The Deer Splitter

[hawkeyejohn14]

The deer in Florida are much smaller in size (not saying I would want to hit one, heck I don't want to hit a squirrel) than they are as one moves north and west. We have some huge deer here in Iowa, I don't think triple digits would split them, only kill the rider.

I have seen the pics from Dr. Curve's site when I lived in Georgia, amazing is the only word for it.

[Dr. Curve]

Lights would not have helped me and I doubt if it would have helped Bill or Drop-T. The deer should have been looking both ways before leaping. One more day in the Garden Of Life.............

[dee jones]

Hey Troops I watched Denise my riding partner split 5 deer on the morning of June 27th outside of Parrie City Oregon. Watching from behind made it looked probably closer than it was but it sure got her attention, and mine as well.
Also in Idaho,Targee National Forest we were riding 2up heading back to camp from dinner and had an encounter splitting 3 elk . I was close enough that I could have slapped the big horned creature on his ass. We started trying to avoid riding after dark ,dusk or dawn after this. Plenty of daily light riding in the summer. Even then had a good size Antelope cross between Dan Greene and myself on highway 141 in Montana. Seem to be more animals moving this year than in the past. As Dr. Curve says One more day in the Garden of Life!!!!

[signit98]

Here is a blurb from the book, where I wrote about an incident during a road trip I took with my son in August of 2008:

Before the trip I had installed an HID light bulb to replace the standard low beam and as the night fell for the first time while riding, I was pleased to see that the output was amazing. If I would switch the high beam on, I could not even notice a difference and so I just drove along with the low beam, enjoying the cooler night air.
That’s when it happened - or better yet, did not happen! We were droning along the San Juan Skyway, probably about 30 miles out of Durango. About 70 MPH, listening to music and looking forward to a restful night in a motel, maybe catching up with the Olympics, a shower in the morning, that kind of stuff. YEAH! In an instant and absolutely out of nowhere, and I mean ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY NOWHERE, I had two Deer standing in front of me. Mama stood straight ahead, right in our trajectory and baby about 5 feet to the left, following mama deer. Oh dear! Both animals looking at us, frozen in place. It was one of those defining moments in one’s life, or at least it was in my life. In a fraction of a second I was wide awake, looking for a solution and decided to gamble on their moving direction. Mama would certainly not turn back when she started moving and if baby followed, it was definitely the smaller body mass to hit. That would make the outcome marginally less disastrous, I thought. I swerved to the left, aiming for the gap between them and I swear, the saddle bags must have hit one of them on the nose and the other one on the butt respectively. Lucky for all of us, neither deer moved. Otherwise, the whole road show would have turned into a yard sale in an instant, with no item worth more than a dollar! As a flat-lander, coming from and living in a coastal area, I hear about deer incidents often, but rarely, if ever, experience any. So, I have to admit, I was surprised, unprepared and utterly shocked after we had this, our first encounter. Justin actually thought I was messing with him when I swerved in between them, but I told them that I really did not see them until it was almost too late. We had quite a few more encounters after that, but by then I was prepared and as such, none of them even came close to being a possible threat to our (or their) health. That incident took all the air out of my sails, though and from there on out we only had one other night ride and a very short and careful one at that. The upside though, was that I now had a very real example to explain to Justin what the term "Deer in the Headlights" means. Lucky me!