Near miss on slab

[ChuckS]

My girlfriend & I took the hack when we treated ourselves to a nice dinner tonight. We toured around some of the sights in Detroit, Belle Isle, downtown and generally had a nice evening with a beautiful sunset.

After dark it was time to get home, so I pointed the nose south on I-75 and cranked up to the speed of traffic, maybe 65-70. I hear a tire break loose somewhere, and it takes a moment to register what I'm hearing. A quick perimeter check - HOLY SHIT, A CAR IS PASSING US, SIDEWAYS. Close on the left, and spinning. I get on the brakes as hard as I dare while still leaving me some traction to steer away. There was one car behind us that thankfully just stomped his brakes and stopped when he saw what was happening.

The car was some non-descript Chevy Malibu type thing. The driver was not using his brakes, and the car would start off in some random direction as it occasionally was pointed in the direction it was traveling. After a few zigs and zags, we were still behind him and the Malibu(?) got it straightened out at maybe 40 mph and continued on his way. I made a hard right to take a convenient exit.

I'm paranoid on the road, and keep a constant vigil, maintain my cushion, etc.... I never saw this guy coming. Very light traffic.

Remember, we are just moving targets!

[grisezd]

Nice work avoiding what could have been a real mess. I'm just in the planning stages of my hack (waiting for a message back from Claude!) but I'm already looking for a good spot to practice hard stops, evasive maneuvers, etc. And I plan to take the class too!

[eastbloc]

I'm glad you survived that experience.

I was heading towards the Triboro on the NYS Thruway yesterday and saw a speeding box truck growing larger in my rear view. I was going at a pretty good clip, and passing the rest of the traffic in the left lane, but I decided to get out of the way so he could pass.

I notice that I'm now in the middle lane, and the box truck is straddling two lanes and coming up on me even faster! It looked as though he was intentionally trying to ram me.

I was reluctant to nail it, as I determined on the ride that my Magna needs some head bearing work and doesn't love going over 75mph. I managed to swerve out of the way, as the numbnuts in the box truck nearly pressed me into the righthand lane as they pushed their way past.

This was just the last and most terrifying of a complete set of experiences on the road yesterday with people doing absolutely idiotic things. It really was a weekend of above-par assholism.

[MotoJ]

Glad you're both OK!

Some days it does seem like people are out to kill ya. Yesterday I passed through three intersections in succession where the driver at the stop sign (no 4-way intersections) pulled out and crossed in front of me at the last second. I was starting to wonder if I had an invisibility cloak!

[bmwhacker]

During a so. Cal. road trip last Winter, I ended up needing a rear tire for our BMW hack while we were camping at Malibu. Low and behold the tire is not as available as I thought. (I usually order them on-line). I finally located one in Van Nuys. The tire guy was a great and loaned me his jack to remove the wheel for the change.
Leaving, I decided to make some time and got on the 405 Freeway....not a good choice. Giant pot holes, uneven pavement joints, a frikken nightmare. I had the R100S hack running at the 70 (?) mph speed limit and folks were screaming past me like I was standing still. After about 30 minutes of the insanity I took an exit and was glad to be alive. ...Cannot fathom how the local riders deal with that on a daily basis....they got bigger "nads" than I.

[ChuckS]

Fast forward 3 weeks.....

I've had an irregular heartbeat my entire life. PVC= premature ventricular contraction. It's usually nothing to worry about. Basically if you have something wrong with your ticker, this is what you hope for. Nothing to worry about.

It's been giving me trouble and I've been having chest pain in the left side. Bad. Last week I went to the doc, and my primary care doc was very agitated, recommended I do NOT pass go, go directly to ER. I politely declined, I've had the irregular heart beat my whole life, plus I'm pretty well connected with doc's. A couple day wait to see a top guy won't kill me. I hope.

The cardiologist listened to my lungs & ticker, talked to me at length about my symptoms and history. He is very sure my heart is fine, except for the PVC, which means almost nothing. He thinks the pain, the pounding when I lie down, is most likely due to a muscle strain of my left pec, making me much more sensitive to my ir heart beat. Yeah, that IS what it feels like...

How in the hell can I pull a muscle enough to make me go to the doc, then pull some strings to get to see a cardio faculty member at a top med school, knowing full well I have an astronomical deductible medical plan?

Girlfriend mentions- Didn't your pain start about the time we almost had a wreck with the sidecar?



I'll live to ride another day

[sidecarstar]

Sounds like you did it right. I recommend taking courses for this reason,you need to know your plan of action before it is necessary to use it. Practice your skills continuously and remember,you can only control what you do,you can only prepare for the other guy's actions.

[ChuckS]

Sidecarstar-

Well said. Girlfriend & I are here because I do practice emergency maneuvers regularly (and with monkey) & try to always have an escape plan. Without some idea of the limits of my rig, I'm not sure I would have attempted to steer hard enough to have a happy outcome.

Things like this also confirm the wisdom of having rigs assembled by someone that KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Some of my first words to Claude when I picked up my rig were "Sure is wide." And it is- my K1100 with a Ural chair is wider than a Ford Taurus. But, if the rig were narrower, it would not perform nearly as well, and we probably would have gone "splat".