Whoopsy

Following on from my earlier story on The Great Crash , I thought that I would tell you about some of the more stupid accidents and near misses I've had on motorcycles.

When I was a young tacker, my father and I used to go to Bathurst each year for the bike races. Dad would ride until we hit the Olympic Way just outside Albury, then we would swap spots. (I was too young for a licence, but the points system didn't cross state boundaries in those days, so little harm would befall Dad if we got caught. We never did.) On this trip, we were a little way after Wagga when we came upon the Quarter Litre Club, who had all pulled over for a rest. Or something. They chose to wait until I was right on them before deciding to pull out at a leisurely pace, creating something of a moving chicane. Interesting at the time, but not the incident in question. Just after this there was a long, sweeping 's' bend. Going around the initial right hander, the rear end seemed to squirm a little bit. I was entering the left hander, thinking about stopping to see what the trouble was, when the rear tyre blew out, coming off the bead entirely.

For those of you not familiar with the way that tyres are mounted onto wheels, this meant that the tyre was no longer compelled to point in the same direction as the wheel. Applying the brakes was not an option, as the back end would have overtaken the front and road rash would have resulted. It was a case of hang on, slow down gently and try to keep in front of the rear wheel. It was at this point that I noticed the first Commodore that I had ever seen as it hurtled through the table drain in a gracious attempt to avoid having a Yamaha bonnet emblem.

I finally managed to get it pulled up in one piece, a riding effort I am still inordinately proud of, twenty six years later. The Quarter Litre Club, which would have been close enough behind to have seen the whole thing, trundled past, no offer to help. Arseholes. Dad and I had stopped shaking and were starting to get down to the business of tyre repair when the Commodore returned, front stone tray hanging off and grille broken. The driver, who was bigger than Texas got out and I thought that I was going to die. Dad's only five foot six and has to wear heavy boots on windy days so that he doesn't blow away. "Flat tyre, eh?" he rumbled, brushing Dad and I aside as he spoke.

"O.K., 4.50 by 16, I'll just duck into Wagga and get a tube."

Which he did, wouldn't take any money for it, either.

Another two-up incident occurred with a mate, Rod Rocket, who could ride like the wind, but broke bikes with monotonous regularity. At the time, he had a V-four 750 Honda, which went like stink, but had a fragile valve train. Every time he broke it, I would put it back together, like the six-million dollar man, faster and stronger. I never charged him for my efforts, so he used to let me ride it whenever I wanted. On this particular occasion (a Sunday night in 1987) we were riding from Dandenong to some suburb I don't remember. We pulled off the freeway at Warragul Road and stopped at the lights. Nothing happened. Waiting, waiting. Did I mention that we were drunk? Anyway, realising that the lights were operated by a pressure switch, and that the bike wasn't heavy enough to trigger the switch did we a) turn left and then do a u-bolt on Warragul Road, b) just run the lights or c) do something really stupid.

Big elephant stamp on your report card if you picked c). Leaving Rocketman to wait at the lights I rode the wrong way down the off-ramp, turned around and did a monstrous wheelstand right up the ramp and locked the rear brake in time to thump the front wheel down on the switch. Hey, it worked. But that isn't the incident, oh no, you don't get off that easy. (I knew a girl who did, but that's another double entendre.) After we negotiated the lights, we trundled through the suburbs to Mitcham, or Malvern. Or somewhere else, I don't really remember. We pulled up in the driveway of Rocket's mate's house, which was full of fairly competitive road racers. Rocket thought I put my feet down. I thought Rocket put his feet down. Ker-plunk, accompanied by much laughter from inside the house.

The most recent one occurred on my recent trip to Cunnamulla. I won't go into detail, suffice to say that when you put a lock through the brake disc to slow down thieves, it is best removed before riding away.