Wildlife does not recognise a road as a 'line of death' or a line of demarcation between boundaries - hence they appear 'dumb' but they never had Hector the Cat teaching them about looking left and right - human toddlers are the same before they are 'educated'.
The rider in this clip locked his back wheel - perfectly natural given the incident. He did a great job in keeping the bike upright (as skidding down the road is where most of your injuries occur, and increase your chances of being hit by oncoming traffic if incapacitated) <-------- all this is obvious - but scientifically speaking, it is better to collide with wildlife with a little bit of throttle on - i.e. power through the drivetrain for 2 main reasons:
- The weight is transferred to the rear of the bike making it more stable if the front wheel was to receive a sudden large 'knock'; and
- the gyroscopic effect of a bike under power as opposed to braking will help keep the bike upright and avoid the cartwheeling motorbike and the speed hump rider syndrome.
Clearly - things have to go your way a fair bit - but forewarned is forearmed!
If it is at all possible given the environment - I keep this gem of info in my head whilst riding (same as "will that cager turn in front of me - or has he seen me").
The ideal situation (other than missing the mammal all together) is to wash of as much velocity as possible whilst figuring out an avoidance path, and then applying a little maintenance throttle in the impact zone for when the bugger changes his mind and turns back on you.
The same 'throttle on' theory applies to things like a tree branch - don't impact it whilst braking.
ABS in this situation is a little bit of 'confidence in a lever' for me as a locked wheel generally precedes a date with the tarmac - especially when cranked over.
This has all been my opinion only - for those of you it helps - I'm glad - for those of you who disagree - I FULLY RESPECT that.
Hope this helps.
Cheers, Diesel
