One of the reasons, bikers hang out with one another is to learn from one another. This e-zine will help to fill the gap when the WindShifters cannot be in the physical presence of one another. Some of the articles have been pulled from our forum. Others have been written just to be presented here.

QUOTES

We don't ask where we are going, just when and how many pairs of socks do I need to bring.

Close Encounter Of the Deer Kind
(excerpt from forum)

Deer, as you know, are the bane of motorcyclists. Encounters between bikes and deer can end up with the biker injured or dead, so we fear the critters mightily. I've been on high alert for days, since almost everywhere we've been has looked like prime deer country to me. And STILL I am surprised when it happens. I am just moving along, going 60-65 mph (and this is with the flow of traffic, I am not passing anyone and in fact had just dropped in a ways behind a new VW Bug who I thought I was going to pass, but turned out to be going the same speed as I) and I was on a gradual uphill. The two lanes had become four, the road was wide enough to allow passing for a few miles. I was negotiating a very gradual right sweeper turn. And suddenly my eyes pick up that there's something that doesn't belong. Two deer are in traffic lanes, on my side of the road, running in more or less the same direction that I am heading. At 60 mph I am on top of them before I can consciously decide and act ... I have not yet gotten on the brakes, but have gotten off the throttle. The small deer, running for its life, makes the wrong decision in its microbrain and veers right into my path, essentially sideswiping me from the left. It thunks off my left engine guard (it might have hit the lowers too) and I pick up its sprawled body in my rearview mirror and am past the danger before I have really even figured out what happened. I don't know if I killed it or not. There was no place to stop and check (only a narrow shoulder, a guardrail and a dropoff to my right) and nothing I could have done anyway.

I start the checklist ... is the bike ok? downshift to fourth, I still have a clutch, I still have a shifter. No visible damage to the front end I can see while still moving. No deer guts, even. Left hand checks behind me ... saddlebag still attached. My left highway peg bent back but that's all I see.

Did I really get off that easily? It's about three miles until there's a turnout when I can safely pull over and do a walkaround, and yes indeed, I did get off without any damage at all. Give thanks to the road gods. In my favor were the facts that it was the juvinile deer that I hit, not the mama deer, and that the hit was sort of at an oblique angle.