Venison and Gasoline

So after this weekend's successful ride to and from the Stone Mountain Games, into Atlanta traffic down superhighways, my son came home and wrecked his bike on a road he rides every single day and knows perfectly well. The cause was a deer, as it often is, and he had reason to suspect it was there. A mother deer and a fawn crossed in front of him, so (as I have taught him) he began to slow down and look for others. The second fawn bolted from cover at the last second, fouling his front tire and causing the wreck. The bike went down, twisting his ankle underneath it, slid across the road, and then flipped into the air and crashed onto its side once it hit the dirt. North Carolina highways have no shoulders to speak of, in the mountains especially. 

When I heard the sirens going down the valley, somehow I knew it was him. I started down the road after them and came across them tending to him shortly thereafter. Of course all the firefighters were friends of ours, except one fellow from Cullowhee who happened by. 

As motorcycle wrecks go, it was everything you could want. I doubt the bike will be repairable. This is a bike I put sixty thousand miles on myself, and that he grew up on the back of as a child before I gave it to him for Christmas one year. I put two brand new tires on it for him just last week before the Stone Mountain run. 

Nevertheless, it was all you could want because he seems to have escaped any serious injury. We do need to follow-up with the orthopedist for an MRI to check the soft tissues in the ankle, but the X-rays showed no broken bones at least according to the reading of the emergency medicine physician. Some minor abrasions. The bike didn't drag him even as it twisted his ankle because the highway crash bars I put on it kept it from pinning his foot or leg. When the 800-pound bike flipped and crashed to earth, he wasn't on it: all that kinetic energy went away from him when he sensibly let it go.  

As far as I can tell he did everything exactly as I taught him, and on his own account always wears complete safety gear -- leathers, helmet, gloves, strong leather boots. That worked to his advantage today. 

So many of my friends are bikers. Every one of them, including myself, has been in at least one motorcycle wreck. None of them have died thereby. All of my biker friends who have died have done so from heart attacks or the like. It's an inherently risky activity, but skill and preparation can help you.

All the same, today I got lucky. So did my son. If the bike didn't make it, she died with honor after a long and glorious career. 

One of the firefighters got the deer.