[BMVay]

One more story – Back in April 2000 I had a similar triple digit deer splitting (or deer exploding) experience here in Florida on HY19 just north of US40. I have lived and ridden in Florida for the past ten out of the total thirty-five years of ridding experience so this shouldn’t have come as such a surprise.

While out for a late evening ride with one of my ole sport ridding buddies mounted on my late eccentric 98 hopped up S3 Buell (The only Harley product I’ve owned and the last) on one of the many 200 mile loops well worn over the past ten years. The expected but unexpected happened.

About five miles north of US40 on HY19 heading north into the Ocala National Forest (one of the few moderately challenging fast roads in North Central Fl) I wicked the S3 up and blew by the my buddy’s 916 heading up to a set of fast changing elevation sweepers at 100+ mph. Having ridden these roads for so long you’d have thought I’d have been a little more cautious but I guess after living with all the reflecting eyes grazing alongside the road side for so long I had become a bit complacent.

Anyway. Heading into the third left hand sweeper laid over and modulating the throttle having one h*ll of a good time I hit the first apex of the closing radius turn as the head light rolled to the left there they were! Not just a deer, but many deer, all across the road and less than 50 yards in front of me and closing fast. Closing the throttle or banging the breaks was not an option, so I rolled out of it lightly tail breaking and began to look for run-off (right! Run-off. All I could think of was you IDIOT now what?). At this point the only option I could come up with was the old stock car racer trick, you know, point it into the smoke and hope like h*ll there’s nothing there when you arrive. Deer are known to bolt?

Well it didn’t work. The last thing I remember seeing was gray everywhere and one H*LL of a bang, then the grinding of my helmet on the highway. Having slid for what seemed like forever (about 70 yards the trooper said) we finally came to a stop on the side of the road, broken S3 and body. The first thing I remember was my buddy asking “Are you alive” my reply was a groan and then turn the key off d*mmit. Then I faded out to wake with a EMT cutting off my expensive Vanson leathers (by the way, they really worked) all I could think of was “this is going to be a long night” it was. Later after being yanked, pulled and prodded back together I found I had 18 broken bones, mostly hands, left arm and shoulder and a rib or two then three surgeries and numerous pins to contend with.

All is well though. I replaced the totaled S3 with a 2000 R1100S two weeks later, my third BMW. I think the hardest part of the experience was waiting six weeks to first mount the R11S. I sure this was the only I could have gotten rid of the Buell albeit a hard way.