Two days: two accidents. Ballsacks. Neither was serious; the first was a majorly embarrassing drop from near-stationary coming out of the car park by the office - while all the guys watched from across the road, then had to come and help me pick up the bike, all grins to my helpless fuming. Damn lack of upper body strength - men have to play the gentleman to your distressing damsel and wander over to help you out while you lie furiously in the road letting out expletives so vile that the tarmac cringes and kerbs peel away in disgust. I let the rage and shame drive me on the way to Wales, used the hot sting of embarrassment to keep my wrist down, revs up, the engine screaming for me. And as a result pulled in at the destination just a few minutes behind the first person to arrive. Cue victory jive. Plus it turned out that two others had got into, ahem, scrapes on the way - and I had done the least damage to my lovely BMW. Though it sounds cruel, a shade of relief tinged my consternation for the other crashers.
Accident 2: the Hairpin. After the previous day - of dropping, embarrassment, riding, riding, no stopping, riding some more, photos, riding, applying nosebag and generous nosebottle and getting only 4 hours of sleep - an exhausted cad approached a track for the first time. After a few slow laps I stopped for a long break, already weary - but after lunch and a power nap in the van (40 minutes of dozy leather-clad bliss), not to mention the encouragement of the other riders who were zooming around and swapping bikes every few minutes, I went out again. Oh, what larks! I took it slow, got used to people soaring past me on the straights, cranked right over in the corners and scraped some bits of me on the floor, started to get my confidence up, posed like a bastard for the photographer at one of the bends, hared it down the straight, braked for the hairpin, oh god, going too fast for the hairpin, shit, shit, crank it over some more, fuck, it's gone, I'm trying to keep the BM off the floor with my arm, failing, I'm sliding across the track watching the bike slide parallel to me, scoring a white line on to the recently resurfaced tarmac, then tumbling over myself taking in black green blue black blue green black blue and praying to the gods of roadkill that I won't look like the latter when finally I'm still, swearing profusely, craning my neck to see the F800 lying still as a corpse and a marshal waving a flag to slow, oh crap, my boss. It might as well be a white flag. I utterly surrender. I'm such a tit.
So they pick me up, pick up the bike, and it's not serious. My brand spanking new leathers are scuffed up where they've been hassling the track, my extremeties (shoulders, elbows, knees, hips) are starting to pick up a glow of pain, and there's an overwhelming lack of damage to the Beemer - extremeties scuffed, just like my own. They make me hop in the ambulance, it's protocol - and the fellow checks me over, takes a few details, says he's cool with me heading back out if I want. With a wry shake of my head I jump out the ambulance just in time for my scowl of self-loathing to be photographed by the grinning snapper. Fucking ace.
Everyone was pretty nice about it. 'Shit happens', 'Long as you're alright', and 'It's got two wheels, it's made to fall over' seemed to be the general consensus. Even James Haydon (quizzical frowners, Wiki up a storm) gave me a warm smile and asked 'You alright, babe?' with genuine consternation. I was alright - the biggest casualty was my pride. Lucky for me I didn't want to go back out, because the most complex equipment I got to control for the rest of the day was a stopwatch. And they managed to stuff the BMW in the back of the van and me in the front, so I was spared a 5 hour ride home at the end of the day. I never thought I'd see the time when I'd rather take the van than the bike...
So two days later I'm back at my desk, still a little stiff, aching and bruised, but okay. I was encouraged to take the day off yesterday - neck and arm soreness made doing pretty much anything a hassle (you know you're sore when grating cheese brings a tear to your eye). Though it hasn't been decided whether they'll let me take the F800 home for a day or so until it needs to be returned, it's nice to see that they trust me as a rider, despite the 2 incidents - I cruised around on a sporty Yamaha R6 not an hour ago. And crash-wise I'm 2 for 2 over the trip with a young fella with much more experience who's thrown his Harley down twice in 24 hours and done more damage than I have. The moral of the story, folks, is - don't be a twat. It's a fucking hairpin, isn't it? Sloooooow. Dooooooown.*
- the Current Cad
*Also, don't drop a £7355 bike. Actually, don't drop anything that costs £7355. Just don't drop anything, okay?
No comments:
Post a Comment