Off the Bike

Well, I have ridden bikes for 23 years and covered several hundred thousands of miles in that time, with no serious accident, so I guess by the law of averages it had to happen some time...

Saturday 15th November was a bright sunny but cold day. The previous weekend I had finally put on the last parts needed to complete the TX750 - a brake master cylinder cap and a left hand fuel tank tap - each part had taken me nearly 2 years to acquire so I was eager to see if the bike would still work. I gave it a quick service, checked it over and it fired first time and ran up and down the road fine. So I went home and booked an MOT for the following Saturday morning at Gov'nors Bridge in Atherstone.

I was only going a few miles down the road but as it was cold I still put on my Cold Killers undersuit, BMW Tourance suit, and winter gloves and boots - I was to be very glad of this decision, although in the next few weeks I often regretted going out at all!

At 10.25 am I left my garage, rode out of the village and the next thing I can remember is hearing some bangs behind me, the bike not feeling right, and then there was a huge bang as I hit a car head on. I came to lying in the middle of the road on my left hand side with a terrible pain in my right leg. It felt like my leg had come off and was at a very strange angle, and I could feel an awful pain in my heel but it didn't seem to be connected to the ground. Looking down the road I could see the TX on its side about 12 feet away, with bits of it scattered all across the road, and a red car still moving down the road and coming to a stop about 100 yards away. I could hear myself screaming as several other drivers ran up from behind me. The next half an hour seemed to last a hell of a long time as we waited for the paramedics, and I was shivering from the cold of the road. I remember taking my helmet off and looking down at my leg - I could only see that the outer layer of my trousers was ripped and my foot seemed to be at a strange angle. There seemed to be a lot of people around, includng several police officers. At last the paramedics arrived - the doctor put me on my back and proceeded to cut off all my clothes. Thankfully she also injected me with ketamin and the next hour passed in a series of very weird hallucinations.

I started to come around as the air ambulance landed at Coventry University Hospital. I was strapped to a board and could vaguely see and and hear the rotors of the helicopter but could not make out faces - all the people around me still looked like aliens! Over the next few hours I drifted in and out of consciousness as I was X-rayed and transferred to a ward bed. I had snapped my right femur about 4 inches above my knee, and there was a big gash across my knee with some possible damage to the knee and my heel. Later that evening I had a 4 hour operation to put a titanium pin right through my femur, held in by 4 screws.

I was in hospital for the next 10 days. After the first five days the hospital was closed to visitors because they had the novovirus bug on most of the wards, which made time drag even more! I have now been home for another 9 days and the physio tells me it will be 6-12 weeks before I can bear weight on the leg without crutches. At least I know I shall be fine in a few months, and feel lucky knowing it could have been far worse - and I met several people in hospital who cannot say the same.

I still cannot remember any details of the crash. I had thought at the time that the car had come across the white line and hit me but the police reconstruction shows that it was I that crossed the line and so caused the accident - the bangs I heard was my rear inner tube deflating, presumably causing the bike to change direction.

If there is a lesson to be learned it is that you can never predict when something bad can happen on the road and how important it is to be prepared - I am so glad I took the time to make sure I was wearing all the right gear, but wish I had considered the age of the tyres and inner tubes before hand - I had checked them but thought, let's see how they do on the MOT.

Paul at Gov'nors Bridge tells me the bike is pretty much totalled - the forks were snapped right through (same as TZ ones so very difficult to obtain again) and the handlebars, switchgear, tank, seat, engine covers and probably frame are all bent, one exhaust was ripped off. The car I hit was also a write off - the impact took the driver's front wheel off.

At the moment I do not feel sure about riding at all again, and certainly not that TX!