Over the years I have had to go around, over, or through some interesting items as I get from point a to point b on my motorcycles. I’ve dealt with ladders, opossums, tires, hail, parts and complete carcasses of animals, bumpers, dirt, dust, rain, bugs, glass, birds, alligators, snakes, gasoline/diesel, and so much more. I’ve ridden through the carcass of a moose, or maybe it was an elk. I’ve had boulders roll out of trucks on to the road in front of me. A car hit the end of a jersey barrier and disintegrated in front of me and I went through the debris path rather than be rear ended by snoozing commuters. Those are all interesting but this is a new day.
Today I got a treat. I was following a car salvage wrecker when the entire left front suspension of the mini-van being towed fell off. I was following a good two-seconds behind when the tie rods, CV shaft, upper and lower control arm, and McPherson strut all attached to the spindle and brakes came out from under the mini-van on the wreckers hook. Lifting into the air and blowing various debris out into the lane the in-tow rear of the mini-van launched this over-weight turd of detritus directly into the lane in front of me.
Then most of the laws of physics were suspended. You would think the debris would continue down the lane until it stopped. Since the vehicles are all going in the same direction of travel if something falls off it should really just keep going for a bit. Not this giant spindly turd of automotive detritus. Bill Nye will have to explain how this hunk of junk comes shooting out of the back of a mini-van accelerating back up the lane of travel. So, my 2 second following distance was nullified to a .5 or sub 1 second following distance as this junk shot back up my lane of travel.
Like a football with razor wire and spikes this hunk of oblong junk just popped all over the lane. Do I go left (into traffic), do I go right (into the ditch), or do I take my chances? Applying maximum brakes (nobody behind me), I start to swerve left but the junk is tracking back towards me. Should I go right? Nope it tracks again like a missile. Boom I go left. The spindle spinning like top lays over and runs toward the curb to bounce back into traffic. I guessed right. Taking the off ramp into the gas station, I discover, Peruvian car wrecking crew about their lost merchandise. I try to tell them what happened. I imagine the blue, smurf, with the giant motorcycle, and gray beard confused them. Yelling “You just lost the front suspension of the car you’re towing”, took some time to get across.
Commuting is fun. The left right zig-zag was hard enough to wreck my back. As I sit eating lunch I’m thinking I need to do more core exercises. Then again the GS Adventure was made for that kind of stuff and it took great care of me when I asked it to play trials bike and turn on a freaking dime.