Just don’t call me Peggy…….

Time to dust off this outback location of the Bikemeet blog-site – the famous Crash site! 

So this wasn’t my first crash and it probably won’t be my last, but I hope I never do a stupider one. In fact stupidity seems to be the one common theme that links my crashes, counterpointed by a mixture of pure luck and a strong survival instinct that has thus far saved me from crashing when attacked by various external, natural forces.

External, natural forces? Well, sheeted black ice at 70+mph one New Year’s Eve; Barn Owl collision at 70+mph one June night; Greater Horseshoe Bat collision one hot August evening; hitting a deep flood on the road-crest of a hill in Worcestershire at 60+mph; Blackbird collision one afternoon in Cheltenham; Red Kite very-near-miss after Radar’s 4-hour Custom Build; big Wild Boar near-miss in Lydbrook. And that’s ignoring the staple insect fare such as wasps in helmets; June Bug impacts on T-shirts at 90+mph; bees up jacket sleeves; flies and gnats in eyes, etc.

So when external forces try to kill me I have (so far) survived; but I must feel some unconscious urge to take it a bit further – to test my luck, to push that boundary. I can’t have a genuine death wish because I love life so much and I still haven’t owned a Ducati – one day, one day.

My favourite bike – the Triumph 3TA

My first crash happened at 18 years old: the front mudguard struts on my Triumph 3TA snapped as I hit a pot-hole just after crossing Evesham bridge. The big mudguard instantly rotated forwards, going under the front tyre and effectively tripping up the 350: I went straight over the handlebars, landing on my head. My pillion brother fell off the back – he reported sliding along on his hip and elbow, watching me and the bike clearing the way for him through the rush hour traffic.
Someone pulled the bike onto the pavement and leant me against the railings while my brother went to find a phone box to call home. So when I regained consciousness I was on my own, staring at my battered bike. I got up, disentangled the chewed-up mudguard from the front wheel and straightened out the forks as best as I could. My parents collected my brother in their car and I followed them all home on the still ride-able Triumph; when we got back home I was too confused to hold a conversation so went to bed for 2 days with concussion.
The stupidity bit? Well, I had noticed some time ago that one of the two mudguard struts had broken, but had left it until the other one eventually failed.

The Honda C50 with boy racer attached

The second crash, at 20 yrs old, was far less serious. I’d sold the 3TA to go travelling and then inherited a C50 Honda when I got back, penniless. Never one to turn down a gift horse, I soon learnt what a versatile and tough little bike the step-through was, especially in the snow. So one evening coming back from work I found myself wedged in the middle of a hedge, still on the little Cub, engine farting away, big snowflakes falling, with the front wheel in a field and the back end of the Honda flush with the hedge. When I’d stopped laughing I took a good fifteen minutes to extricate myself and the bike from the sharp clutches of the hawthorn.
The stupidity? I’d been seeing if I could still wheelie the little bike in three inches of snow. I could, but not in a controlled direction.

M/c course at Rufforth airfield, York

The third crash, aged 59, took stupidity to a higher level altogether. It was the end of a 2-day motorcycle course at Rufforth Airfield, just last week: our group of 5 riders had learnt a lot about the dynamics of motorcycle riding, the physics of gyroscopic forces, counter steering, positive steering, backing in, traction, etc. The last part of the course involved using the knee-down technique to judge when we were cornering safely (the knee being the first warning, the boot being the second warning, and the peg being the final warning). The point being that when the peg starts scraping it’s time to lay off a little…..
But as our instructor pointed out, I’m a ‘knee man’ – someone who hangs his knee out happily on the straights but who tucks it in instinctively as soon as he starts banking over into the corner. It’s a hard-wired control reaction (yes, I am a control freak – it’s how I survive!), and is apparently very difficult to over-ride.
But I thought I could overcome this instinctive action and taking the instructor’s stripped down but heavily bunged Kawasaki ER6 I started banking further and further over into the corners. Afterwards the group said that I kept tucking my knee in just before it touched down on the tarmac; I felt that it was really close and there was no way in hell that I was going to leave the course without joining the knee-down club.
So when I felt and heard the peg scrape I thought: ‘Ah, I must be leaning right over – just another couple of degrees and I’ll get that bloody knee down!’
Well, the scrape mark was well over 10 metres long by the time the peg dug in; my knee did indeed touch down on the tarmac, followed in very short order by my hip, shoulder and head, as we crashed gracelessly to the floor in a shower of sparks and curses.
I saw a few stars but thought I was unscathed until a bit later the adrenaline subsided and my left hand started swelling. After 3 hours in York A&E it transpired that I’d torn my UCL (Ulnar Collateral Ligament), chipped the outer thumb bone and sprained the middle finger second joint. Thanks to my gleaming new soft cast I’m now giving the ‘thumbs up’ and ‘middle finger’ signals at the same time…. Talk about mixed messages!
The stupidity aspect of this crash? There is no ‘knee-down club’.

Mixed messages

For the purposes of this blog I’ve defined a crash as a bike accident at over 5mph, thus ignoring last year’s 2kph Explorer topple in Spain, described elsewhere.

Now I can’t believe that I’m the only contributor to Bikemeet who is continuing to crash as I get into my dotage – so let’s hear from the rest of you… 

Cheers!