Hit a fox a couple of months ago

[peterRT]

Hi all", I hit a Fox a couple of months ago on my RT 2010 Techno SE5 and did some damage to the front trunk, $3600 AU dollars damage but just cosmetic though. I have it down at a dealer and repairer waiting for some plastic for the front trunk. I just had the DPS replaced and new tyres, new front brake pads, brakes were bled and new brake fluid put in, plus a wheel alignment and it rides good. Can't wait to get it back coz I miss riding it,

Regards Peter

[Wmoater]

I feel your pain. I hit a deer last October. $8700 in plastic, parts and repairs and still waiting for the right fog light assembly to be produced. They say now delivery is April 1st. We’ve had a pretty hard (typical 80’s) winter unlike last four years with a lot of snow and coldness. The sleds have helped but still anxious to get the spyder fixed. I have already made reservations for the first of June for our first major ride. Nothing we can do but wait!

[Peter Aawen]

Not really anything to do with Spyders, and definitely more'n a coupla months ago, but when I saw your 'Hit a fox...' title Peter, I immediately recalled the occasion my wife hit a fox while driving our Ford EB Wagon back in the days we used to regularly drive half way across Oz! Maybe you too now have some appreciation of what happened to us??

You might even know these roads - We were doing an over-night run, heading across the Snowy Mountains Hwy from Cooma then onto the Murray Valley Hwy, across the top of Victoria, & eventually on into Adelaide... & there was a rabbit plague!! We swapped drivers every couple of hours, and whenever the Child Bride was driving, she kept trying to avoid all the freakin' rabbits!! That made for a very uncomfortable ride, darting & dodging every second or so trying to avoid all these things! After trying to sleep thru the gyrations for about 30 mins, I finally cracked & told her she hadta toughen up "There's millions of them, just run over the bloody things or we'll never survive the trip!!" Sooo, she started trying to avoid her involuntary reaction, and actually did run over a couple.... of hundred! She was just getting a little used to doing this & accepting the need to simply maintain her line & hit a coupla thousand of the bloody feral bunnies we were gonna meet on the road during this trip, when a dirty great dog fox jumped out at one of the buggas on the road just in front of us, only to be transfixed by the spotlights & freeze solid in the beam.... The Child Bride actually did a great job, recalled the brief, didn't flinch at all, maintained her composure, stood on, and absobloominlutely creamed that fox!

She did such a great job of spreading it all over the underside of the car that it was almost immediately very obvious that we now had fox guts wrapped around the exhaust pipe from headers to tailpipe & everywhere else under the car too!! It wasn't even worth stopping, there was clearly no damage to the vehicle & just as clearly there was NO WAY we'd be able to clean the very spread out fox off the underside of the car or the strings of now rapidly cooking fox guts off the tailshaft & exhaust without some high pressure steam & a hoist!! And as if the smell of a live & randy dog fox isn't bad enough, over the next 10 hours or so of driving, the increasing stench of very used & baking fox only got worse!!

By the time we made it into Adelaide, everyone in the car was green, nauseous, and very close to retching continuously because of the stink of baked on fox guts mixed with the partially digested rabbit that the fox had obviously been feasting on for days before it's untimely end!! It was BAAAD!! REAALLY BAAAD!! And it DID take a coupla hours & liberal applications of elbow grease & high pressure steam to chip & pry & blast all the baked on remnants off the underside of the car, especially the long ropes of cooked intestines that'd been wrapped around & baked onto all the hot bits!! Still took a couple of months to finally get rid of all the smell whenever the car got hot tho.... Well, I think the smell had all gone by then, but we really couldn't risk it or stand it any more so we just sold the bloody car!

So while I really do sympathise with your plight, waiting for parts to get your Spyder back & do some ryding, I'm not all that sure I appreciate the memories your thread title brought back - I can STILL smell that bloody fox whenever I think about it!!

Hope you get back on the road soon - and avoid those bloody foxes!

[Bartender]

Peter - you do an awesome job of telling a great story, so I've got to add in my two cents worth with a rabbit hit on a motorcycle. Back before my Spyder days, I rode a 2012 Kawasaki C1400. One Sunday on a ride with my father in law I was on a back paved road and thought it was time to let the bid dog hunt and had just passed 130mph when a hapless young bunny ran in front of me. I thought, shucks this isn't going to be good but turned out I barely felt it as I hit him square center with the front tire. Kept on without stopping until we needed gas and while stopped my father in law was standing in front of my bike just laughing his arse off. There was bunny guts, fur, s...t and various other bunny parts all over the front and underside of the bike. When I got home I pressure steamed the bike and thought all was good until I realized that was a reason that my hunting dog was sleeping under my bike every night. Eventually the stench passed but it was pretty strong in the garage for a while. Sorry to hijack the post but just had to add in.

[Wmoater]

Owe that’s funny as heck. Here’s mine. There’s a trail system in West Virginia called the Hatfields and McCoy. In 2015 there was 6 of us down there on the 3 new SXS having a grand old time. We were pretty far away from our staging area when one of the SXS started overheating really bad. Thick mud. So we pull into a town and hose her down, blast out coolant and added new. It was dark by then so long ride back to MANN, town we staged out of. Coming around this curve there was a skunk. The first guy hit it square on. If you know anything about the underside a SXS there are so many plates and covers it’s impossible to clean unless it’s totally disassembled. We still smelled skunk every time we work on that SXS till he sold it last spring.

[obiwanbill]

Not really anything to do with Spyders, and definitely more'n a coupla months ago, but when I saw your 'Hit a fox...' title Peter, I immediately recalled the occasion my wife hit a fox while driving our Ford EB Wagon back in the days we used to regularly drive half way across Oz! Maybe you too now have some appreciation of what happened to us??

You might even know these roads - We were doing an over-night run, heading across the Snowy Mountains Hwy from Cooma then onto the Murray Valley Hwy, across the top of Victoria, & eventually on into Adelaide... & there was a rabbit plague!! We swapped drivers every couple of hours, and whenever the Child Bride was driving, she kept trying to avoid all the freakin' rabbits!! That made for a very uncomfortable ride, darting & dodging every second or so trying to avoid all these things! After trying to sleep thru the gyrations for about 30 mins, I finally cracked & told her she hadta toughen up "There's millions of them, just run over the bloody things or we'll never survive the trip!!" Sooo, she started trying to avoid her involuntary reaction, and actually did run over a couple.... of hundred! She was just getting a little used to doing this & accepting the need to simply maintain her line & hit a coupla thousand of the bloody feral bunnies we were gonna meet on the road during this trip, when a dirty great dog fox jumped out at one of the buggas on the road just in front of us, only to be transfixed by the spotlights & freeze solid in the beam.... The Child Bride actually did a great job, recalled the brief, didn't flinch at all, maintained her composure, stood on, and absobloominlutely creamed that fox!

She did such a great job of spreading it all over the underside of the car that it was almost immediately very obvious that we now had fox guts wrapped around the exhaust pipe from headers to tailpipe & everywhere else under the car too!! It wasn't even worth stopping, there was clearly no damage to the vehicle & just as clearly there was NO WAY we'd be able to clean the very spread out fox off the underside of the car or the strings of now rapidly cooking fox guts off the tailshaft & exhaust without some high pressure steam & a hoist!! And as if the smell of a live & randy dog fox isn't bad enough, over the next 10 hours or so of driving, the increasing stench of very used & baking fox only got worse!!

By the time we made it into Adelaide, everyone in the car was green, nauseous, and very close to retching continuously because of the stink of baked on fox guts mixed with the partially digested rabbit that the fox had obviously been feasting on for days before it's untimely end!! It was BAAAD!! REAALLY BAAAD!! And it DID take a coupla hours & liberal applications of elbow grease & high pressure steam to chip & pry & blast all the baked on remnants off the underside of the car, especially the long ropes of cooked intestines that'd been wrapped around & baked onto all the hot bits!! Still took a couple of months to finally get rid of all the smell whenever the car got hot tho.... Well, I think the smell had all gone by then, but we really couldn't risk it or stand it any more so we just sold the bloody car!

So while I really do sympathise with your plight, waiting for parts to get your Spyder back & do some ryding, I'm not all that sure I appreciate the memories your thread title brought back - I can STILL smell that bloody fox whenever I think about it!!

Hope you get back on the road soon - and avoid those bloody foxes!

Foxes, rabbits? how about a skunk? My Dad hit one with a front tire on a country road heading to Springfield Ohio(West of Columbus) back when I was a kid. The smell (no guts) lasted for weeks despite power washing and elbow grease.

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

she kept trying to avoid all the freakin' rabbits!! That made for a very uncomfortable ride, darting & dodging every second or so trying to avoid all these things! After trying to sleep thru the gyrations for about 30 mins, I finally cracked & told her she hadta toughen up "There's millions of them, just run over the bloody things..

Right out of college I went to work at what is now the Idaho National Laboratory. It's in the dessert of the Snake River Plains in southern Idaho which is covered with sagebrush and jack rabbits. In the office one day we talking about what was best, try to miss the jack rabbits or not bother and just clobber them. My boss said he never made any attempt to miss one until the day when he ran over one and one of it's bones punctured the tire! After that he made a modicum of effort to avoid them.

[pegasus1300]

Going thru Scofield, a semi ghost town in Utah in 2018 I hit a big dog. It came up out of a deep embankment and I smacked it dead center, then it went under the left tire and broke the left fender loose. I needed a new front panel frunk lid, front fender, and some underneath support stuff. Cost the insurance over $4000.00. Fortunately no blood, no guts, no stink, but sure scared me. Took the front fender off and rode on to Montrose Co.

[Gwolf]

Got this on the front of my old F-150 and I wish they made something like that for the Spyder.

[Peter Aawen]

Got this on the front of my old F-150 and I wish they made something like that for the Spyder.

Hmmm, looks like the remote file is too large?!? Anyone else see it??

Anyhoo, checking it out elsewhere, it looks like a fairly large & protective bullbar with an incorporated grille, and I'm not convinced that they are such a great thing for Spyders/Rykers.

A former Spyder owner here in Oz had a much smaller/lighter but similar type of 'bumper' fitted to his early Spyder, only after (in his words) "gently tapping the kerb while parking & almost stopped" resulted in bending the frame due to where/how the bumper was mounted, his Spyder was written off as being too expensive to repair the twisted frame, so cheaper for the ins co to just pay him off!!

Juuust Sayin' Fitting big &/or frame mounted bumper style devices that project out in front of the frunk/tupperware might not be such a great idea!

[Gwolf]

Hmmm, looks like the remote file is too large?!? Anyone else see it??

Anyhoo, checking it out elsewhere, it looks like a fairly large & protective bullbar with an incorporated grille, and I'm not convinced that they are such a great thing for Spyders/Rykers.

A former Spyder owner here in Oz had a much smaller/lighter but similar type of 'bumper' fitted to his early Spyder, only after (in his words) "gently tapping the kerb while parking & almost stopped" resulted in bending the frame due to where/how the bumper was mounted, his Spyder was written off as being too expensive to repair the twisted frame, so cheaper for the ins co to just pay him off!!

Juuust Sayin' Fitting big &/or frame mounted bumper style devices that project out in front of the frunk/tupperware might not be such a great idea!

Yeah, it is grill guard.. The trucks now have plastic grill and the front end is not protected at all. That grill guard keeps the bulls from knocking the cheap plastic grill out of the truck. It also works pretty well of deer running across the roads. It is mounted to the truck frame and is strong enough to work as push bars too.

You are probably right about the Spyder getting a bent frame hitting a larger animal. Not much you can do about that. I live in very rural area. Lots of farming and lots of deer eating from the fields and running across the roads.

[peterRT]

Hi all", I haven't posted for a while', due to spyder Lover not working properly on google chrome so I use Mozilla Fire Fox now. I picked up my spyder a couple of months ago all repaired and I have been enjoying riding it once again. It looks brand new now even though it was only plastics on the front replaced.

Regards Peter RT

[safecracker]

Glad you finally got it all fixed up.