Deer & other critters hate my Supertrapp
I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed wildlife behavior such as this.
I've only owned my Supertrapp equipped motorcycle for one year, but I'm beginning to see a trend when I'm riding in the outback. Wildlife takes notice of my presence and they want nothing to do with me. :D Dunno if there's some accoustical whistling sound that's out of human tone range or if its the Supertrapp roar, but deer, coyotes, foxes and dogs scamper for the hills if caught in my path. I have seen this pattern repeated over and over. They look at me approaching, tuck their tails and scoot.
When I'm in a car I don't witness this behavior. These same creatures almost never move or care that I'm approaching. :eek:
Spring 2012 update - I am invincible
:)
Just about at 54,000 miles now and everything I've witnessed has remained static, less this one incident. I was out riding with a buddy where I was in the lead position. We had slowed our pace down to the 45 MPH posted speed limit, so we were traveling just about as quietly as one would expect.
Along the rural roadside a young lady was walking side-by-side with her horse. We passed by her on our way to a mini-mart up the street. My buddy got off his bike and asked me if I "saw that." "Saw what?," I said.
"When you rode past the gal walking her horse, the horse freaked and reared up," he said.
I see that lot. Wild animals want nothing to do with my bike's exhaust note.
No animals or humans were harmed that day.
2016 update for the critters
Seven years from when I started this thread...
http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/...r/P3252001.jpg
It has been more of the same right into the first rides of 2016. Not the type to believe in something as unpredictable as a wild animal could be predictable, but like yesterday's ride, there were two groups of deer grazing the Spring grasses and were crossing the roadway ahead of me. I feel like I'm a rolling menace. Young and old alike hear me coming along and start heading out, more insistent the closer I get. Yesterday, I just barreled on through.
http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/...r/P4010001.jpg
Something about the raspy SuperTrapp sound. For other riders, I see the deer often remain where they are, either standing along the sides of the road where they were grazing or on cutout hillsides. A couple of times, other riders have asked me if I saw the deer that were running away from the road as I led the group along our forested highways. Oblivious, I'd say no, but that I've found that they don't seem to like something about my bike. I think it's my Trapp. :cool:
That sound
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZCTi5DG90
I often take lead our ride groups at night if we're running late, taking the precaution to ride more slowly than usual and cover my brakes just in case.
2017 update. I think the bike is even more terrifying to deer now than ever.
I have changed a couple things on one of my SuperTrapp equipped Ninja sportbikes, I've added two additional plates and raised the main jets one-half step. The result is the dB exhaust note is that much more pronounced than before. Mind you, not straight pipe Harley Davidson loud, but relatively in tune loud.
Anyway, I think I've found a location where I can find a consistent stream of evening deer to film. It's at the base of one of the mountains outside town. The deer don't seem to have a fear of people or cars, which are sometimes also present and there are nearby ranch style residential homes.
I was passing by that area just out enjoying the springtime weather in the early evening a couple of days ago. One of the deer had already crossed the road, another was crossing a ditch to get onto the road up ahead with another behind it. I couldn't have been more conspicuous had I been wearing a mountain lion suit by the looks of it.
I was only cruising at about 30 MPH at the time (near residential) and I did kinda point the bike in the direction of the second deer getting ready to follow the first across the road. All of them had gone from simply walking about focused on what they were doing, to heads straightly focused on me coming up the road towards them. The just froze. When I was within about 300 feet I downshifted so the dB from the bike sounded even meaner. That was it! They had been staring me down and had that look I've seen from deer before them. They didn't want any part of what I was bringing. Their flight mechanism must have tripped. They turned in unison and ran back to the safety of the hills and cover. I didn't have to break stride. Wow, that was badass!
Gonna have to go back there and post up a video of it so there's evidence of what I've been talking about for years now. The lighting won't be ideal, but hopefully it'll be just good enough that you can see them, hear the bike's exhaust rumbling, and have footage of them fleeing, as though they were my prey.
The bike is up to 137K miles and still scaring animals
While I stuck to the sunny side of a windy foothill route I'd pass one pasture after another with either cows or goats or whatever. On up ahead I could see what looked like one of the goats had gotten out and was by appearance wanting to cross the road from my right beyond a fence line, the higher side on the windy roadway. A few seconds later the animal's shape gave way and was, in fact, an adult deer. Spotting me approaching still from some distance away, it turned away from the road it looked to cross and began trotting in the same direction I was headed in parallel to the path of the roadway. Only, if that was its plan of escape, I had a good 30 MPH closure on it as it hopped alongside my inevitable path.
It was at about the point that I was still about 100 feet behind it, that it turned its head back to see me gaining on its position rapidly that it abruptly turned right and leaped over a 6 foot barbed wire fence, kicking the upper wires with its hind legs and racing away into some trees beyond. I don't know what fear looks like on a deer's face, but that definitely looked like fear on its face or in its wide crazy eyes.
That was some impressive leap! Wish I could have captured that on film. Would have been cool to share. Just so glad it was mature enough to know that the sound of my Ninja ZX-9R's SuperTrapp presented danger and not the other way around. So thus far, only newborns have been the ones naive about road crossing dangers.