A Shocking Experience

Last week (Thursday) I had cause to ride from my place near Lake Macquarie in NSW to Glen Innes on the New England tablelands, a trip of about 500kms. About 90% of the trip was wet with the rain being either drizzly or heavy.

After leaving Armidale about 100 kms short of my destination, I tried to thread my way between two storm cells that were in the area. The first passed to the east, but I copped the full force of the second which was in hindsight moving much quicker. Rain pelted down and the thunder became louder and could easily be heard through my ear molds, the noise of the bike and through my helmet. I also noticed lightening in the distance but I couldn't see a convenient place to stop and shelter.

About 15 kms south of Glen Innes, suddenly there was a lightening strike nearby. I saw a flash of bright orange/yellowish light in the left hand section of my visor. In the moment that the flash occurred, I felt a charge of electricity on the left hand side of my body. A milli-second later, I was smashed on the left hand side of my face, through my helmet, with an electric shock similar to grabbing a high tension lead from a good electronic ignition system.

The lightening strike knocked me the right hand side of the bike but I managed to stay on, although my trusty Bandit emitted a slight misfire as the shock struck and then ran normally. I arrived at my relative's place in GI and I had a large red mark on my upper left cheek. I then spent the next four hours in GI hospital under observation with high blood pressure and, not surpriisingly, an elevated heart rate.

According to the doctor, I was possibly saved by the enduro style boots I was wearing (thick rubber soles), the tyres on the bike, the rubber hand grips and even the rubber covered foot pegs. The left hand side of my face was numb for the next day or so.

When I phoned my wife to tell her what happened she started to cry; when I told my brother, he pissed himself laughing.....different reactions!

Since this incident, I have been wondering what other calamities may have occurred to Forum members in the past. Things like riding through locust plagues, wasps getting inside helmets at high speed, running into a flock of galahs, having a major electrical malfunction whilst overtakng a road train etc etc.

I would be interested to hear about other bizarre experiences whilst aboard our favourite mode of transport.

Cheers

Wow! to say the least you were bloody lucky. Glad to hear your ok. Its amazing the ECU on the bike didn't suffer a major heart attack and stop for good.

So have you bought a Tatts ticket yet?

Thats pretty crazy stuff GSF. The only weird thing I've ridden through was a locust plague. My mate was in front on his Gen 1 bandit 12000 and I was behind him on my GPX250. The locusts seemed to fly up as he went past and I copped the lot. It was like a bunch of people firing paintballs at you, i could hardly see through the yellow stinky goo. By the time we stopped for fuel about 30 minutes later the bike and I was covered in the stuff. There were locusts stuck on the headers and in the radiator stinking the place up. I quickly rode home and washed them off before they got really dry and hard.

I've not experienced anything as serious as a lightning strike (I can pass that one up, especially after reading your report Blue). But going down to PI a few years ago on the Murray River road I got some sort of bitey insect in my helmet which started biting me on the right cheek. By the time I stopped and got the helmet off I had been bitten about six times. It was painful enough but I don't think severe enough to have been a wasp.

Yeah, I consider myself lucky that the ECU didn't fry. At the time I wasn't too worried about my "experience", but talking to other people, I think I was pretty lucky. I hadn't thought about a lottery ticket, but it may be worthwhile!

Looking back, I wonder whether the ECU "considered downing tools" when it misfired as I was struck but all was well and we soldiered on to our destination.

Motorcycling does seem to present us with a variety of adventures - if this hadn't happened all I would have had to talk about would have been a wet ride, which was very enjoyable nonetheless.

Cheers