Andy7312

Thanks for all your words of wisdom and advice. and advice on all the wildlife in the Pyrenees. Sounds like I may be safer and have more luck in the Kruger National Park !!!!

Thanks everyone for your input. It was a MuntJac, which is a little less terrifying. However i think I would agree that the horn was a bad call. As for the rest i am not sure but thankfully on this occasion it worked. One think I can say is there is not too much time to process the options. Thanks All

I know this seems a strange post, but I am really struggling to cope with what happened this weekend and for my own piece of mind i need clarification if my actions were correct or if I was just very lucky. I feel extremely grateful that I am able to sit here today and have the ability to write this post. On Saturday morning my self and a relative went for a ride out in the Cotswolds. This was a practice run on fully loaded bikes before attempting an off-road camping trip in the Pyrenees in a couple of weeks time. Before we met I was travelling on the A40 near Oxford, when suddenly a small deer appeared and ran across the carriageway a short distance in front of me, when I saw the deer it was in the overtaking lane. I was in the nearside lane doing approximately 65 - 70 Mph. Foolishly I sounded my horn which startled the deer, at which point it turned around and started to run back across the nearside lane. With not much time to think my dilemma was either hit the brakes and try to stop or accelerate to try to miss the deer. I ride a BMW GS 1250 Rallye. The bike is 250 kg plus myself and 35kg of luggage. I was immediately concerned that if I started to break the deer would have more time to cross the lanes and could potentially be more of a direct hit and secondly my concern was that if I braked hard the bike would be in a very unstable configuration with a lot of weight transferring to the front wheel, if I were to hit the animal I would almost certainly be thrown off. My choice was the latter to accelerate hard even though I could see that a collision was immanent. My thought was that by pushing the weight to the back would make the bike more stable. Well a collision did occur and I am still not sure what part of the bike collided with the deer, but I suspect it was the right side cylinder but not sure. The outcome for me was somewhat of a momentary wobble but nothing severe that could not instinctively be corrected. Sadly the outcome for the dear was not so good, I am just thankful that there was no other rider behind me. So my question is did I do the right thing, or would there have been a better course of action to take. I would be most grateful for any seasoned rider to give me their view on this. Thanks Andy