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Finish this sentences with you own experiences....

I was travelling along on my M/C when....

I was travelling along on my M/C when....all of a sudden my Cam Belt broke on my GL1000! Bending the Valves & leaving me with a busted-arz bike. I was 18 years old.

Fortunately my Mate was with me & he towed me all the way home.

What did we use for a tow-rope.... Arrr....good question, as we didn't have a tow-rope with us, we improvised & used my WOOLLEN Scarf & with it's elastic properties....worked perfectly as a tow-rope, pretty Cool eh?

Since then I have used this trick with the scarf a few times to help me & mates out of difficulty. It's handy to tow a bike this way instead of push starting a really Heavy bike with a flat battery, but it's a bit tricky, not for the inexperienced.

... suddenly everything was lifted off me, and I was flying along the curves and hills completely at peace with the world. Greatest feeling ever.

I realised that i had found my true calling - to ride some more!

Okay, I'll bite, but this is likely to be long-winded.

My wife and I were riding along in the California Central Valley, south of Fresno one day in the summer. We had planned to go for a visit at some friends' house, but I could see the sky darkening rather quickly, so I decided we should head home.

We were too late. We wound up getting caught in the most violent storm in my memory. I was constantly looking for the funnel cloud I knew would suck us up at any second. It was early afternoon in the middle of summer, but it was almost as dark as midnight. Lightning was flashing almost constantly, and even struck telephone poles more than once within feet of us. The noise was deafening, and Although I had the XS Eleven running at only 20 MPH or so, I could barely keep control of it, and we were forced off the road more than once by the wind, driving rain and hail (!) and sparks raining down from the lightning strikes.

By some miracle, I kept the bike upright, and we pressed on. Unfortunately, we were not near a town or any other kind of shelter, so our only choice was to try to ride it out. At one point, I watched what looked like electrical transformers along a power pole line blowing up from a lightning strike. I don't remember how many of them went, but it was pretty freaky.

Just so you all know, Hail STINGS when you're on a bike, especially when the hailstones are as big as dimes. I had my legs spread wide, trying to protect my wife's legs, so the hail was hitting me on the tender inside of my thighs. OUCH!

We got soaked through to the skin, and after about 25 miles, we rode out of the storm to bright sun, and blue skies. It was the wierdest, freakiest storm I've ever seen. We actually dried out on the rest of the ride home. (about 40 miles more) I'm lucky my wife was willing to ride with me again after that.

... another biker waved at me.

From then on, I knew I was part of a (usually) close knit community of complete strangers.

Thanks for that Post, I thought this Thread was DEAD before it even started....or peoples M/C experiences are 'On Leave' right now.

BTW, I ride a Harley & wave to EVERYONE....most don't wave back

Funny cause once you hit the 'open road' everyone waves!

Hey, no problem.

And as the best way, and perhaps the shortest, to put it in regards any amount of waving to whomever: "I'd wave."

... I was reminded how lucky I am. Well... personally, I prefer to believe in Providence.
It happened one evening last summer after a particularly exasperating day at work - I was in need of some two-wheeled therapy, and quick. I made my way to a nearby two-lane, a favorite because of the smooth, 13-mile-long pavement which passes through some beautiful, generally uninhabited Blue Ridge countryside. The fact that I've never seen a LEO there made it all the more inviting. Don't bother asking how to get there... I ain't tellin'!
Anyway, this road has only one decent straight on it, and I had just howled through that and the right-hand sweeper at its end. Quickly came a fairly tight left-hander and I was on the binders, setting up, when the sound of squealing rubber pierced my helmet. Just as I was heeling the bike over, around the curve came a black Toyota pickup, nearly on two wheels as well! Then, I noticed something which even now causes prickly hair on the back of my neck: the truck was dragging a 20 foot-long, steel tow chain, and, worse yet, momentum was slinging the chain completely across my lane!
Needless to say, I couldn't avoid it... neither the chain nor the fist-sized hook on the end. All I had time for was to release the throttle and brakes and lift my feet off the pegs, a reactive motion that now seems silly.
Thankfully, even though we were leaned over fairly low, the ZR wasn't upset by the bump-bump, and that hook, well... somehow it didn't hook anything on the bike as we passed over the end of the chain.
A mile or so down the road, I pulled over to think about what had just happened and have a smoke. I remember thinking that, to serve as a reminder for the guy, I wouldn't mind hearing his chain had hooked a guardrail or pole further up the road and peeled his bumper off. At the very least, he wouldn't have a bumper to hook the chain to anymore!
Later on I was just hoping he hadn't hooked anyone else, and that, when he got to wherever he was heading, he realized why that guy on the ZR didn't have his feet on the pegs and had such a shocked look on his face!

That WILL get the Adreniline Flowing!

Sure glad you got through that situation unscathed!

BTW I also have jumped up like you did....to avoid a snake!