Date:       Thu, 19 Mar 1998 19:15:14 -0800

From:      "PhanFAQ" <phanfaq@rcb.org

To:          "Debbie Trimarchi" <clown@xxxxxx.net>

CC:          webmaster@rcb.org

Q: Has anyone that you know of in your club ever hit a deer or other animal while riding. I am curious to know. I bet that would be quite a trip, literally.

A:  Gosh, Coco, I worked up a mostly invented response to this question, including some approximately true statements, but one of our members just had a real encounter that trumps my efforts:

A Duck.

Why a duck? I don't know; that's his problem or, in your case, a suggestion to help you avoid that cream pie aimed for your noggin. Yes, a duck, a shirttail relative of Daffy; a critter most of us usually associate with webbed feet and/or speech impediments. For Bill, however, ducks will forever be associated with little feathers crammed into joints in his faring. Roadkill scientists now know a duck can tear a rear-view mirror clean off a BMW. It turns out that the faring of a K100RS almost completely protects the rider from duck blood&guts. Almost. As Click&Clack might call it, potentially useful information.

Crepuscular (one of my favorite words) jaywalking critters rate way up there with black ice and Volvo drivers as bugbears for the cautious rider. As a Humboldt County (Nevada) deputy warned a few of our members last summer, just as the last rays of sunlight were fading to dusk, "The coyotes are all over this road after dark; we had a real heavy pup drop this spring. They're a lot bigger than rabbits; you hit one of'em on a bike, you're going to go down."

Now we get to worry about low-flying, feathered UFOs, too.

Actually, Coco, mashing Bambi's mother is a real concern, but somehow, while there have been lots of close calls -- particularly along the coastal range and Sierra foothills in the late afternoon and early evening -- club members have not scored many tags in recent collective memory.

There was a brilliant thread on the BMW-GS listserv last Fall on the "Dog or the Ditch." dilemma. Somebody contributed a wonderful epitome: If it's small enough to eat at one sitting, aim for the critter; otherwise, aim for the ditch. It was unclear, however, exactly how to interpret this rule-of-thumb. For example, if you have a passenger, do you assume s/he will be dining with you? To say nothing of appetizers or side dishes. What if you're a vegetarian? Does the rule-of -thumb imply you'd crash to avoid anything that scampers? Maybe that's why I don't know many vegetarian riders.

By the way, Coco, are we being just a bit morbid here? Is there something you want to tell us? Hmm?

--The PhanFAQ

             One of these days I might be in your town ...

Protest note: What about the horrid collision with a quadripedal mammal that I had just two weeks ago? Why does a mere duck get preference while my fatal (not for me) collision rates not even a mention? It is pretty darned horrible I gotta tell you when you have a full on frontal going a solid 40 maybe 45 and smack right into a gray-bearded horned titmouse! Your whole life sort of flits between your eyes on something like that. Oh you betcha, it's one of those events that haunts your dreams for years I can tell you. Why did you leave out my story Mr. Faq? You gotta thing for Ducks maybe?

-- the webmaster

P.S. Don't laugh … getting that titmouse hair off mag rims is hard work … seems to bond with the brake dust.