Been a while since I saw a deer driving…

Yes, it looked like that, but not nearly as nice! The wheels were more open, like on an ATV. WIth Harley coming out with one, I guess we can expect to see a lot more of this style.

There’s a guy who parks one of those Bombardier Can-Am trikes next to me at work. I guess it would make a pretty decent commuter although I prefer four wheels and a roof. To handle properly a trike needs to have the two wheels in the front and the single in the back. A trike with the single wheel in front is a death trap.

http://www.gizmag.com/go/6823/picture/31402/

I talked to the local Harley dealer who said an “older gentleman” he knows bought one but traded it soon after. Very different handling with no leaning, and it wasn’t much fun to ride with others because the width takes up a full lane. This one is manufactured by Bombardier, who also produces Sea-Doo jet skis, Ski-Doo snowmobiles, and Evinrude and Johnson marine motors. Harley has a factory 3-wheeler for 2009. Local guy has sold the only two he had and is waiting on a third, already sold.

Later, we followed another motorcycle, although I use the term loosely. It looked like a three-wheeler ATV, but instead of 1 wheel in the front and 2 in the back (which I seem to see a lot more of these days), it was flipped around with 2 wheels in the front and 1 in the back. Very strange looking!

When I wrote “huge SUVs” above, I meant the likes of Expeditions where you need a two or three step ladder to get into the cab. Minivans are a delight because they are so ease to get in and out of.

And Caliban wrote:
And, Dave, you hit a deer and lived to tell? Holy crap. I hit a deer driving a ‘69 Cougar that had to weigh 4000 lbs. and barely made it out alive.

Odds are it was the ’69 Cougar trying to kill you than the deer. The bike probably deflected off the deer instead of coming to an abrupt stop, allowing Dave and his bike to tumble to a slower stop.

And I can imagine your plastic pocket protector and your recreational vehicle, Joe. You know, you don’t know me from Adam. It’s the internets and they lead us to lies and recriminations. There is no such thing as Beuford, bud. That’s Beaufort. It’s one incredibly beautiful ante-bellum town lost in time 3.5 miles from here by kayak. Next to Parris Island, where they train marines and FBI agents. We invade regularly by swimming Port Royal Sound, three or four times a year. I could do it in two hours, but my companion slows to observe fauna, and she draws me into the fantasia. Excuse me. But rutting dolphins, that’s inspiring when you’re almost naked in the first place.

I rode a Honda 50 once. When I was a kid, in the Bahamas. Serious juice. I hit something on the beach and the front wheel went off toward the ocean. The fork buried in the sand. I’ve got scars. I wouldn’t get on a Honda if somebody in a James Bond movie held a gun to my head.

Good luck in Brigport, Joe, in whatever altered state that might reside. Dave K. If I ever said you were a moron, I apologize, abjectly. Mostly, these days, I scare the shit out of myself on the bike, to tell the truth. I scare the shit out of myself crossing the street on my bicycle. And I think about mortality. Odds are seriously good I shouldn’t be alive at this point. Always makes me think of my hero, Ray Davies. No matter how hard I try it seems I’m too young to die. Life goes on.

And if anybody listened to that Richard Thompson song about the Vincent Black Lightning and doesn’t want one, well, you’ve never ridden a motorcycle and you probably think Shane McGowan’s just a sot..

And, Dave, you hit a deer and lived to tell? Holy crap. I hit a deer driving a ’69 Cougar that had to weigh 4000 lbs. and barely made it out alive.