Today Can Only Get Better From Here.... - Motorcycle-Journal Forums

**intimid8er** · 12-10-2008, 09:52 AM

I hit a flying duck with the Buell this morning on the way in!

No kidding!

I've finally stopped laughing enough to share!

I just came out of a 90 degree corner, throttle on of course, the bike was starting to stand up. Looking through the corner as I approached, I saw this damned Muscovy Duck that crosses or sits in the road just about every freakin' day at this spot. Me and him should be old buds by now.

For some reason, ole fat-ass decided to panic this morning. I somehow knew it too, and things went into slo-mo at this point. He jumped straight into the air, and started flapping his wings to move his prodigious rump (Muskies generally don't fly...they're lazy scavengers who get really, really, really fat).

Of course, in my mind I'm thinking, "F**k duck! No duck! F**k no duck!" I slow down. Speed up. Slow down. Speed up. Trying to bust up the timing. He's looking at me, doing the same thing. I couldn't help be amazed by his feat of flying because again, these things ain't graceful. It's like trying to get a C-130 off the ground with the engine from Low-N-Slow's cropduster.

I had two SUV's following too close behind me. So I ruled out a panic stop. My best hope in the space of these few seconds was to try and throw off the timing. The gal behind me was on a cell phone, it didn't look good so I committed.

For a nanosecond I thought I'd make it by with a close call that would look cool. Nope. He kicked in the afterburners. I set myself for the possibility of 15 pounds of panicked waterfowl in my chest or in my helmet or both

. My last thought was, "This is the point of no return." AND....

WHAM!!!! (Go to any street sign in your neighborhood, slap it as hard as you can with your open hand...that is the noise it made when it hit.) The bike and bird collide roughly around thirty miles per hour. Before impact, I lowered myself just slightly, which proved to beneficial to me, as the impact sent him into a what had to be comical end over end tumble over my bikini screen and right shoulder. Of course, black feathers, dander, and quilting (? I guess?) exploded everywhere as he impacted and careened out of control.

For a brief second, I looked back to see him collapse clumsily on the side grass. I wondered momentarily if it's my duty to go back and tend to him, but it was brief, because after all, I'm still piloting a motorcycle through a collsion, and in traffic. I navigate a couple more turns, and finally reach a stopping point where I have to wait my turn to merge into traffic. I start to giggle, a bit, and I see in my mirror, the gal driving the SUV is cracking up so hard, she's leaning over the steering wheel trying to catch her breath. This get's me to laughing into a fit that I was shaking, with tears streaming down my face. I take off, and the next two miles were pretty wobbly because all I could think of was how comical it would've been if the duck got caught in my chest