So I arranged a trip to the North Georgia mountains with several of my buddies. They all got the week off, we all drove 10 hours to get to some of the finest roads in the Eastern US. I had installed the upper and lower frame sliders (Thanks Aphex) that had gotten there on Saturday for a Sunday departure.



Bike loaded and ready to drive on Sunday morning.


We got there. Life is good, Light traffic on the roads and make it an early night for a Monday morning start the ride. The participants are GSXR 750 Paul, Aprilia RSV4 Bob, Glen with his BMW HP4, Gary on his Ninja 1000, and Rick that brought his Honda Hawk 650 instead of his choice of 3 1000cc bikes he left in his garage. Go figure. And myself on my SD 990.

Leave Dahlonega, GA, heading North on 60, 68, Tellico Plains TN, take 165 (Cherohalla Skyway) heading to Robbinsville NC. Around 3.5 hours after starting the ride Bambi decides to cross the road in front of me. I tried to avoid it by going left on a right hand curve, spooked him and did not collide with it, but did hit a curb. Hard.

I went left, tried to brake as hard as I could even doing a stoppie in the process, and we were right next to a scenic viewing area so there was a mini dirt island dividing the parking area from the road. I hit that. The bike kept rolling with me on top of it towards the parking area, I fell on the dirt and slid to the asphalted parking area; sidewalk, stone wall. the bike hit the second curb with the tyre completely deflated and flipped on its side and came to rest against the stone wall. I fell on my left shoulder/ side and I must've blacked out for a couple of seconds since when I came to it I was sitting on the pavement, unscathed, cussing at myself for crashing.

Took the helmet and gloves off and could not believe what I had just done.

Riding from right to left on photo.



First curb



Dude, where is my rim?





Shoei is mostly ok, cosmetic damage



Minor rash to clutch cover, rear brake lever and broken front brake lever.



Frame sliders did a great job



Bent sub-frame I think



This is the extent of my injuries pictured today, after 6 days of impact. How do you like the Austin Powers chest hair?



My Aerostich Roadcrafter did a phenomenal job. I fell on dirt but slid on asphalt probably 15-20 feet and the suit has no rips, tears or any damage whatsoever. Just dirt from when I first hit the ground. I just need to wash it, apply the waterproof rinsing agent and that's it. Highly recommended !!

The biggest bummer is that I was only able to ride 3 hours on the first day and lost 4.5 days of riding/ vacation. Well, at least I'm here to tell the story. The guys told me they rode the same road on Wednesday and came up on an accident scene with a rider resting under a white sheet. Poor soul.

The SD was taken by my buddy Bob to a local shop that's going to quote repairs and I have the insurance assessor meeting at the shop to determine if the bike can be fixed or needs to be a total-loss. If that's the case, I'm thinking I'm going to take my time and find a low miles well loved Tuono V4 that has been piped and chipped. We shall see.

Chau,

Glad your okay and in semi good spirits over the whole ordeal. You get to ride again and I hope the SD is repairable so you can get your jollies on your original choice.
Next year

Glad you're OK after your wildlife encounter.
I can tell you from experience that hitting them pretty much yields the same results or worse.

Hopefully the bike can be fixed and insurance covers most.
A bit sad as that bike looked mint!

Hope I didn't jinxed it here with the stupid emu!

Nooooooo!

Sorry to see it Steve, glad to see you made it out with only some bruising. Hopefully all you'll need is a subframe and new front wheel, or maybe it would be better for insurance to just cut you a check for 10K and pick up that sweet V4R

Sucks man. Bikes can be repaired though glad your ok.

we need to make a wild life club ,glad your ok

Speedy recovery fella.

What's with you lot ditching your bikes at the faintest sight of animals!

Glad to hear you're OK Steve - it could have been so much worse.
Sad to see a SD in that sorry state, but as these folks say - bike can be repaired (hopefully)
Heal quick and get that bike back on the road

glad you are ok mate!
may this be the last bad thing that happens to you.

Nice work Steve, picked a good place to do it. I imagine either side of that area is probably tree lined, so could have been heaps worse.
Glad you are all good. Says a lot for low impact curbs.

Motherfuckin' Bambi strikes again.

Glad to see that you're only slightly worse for wear, and that your gear did what its supposed to. Damn shame your epic ride-holiday was shunted by food (all bambis = food).

I hope that getting the bike sorted is less painful than that bruise.

SDNerd breaks out compound from underneath his desk, checks supply of broadheads, and is ready to go deer stabbing out-of-season just because. Speedialing brother in-law with big place near Sarasota ...

Glad you walked away from that one mate.

It could end up much worst looking at the photos... Hope you recover quickly and fix your bike in the meantime.

Thank you kindly for the well wishes.

Right now, I'm waiting for the insurance assessor to go to the stealer that has the bike and determine if it can be repaired or if its a total loss. That should happen before the end of the week. I will keep you posted.

I had contacted Larry who had Motohooligan Aaron's SDR for sale and he sold it yesterday. That SDR would have been sweet.

Ride Safe,

It seems to be the local craze at the moment...attacking the local wild life

And they say it's the other motorists trying to kill you,

But glad your safe and well. Bikes easily repairable

Well,
The bike was totaled by Progressive. I'll be receiving a check in the next week or so and looking for a well loved SDR or low mileage SD.
I'll be back on the road soon. I hope.


Sarasota_Steve
Black 08 990

wrong side of the US but here is a pretty sweet SDR for $6k oh and a 2013 Tuono for 9k

Aphex, I saw that SDR on cycle trader but you think at 41k miles is a good deal?
I'm looking at several bikes and bouncing around between SD or SDR or Tuono V4R.


Sarasota_Steve
Black 08 990

I also saw a 2014 SDR for $13750 with 680 miles. So tempting.


Sarasota_Steve
Black 08 990

If you want, that's my local shop, I'll head over and haggle them down to better price.

I epically like "exhaust and other upgrades over 1200." That not even a full Evo system.

Lance,
Thank you for the offer. 41k miles scares me. I have two bikes in mind, an SDR with 4 k miles and an SD with 12 k miles. Both 2008 within 10 hours driving of my house. We shall see.


Sarasota_Steve
Black 08 990

They are actually asking $9500 and I would need to ship it from north California to Florida for approximately $1000. That's a lot of money for a 41k miles SDR don't you think? With 9 or 10k I can get a slightly used Aprilia Tuono. Or the SDR with 4k miles that the seller does not want to budge on the price.


Sarasota_Steve
Black 08 990

I'll fork out a bit extra for this!
Nice ride back too if you pick it up!

Living in Oregon I see deer almost weekly. A few weeks ago I saw two deer out side my office window about 26 feet away.
Just about all the folks I know have deer stories. I have been so glad I have been on my SD the two last encounters with deer.
The SD handles and stops like a bike should. Both times mentioned two deer came on to the road in front of me from the left.
Both times I went between the two, close e-nuf to touch.
Years ago on a bike trip in the PNW there was road construction we had to stop for and wait for one way traffic.
I like to shoot the breeze with fellow travelers and this particular time it was a law enforcement patrolman.
We started talking about deer and he has been instructed to drive right thru them and to stay in your own lane, on the road.
Makes a lot of sense to me, and I have been flowing that advice since.
The deer do not want to have an accident either and will do every thing they can to avoid contact, and are very good at it.
What you want to do is to break as hard as possible to reduce impact.
What you do not want to do is to cross the centerline and do a head on with approaching traffic or run off the road and hit a tree.
I will take my chances with a bag of bones and guts to a front end of Mac truck any day.

The other word of wisdom is to not ride over your__________. You fill in the blank.

is this your bike going up for auction ? https://www.iaai.com/Vehicles/VehicleDe ... ecent=True

Looks like same bike to me.

That is my bike.

Wish I could get some of the parts from it. It says in the auction missing key, not true, they have both keys, and the engine runs. I started after the accident and it run fine.