So, I’m OK and the bike is OK, but I had a scary little date with the pavement a few weeks ago.

Scott and I were taking a long, straight road through Wyoming on our way to Colorado, and the sun was going down. Scott was leading, ahead of me probably by only 20 yards or so. All of a sudden I notice on my left peripheral vision- a buck. He look suspicious, so I slowed down the bike a little bit and tried to keep my eye on him as I drove past. This was mistake number one- even though I’ve been around these animals all my life, I didn’t plan for the inevitable other deer. And so she appeared- when I turned to look ahead, she was darting across the road, between Scott and myself. If you can visualize how small a 20-yard space is at 60 miles an hour, you can imagine how close this deer was to the front of my bike. I was totally going to crash into this animal.

I slammed the brakes, and then made mistake number two- in my panic, I must have leaned over to avoid hitting the doe. Maybe that worked, maybe it wasn’t necessary, but either way the bike immediately started fishtailing. I missed the doe, but was too unstable and the bike rolled onto its left side. Sparks were flying everywhere around me as I dragged along the road. This was also the moment when my brain exploded.

After a moment, I separate from the machine and begin rolling down the road. Just want to take a moment here to praise Firstgear, the company that made my jacket- I tumbled down the highway at about 50 miles per hour and barely felt it. I didn’t bruise my elbows nor did I tear my skin. That shit WORKS. Fortunately the road was completely straight and I stayed in my lane. Slowly I came to a stop and took inventory. I felt fine, but I could still see the bike sliding down the road in front of me, throwing sparks everywhere, and I was pissed.

Scott loops back to see if I’m dead, and we go see how the bike did. We took a video of this moment- if we cut it down to something interesting we’ll post it sometime.

Turns out the bike was mostly fine. Some bad damage to the saddlebags and some of my gear was the worst of it. The freeway bars I bought to protect the motorcycle did a stand-up job of taking the damage. I can’t believe it survived as well as it did. I can’t believe I survived as well as I did. There was hardly a scratch. I’ve got some bruises but my jacket and jeans were amazing. And the jeans were from H&M if you can believe it.

The shoes though, well….

All in all, I feel really lucky. Both I and the bike came out with no damage that duct tape couldn’t fix.