely lucky and skilled to keep the bike upright and maneuver to just off the road and lay it down only to end up with a sore ankle. Probably from putting a foot down following the impact. His riding partner missed the deer and eventually turned around. It wasn't long before another bike with a couple pulled in behind me. We all were able to help with getting the bike out of the tall grass and on to the side of the road.

Figuring nobody there probably knows less about the mechanics of the bike than I, I left the first aid of the bike up to them and kept an eye on the rider. After the rider gathered himself mentally and the bike was deemed safe to ride, they decided to ride on as they too were heading to Americade. I've seen firsthand what a deer strike can do to a person and a bike and although this deer may have been half the size of the deer that took out my wife Liz almost a year ago it was still hard to believe this bike survived without a scratch. I gave it the quick once over to see for myself. I remember the bits of fir still attached to Liz's tire between the rim and rubber. Yup, there it is right next to the dented rim. I notified the rider and advised he may want to check tire pressure for a slow leak. Sure enough, it was leaking. So the mechanically challenged found it! Their weekend now cut short, they would return home not far from the accident.

Before we left, myself and another rider along with his wife went back to check on the deer still in the road. It was still alive but had at least two compound leg fractures preventing it from getting up. It was struggling to move itself off the road and into the woods where I’m sure it would feel safe. I asked several if they were carrying (a pistol). None had one on them and we were out of cell coverage. All we could do is drag it off the road into the tall grass and hope nature would do its thing quickly. It was a real sad thing to need to leave it to suffer and possibly die a slow painful death. I kept thinking maybe shock would set in and take it quickly and or the coyotes or coy wolves would come put it out of its misery.

The rest of the trip would end in Lake George without Incident.