Well for all of you who have ever wondered how well a Slingshot would hold up against hitting a deer.............wonder no longer.
Friday the 13th got me on an evening ride with some friends. At least 20 deer were in a field on a back road here in Maryland and the exhaust noise from the cafe style bikes my buddies were riding spooked them. Half went one way, half went towards us on the road. I had slowed down to about 20-25mph when I saw them running, but they were to quick and I hit probably the last one through. It was a pregnant doe too, which makes me feel even worse. I am just glad none of my buddies hit any on their bikes or it would probably have been a fatal crash scene. Luckily a neighbor witnessed the entire thing (he said it happens often there) and he put the poor thing down so she didn't suffer. The irony of the spot is that one of the intersecting roads a is called "Deer Run Lane". You can't make this stuff up!
I was able to bend the lower wing back out, which caused the passenger side to pop back into place. The paint is spider cracked on the driver's side wing and the support bar was bent pretty badly and will need to be replaced. The deer poop on the wheel washed off at the self service car wash.
So the bright side of all of this (besides no one injured, except the deer) is that I was able to find the support bar on line for $173 shipped to me and upgraded the wings to the carbon fiber ones that SlingMods has currently on sale! So roughly $512 and some personal labor and I will be as good as new! Didn't want to claim it on insurance.
I am also extremely lucky that the deer didn't flip up over the hood and end up in my face. She had stumbled going under a fence and didn't get her footing on the asphalt, which is why she hit so low. If she had been fully upright it would have been an entirely different story.