It's safer riding a motorcycle

On Saturday, I woke up after a return trip from my tour in Florida. I
decided to head out to Grapevine and get a sprocket replaced on the
Hurricane. I chose to up 2 teeth to get a lower torque response. After
a few hours of visitation, I left Grapevine and headed home. As it
turns out, the lower torque worked well and gave the Hurricane a new
feel. I lost a small bit on the upper end, but can hit the top side
quite rapidly now. After I got home, I decided to go mow some of the
resort.

The next day, I debated about getting out and riding the motorcycle
down the highways and see about carving up some pavement and curves.
Instead, I broke out the tractor and chain saw and went to finish what
I hadn't finished the day before. I got to the back of the property
and started cutting back some of the brush and trees that had grown up
a bit. After hauling up some of the trees I'd cut back, I got the
weedeater and went down the path to cut back the smaller brush toward
the creek and bridge. As I made my way down the path, I got about half
way down there and had brush and twigs flying. The one thing on my
mind at that time was carving up the curves and how a few hours later
I was planning on doing just that. Somewhere along the line, my
attention to detail had gone astray and I felt a hard sharp slice into
my leg. I first thought I'd slung a branch loose and into my ankle.
When I killed the weedeater, I felt a pain again. This wasn't from the
brush at all, as there wasn't brush flying at this point. When I
jerked my leg out from the area, I found the cutest little ~24"
copperhead snake attached to my ankle. GEEZ!

Now I'd always heard that you should bring the snake with you when you
get bit, so I tried to get around where I could get ahold of it before
it did anymore damage to me. That bastard was poised to go again and
all I had was a weedeater (like a dumbass I'd just cut all the brush
short where nothing around me was big enough to handle this snake) and
I was leaned toward him on a slippery slope and couldn't catch
traction. Well, "screw this!" I said to self. I made myself a good
identification and decided it was the best ID of a copperhead that
would be made by me that day. I went back home, got in the Jeep and
headed to the hospital.

After spending a night in Emergency while being pumped full of
morphine and anti-venom, two days in ICU with anti-venom being
pumped...I'm finally out of those and now in recovery in rehab having
to work on walking again.

Now with this, I'm convinced....motorcycle riding on a sportbike while
carving curves and popping wheelies is MUCH safer than going one/
one...mano/mano with a copperhead snake!

I'll bet when I get back to the resort, that tractor and I will be
clearing some of those places where snakes could hang out. I'll be
dusting that property with sulphur, moth balls, thatching the ground
to get all that loose stuff up.

 

Brian, I know a little about your situation. I have never done manual labor
like you, or been bitten like you, but I have cared for a person who was
bitten on her hand by the dreaded copperhead. I wish you a short and
successful recovery without too much tissue loss.

In the same vein(no pun intended), here is my ride report on yesterday. It
IS safer riding a motorcycle:

Left early to head to East Texas to drop in on BJay. He was so kind to meet
me on the road for a little intro to his neighborhood. The weather around
the metroplex was damp and cool, and the motor loved it. We chugged to
within one hour of our destination when I came upon a wreck of a minivan. It
was totalled out with a young women trapped inside. There were 8 firemen,
two trucks, two ambulances, at least a dozen assorted poleez, me and my
motor, and some dude with thinning hair snappin away with his Canon. Within
minutes of my arrival CareFlight landed. I watched as she was extricated,
offerred meager assistance, fired off a couple of emails to BJay, and
overall burned up a couple of hours. Never made it to BJay's house(a true
gentleman), because my own job called and I made the scat run back to my own
neck of the woods.

I believe the young girl did fine. The minivan is no more, but BJay and I
are alive and well. We will ride another day, hopefully together, but I
post to remind you all to watch yourselves. Girls in cars......snakes in
the grass......what is this world coming too?

Pender

 

When I was riding back home from Grapevine on Saturday, I came up on a
similar deal. The police/fire/rescue had all by 1 lane shut down on 75
to get a couple cars de-fused. The traffic was backed up for several
miles through Richardson and Plano. I started to jump into the HOV
lane and go on until I noticed all the SUVs breaking the barriers to
get in there. I figured I'd be safer going between on the lanes than
jumping in the HOV and having a big car/truck/suv coming through at 2
mph while I'm steaming along at 60mph. I lane split all the way and
got to the front to keep on going. The only thing that truly surprises
me is how many motorcycles I pass that just sit in that traffic. It
ALWAYS surprises me. Granted, lane splitting isn't for everyone and
should be done cautiously, but geez!

It sounds like you had a good ride though. What part of the world are
you calling "home"? Maybe we could hook up sometime and see about a
ride over to Bjay's? I hear he's got a great 5 star hot link stand out
there in Bowie County someplace....

 

Hey '''Pender''...about where was that awful accident? MrjayT(akaBjay)

 

Can't say for sure but about one hour North of Denton, past Pilot Point,
maybe closest town was at Tioga. I'll have to check the map.

All Police were Denton County.

pender.

 

''Pender responds to Bjay''....Can't say for sure but about one hour
North of Denton, past Pilot Point, maybe closest town was at Tioga. I'll
have to check the map.
All Police were Denton County.
pender.
================================
Hey '''Pender''...about where was that awful accident? MrjayT(akaBjay)
===============================


--------north of Denton????
I bet you had planned to ride Higway 82 east to Texarkana huh?---later,
MrJayT---

 

Nope, I do quite a bit in flip flops, but that particular moment I was
wearing shoes. The shoes I had were those fisherman shoes that are
like tennis shoes that don't have laces. My pant legs were rolled up
to keep from catching the shrubbery.