OK, heres my hit list. Going way back when I was a little tacker growing up in the Australian bush. I hit a wallaby's tail as he bounded in front of me whilst out on my Montessa. The next one, whilst not strictly mine, was quite spectacular. I was following a mate at night near warranbool. He was on his Triumph bonneville and me on my Norton commando, i've still got that Norton. A rabbit ran out, hit the rear wheel of the Bonny and without a word of a lie achieved something of an altitude record, for a rabbit that is. I'd guess it was sling-shotted about 40 feet into the air. Then in 84 whilst spending a memorable year in North America touring around on a 81 Low Rider, we were wanting to make time across the flat boring bit between Arizona and the Mississippi, so pushed on well into the night somewhere in northern Texas. Within a flash a dark lump appeared in the headlight, smack bang in the middle of the road. Before I had time to react we hit it with a hell of a thud, then happily continued on our way. Next morning revealed all. There seemed to be a dead Armadillo every mile or so. This I'm sure is what we hit. Back in Oz, cleaned up a couple of cockateils ( small cockatoos for the uninitiated ) in western Victoria. Then again at night near Mansfield, Victoria. Two very large dark apparitions appeared in the head lights of my 91 Herritage, which VERY quickly morphed into two horses. Grabbing all the brakes that were available to me I can still remember the rear end slowly drifting out to the right in an effort to beat the front end, just as I came to a stop and was able to reach out and pat one of the horses on it's arse. My one saving grace was that they were trotting away from me and not towards me. I guess the underlying current here is, be bloody aware at night. I will also go so far to say that years of experience and the gradual accumulation of skills and road craft do pay off.

rabbits(x2), pigeons(numerous), a fox & a badger
i've had a couple of near misses with sheep

none have resulted in anything more than fur/feathers/blood on the bike/helmet and a minor wheel wobble.......yet

__________________
XTZ750 91 - overland touring toy
TDM850 91 - main bike & commuter
TRX850 97 - sunnyday twisty toy
"Never argue with an idiot. They just bring you down to their level and beat you with experience"

Friend of a friend, in Canada, hit a Moose. Damn near killed him. Car took the legs from under the animal which landed on top of the vehicle. Fire service had to winch the thing off in order to get the guy out.

If that's the size of the moose.....how big are the bloody cats ?

A lot of the roads in central asia have what appear to be small smooth rocks on them, until you notice them moving! I clipped one such tortoise which pushed my front wheel off a bit, bit of a wobble but fine. The remains of tortoises hit by trucks was another worry - sharp shell fragments. Luckily the bright red made them easier to spot!

I remeber reading a few years ago about someone who hit a deer on a bike at about 80mph, he managed to cut the deer clean in half with no injury to himself - just covered in blood and guts!

This seems like a loooong time ago now...
------------------------------------------------
8/6/05. Birnin N'Konni, Niger.

Have you, I wonder, ever had an eagle hit you in the leg at 55mph? No? I won't believe you. You must have.
Actually, up until this morning, neither had I. In this part of the world they like to sit on the road, d'you see, eating roadkill and bugs and so forth, and as you approach them, the thought process tends to be, "I am absolutely certain that those eagles will get out of the way before I get there", and they almost always do.

It's not as painful as you might think. Imagine someone throwing a labrador at you as hard as possible.

__________________
Simon

London-Cape Town 2004-06
Buenos Aires-Vancouver 2008-10:
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/tstories/fitzpatrick

I had the misfortune to be passing on a fairly crisp dry wintery day a local landowners shooting grounds as they were on a pheasant slaughtering mission when I lived in the UK. I was fair hurtling down the country roads enjoying myself ( as you do) when BAM!!! a Cock Pheasant who thought he had escaped the guns smacked through my windscreen and into my chest....... I was doing about 90 on my BMW K100LT at the time and apart from the bruising, the new screen, the laundry bill ( yep, i nearly wet myself I can tell you!) and the blood all over me from the bird I was luckily OK.

There's plenty of video clips of motorcycles hitting animals on youtube.com.
Just search for "motorcycyle deer" on the site.
I can't remember which exact clip it was, but I remember the unfortunate deer being cut in two by the motorcycle, which, miraculously, managed to remain upright!

When I lived in Aus, I was heading out to the desert driving late at night between Dubbo and Bourke and got run off the road by, I presume, a drunk jackaroo in an old pick up. Section of road is dead straight and flat for something like 100kms and I was going for it in a V8 Discovery, pick up turned on to the road from the dirt with no lights straight in front of me, I end up going off the road as I come sailing past him but had to pull back on as tree was coming up and ended up sliding sideways at high speed - not that much fun in a 4x4, luckily went 180 degrees but cliped a road post and trashed one wing. Managed to get the Disco started again and off the road before a road train that was bearing down on me came through. Feeling slightly shaken, stopped for the night. Next morning, closer to Bourke, hit a Kangaroo, headlights popped out and hung down on wires, grill dropped out, had to reassemble it all. That afternoon, between Bourke and Tipoorburra, hit a Emu whilst going quite fast. Thing was so solid that I had a A-bar on the front and it sheared the bottom bolts on both sides and rolled on the top bolts into the bonnet trashing that. How to progressively trash vehicle in 24 hours. Also nudged a donkey in Africa but fortunately had almost come to a halt by the time I did it so not to bad.

Technically I ran into a horse while riding at 13 years old. A wild group of horses merged in with me while riding fast on a gravel road -- and riding two up. Needless to say, I wrecked given that this group of horses merged into me. One kicked me in the left bicep muscle, and one kicked the crossbar of the handlebar bending it back and leaving a two horse-shoe edges in the steel tube. That crossbar may have saved my life. An adult horse kicking a 13 year old in the chest with a force like that, would have been bad.

Walked away from the !20kmph crash a bit shaken up, dusty, and the kicked arm having me out-of-service for a week or two.

Respect animals by staying away from them and being 100% aware 24 hours a day.

roo in qld... ouch 200k ride to hospital,feck it hurt' day time too????

I hit plenty of Pidgeons when a Dispatch rider in London. They taste horrible.

On the way down south last year and the weather was misserable, I had visability problems and ended up bouncing down an old country road. When I stopped to look at what I though were rocks it turned out they were Rabbits. Not sure how many I killed but there was many dead from previous drivers. The place looked like a battlefield full of little fluffy bodies. It smelt disgusting too.

The same thing happened with frogs a few months ago....

Cow in Rajastan
King cobra in Kerala (another took a shot at my leg in Tamil Nadu)
Buffalo in Laos( I just missed but it turned and ran straight into an oncoming bus)
But what scares me are the tortoises on the road, you don't see 'em till you're right on top of them.

Some years ago I hit an idiot pedestrian who stepped off the curb immediately after having looked (I thought) straight into my eyes. "SMIDSY". Dislocated elbow, several weeks off work (I was self employed, so lost earnings), and a surprising amount of damage to the bike (Kawasaki GT550). Gratifyingly (I'm nasty) he was injured more than I, and he tried to use that as a defence when I took legal action for my financial loss (he failed).

Living near Oxford I regularly see foreign tourists step into the road having looked the wrong way - seen a few students knocked off bicycles, but so far I've avoided them.

I've hit a few pheasants round here; why do the damned things run along the road and only take off at the last moment, only to climb to about shoulder height once they have taken off?

Well one time and band camp......
I have hit all manner of livestock including birds, dogs, roos, echidna', emu. Fortunatly none have resulted in serious injury. Even ran over a goanna once and Loxsmith wanted to roast him up on the side of the road. :-)