See bikes

I got off work a bit early today.  It pleased me, not because I didn't have to work but because I got to help a friend move his piano.  So I hopped on my Suzuki Boulevard and headed north.

As a motorcycle rider, I know the other guy doesn't see me.  Whereas jet fighters need to be on the lookout, ever-defensive-minded, for the guy they don't see, for the bike rider, it's often the guy you do see that's going to nail you.  Here in my small town of 100,000, we've had two bike riders killed in the last month because someone pulled right out in front of them.  It didn't help that the idiots riding the bikes didn't have helmets on their coconuts.  So I drive defensively, always leaving myself an out.

Sometimes, though, there is no out.

I turned onto a narrow country lane and nudged my 800 up to the legal sixty.  Wide-open fields lined the way with the occasional house and road intersecting here and there.  The light was good so I felt confident that should anyone appear, they would certainly see me.  Little did I know I would be ignored.

I saw him along the side of the road.  When I see someone that might pull out, I have begun to flash my headlamp or rock my bike to help the other person see me.  I felt confident that I was plainly seen.  As I approached no-man's land, the point at which nothing could be done but to brace, he bolted...

Thankfully, it was a bunny rabbit.  "Was"--the operative word.

Car or bike, if it's a small critter, don't flinch.  The tree you hit swerving to miss the varmint (hopefully a cat) will not yield.  The critter?  They generally yield just fine.  Ride right through it.

The rabbit timed his launch with laser-surgery precision.  I'll not give you the -- um -- colorful details, but the oddly comical physics of the brief encounter left the head of the BB-brained bunny cradled between my legs and the gas tank.  Despite steeling myself for whatever the lurid outcome might be, looking down and seeing those bunny ears flitting in the wind gave me the heebs.  I reached down and tossed the disembodied cranium off my bike.

Monty Python's monster notwithstanding, rodents, even cute rodents, don't match up with motorcycles.  Cars and trucks, on the other hand, will win just about every battle.  If you haven't noticed, we're on the cusp of summer and the bikes are out there, mine included.

Keep your eyes peeled for us.  Motorcycle riders.  Not rabbits.  Please.