I woke up to bright sun shine but the ground was sodden, it had rained hard all night. So I took Rossi out for an hour in the hope that it might dry out a bit. There hadn’t been much improvement in the road conditions so I got the beast out and gave her a wash and polish. The sun was quite warm now and the road outside the house was steaming. The bike was looking good and the carbon shimmered in the sun light, the black looked deep when she had just been polished, all most brand new.
I didn’t get out on the bike until after lunch. The roads were dry but there were still wet patches under the trees and the roundabouts were wet. I did my best to avoid the white lines and the diesel spills were easy to see.
I didn’t go far, I took the back road to Hamilton and then the A724 to Kilmarnock. It’s a good long road with twists and straights and not very busy. It’s rough in parts and your arse comes of the bike as you try and get behind the screen. It was hard work trying to stay on the dry line and keep off the white. I stayed on the same road for the afternoon and made a number of passes up and down the route.
I stopped to fill up and decided to go home, as I approached home I thought I would take the back loop down by the Mosque. I came over the bridge behind a BMW and as I came round the corner I could see down the street to the next corner. There was no oncoming traffic and I had plenty of time to make my move and set myself up for the next corner.
I opened the throttle and leaned, my helmet slammed off the tarmac. It was surreal, I have no recollection of the crash. The throttle went loose and I can remember the sound of my helmet smashing into the floor. I vaguely remember seeing my fuel tank coming off and the sound of my carbon smashing to bits.
The ambulance guy was great, he took my leather jacket off without cutting it and he gave me a very large bottle of gas and air. The pain in my shoulder was unbelievable and my left knee wasn’t much better.
A copper jumped into the back of the ambulance and asked me a load of questions but I have no idea what they were or how I answered them. I wasn’t even sure if I had passed the BMW. At first I thought I had been side swiped, the BM had no indicators on because I checked before I made my move. There was nothing behind me because once again I had looked. My mind was racing, “your insurance is out of date” said the cooper. No way !! There was no way I was riding without insurance, I couldn’t remember getting my insurance, I must have to get my tax disc. Could it get any worse ?
Janette arrived at the ambulance, the block who had pulled me out of the road had gone to get her. I can’t remember speaking to him but apparently I asked for a phone to ring her but I got no reply. He was working on his car in the garage when he heard the sound of my carbon tearing it’s self apart as my bike bounced down the road.
After a few hours in A & E and the nurses in the X ray department taking the piss about how they liked men in leather I was told I had broken my left Clavicle (collar Bone) in 3 places. My knee was OK but it had been through the mill and was going to be uncomfortable for a while.
The Doc made an appointment for me at the fracture clink for the following Tuesday. I told her I was going on holiday in the morning to Canada. “Not anymore” was the reply. The lungs are surrounded by a sack and if it’s damaged the lungs would collapse. I could get away with a small whole and never know but at 30,000 feet, things might get nasty.
In one foul swoop I had just ruined our holiday that was booked 12 months earlier and destroyed 18 months of hard work building my bike to the speck I wanted. I was told I could go once I had received my pain killers and anti-inflams. Janette went outside for a cig while I waited, my head was still spinning with thoughts that I had no insurance.
With my arm in a sling I left A & E and as I walked out of the door I saw the whole family waiting for me. Chris had finished work early to come and see me (any excuse to get of work) and Andrew and Rachel had come up from Ayr, they picked Cameron up on their way past. I asked Chris if we could go via the crash site so I could get a look at my machine and see if there were any reasons for what had happened. The bike had gone and all the debris had been cleared up. In fact you wouldn’t have known there had been a smash, there wasn’t a mark on the road, not from my tyres or the bike hitting the tarmac. I walked up the point where I started my move on the BM and there it was, a bloody great man whole cover. I had been down that road I don’t know how many times and I had never hit that before. The only explanation I could find was that I had high sided myself on the man whole cover. A nice cold, damp, piece of metal that acts like black ice.
I informed all the relevant insurance groups that I had been down the road on my arse, bike, underwriters and the travel insurance people. Now it was just a matter of time, my insurance was in date, by the way, I had put the wrong cert in my jacket.
A few days later I got the news from the underwriters that the bike was a right off. They would send my tax disc back and I had to inform DVLA that the bike was a loss.
My Black & Carbon GSXR 1000 K9 was dead !!
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