CRASHED OUT
Buy good motorbike gear!
I wanted to share a mini mid-month edition of Enjoy The Ride before my last article coming in December, a lesson I recently learnt the hard way.
So, when my best mate Eddy and I first bought matching Postie bikes, almost 10 years ago now, safety gear to me meant an open face helmet and that was about it.
Growing up with motorbikes, my parents we insistent on me wearing the good protective gear that they had bought me, so you’d think I would be smarter than I was when I bought the Postie. It wouldn’t be uncommon to see me in nothing but crocs, speedos as I rode from Middle Park to St Kilda for a swim at the sea baths. Maybe I thought I was invincible because I was freshly covered in tattoos and was not as out of shape as I am these days, I think I was just a bit of a young and foolish idiot.
Singlets and exercise shorts were all that would be between me and the road if I was to have a spill. “I am on a Postie bike, they are tiny and only 110cc, how could I possibly get hurt?” I’d think. Back then I rode everywhere on my beloved Postie, it was my primary form of transport with nothing but a milk crate on the back with a rain coat shoved under the seat.
Just before joining the fire brigade, when I started developing a small sense of self preservation, I grabbed an old “Dri-Rider” adventure jacket from my Dads motorbike gear collection and started riding more in my black and white checkered slip on vans than my Crocs. I bought some gloves from an instagram add and as my safety gear had “increased”, so did my confidence.
Luckily some of the guys in my Postie bike gang, The Standpipes MC, hung a bit of friendly shit on me about my lack of gear and I was able to get the message. I thought, If something happened to me on a ride with those guys, I didn’t want them to have to look after the dumb-ass who chose to not listen and continued to wear inappropriate riding gear. So I upped my game to some good leather boots.
Riding more and more, I slowly built up my cache of motorcycle PPE. Good pants, a really good jacket and some proper leather gloves. It felt good riding with all the right gear, even though on the odd occasion I must admit, I would pop down to the shops on the Postie in board shorts and crocs. And by odd occasion I mean probably once a week up until as recently as a few months ago.
Anyway getting to the point here, two months ago I had a Postie bike fishing trip planned with my boy Veary and I was planning to ride from my house to the Sorrento ferry, crossing the bay to the “Gross-coast”. We were going to ride down to a secret spot in the Otway’s to absolutely bag out on fish, it was going to be awesome.
Aiming to get the first ferry I left home at 5:30am and ten minutes into riding, as I came down a long straight towards the beach from Red Hill, my rear tyre blew out. The inner tube burst (later confirmed at my local bike shop) and at the speed of around 65 - 70 kilometers per hour the tyre came off the rim. I went into an out of control slide and ended up in a ditch, my body roll stopped by a driveway drain.
I looked up, wiggled my fingers and toes and then prepared myself to go into shock, I’d seen a few of these types of accidents at work. Looking down the road, my camping gear was spread out about one hundred meters and I started searching for my phone to call Zoe. Screen broken, it was under my beat up Postie bike and I managed to get through to Zoe after my shaky fingers failed to located the phone call icon on several attempts.
Overall, I was ok. I was super sore all over but I was sure I had not broken anything. My ankle was killing me and blood was running out from my left sleeve and funnily I was really pissed off I had to cancel on Veary. Zoe arrived just before an ambulance that a passer-by had called for me and I was transported to Rosebud Hospital. The paramedics asked me several questions and when I couldn’t answer a couple of them, I could tell they were concerned. I started to worry that I had done a proper whoopsie on myself.
That day I was wearing all my correct gear and it saved my skin. My helmet miraculously did not have a scratch (thank god I did not hit my head) but my jacket, gloves, boots and pants were all completely ripped up and ruined - they did their job, they took the hit for me. With the exception of the pants, everything had to get thrown out, a small price to pay really.
Walking out of hospital, I was so SO grateful for the condition I was in. My sister is a rehab physiotherapy and talking to her later, she reminded me of how many of her patients are motorcycle or scooter accident victims. Often this type of accident, with that speed, leaves people with life time injury, disability and often amputation.
Here I was wondering if the fish were biting for Veary. Literally walking out of hospital I even asked Zoe if I could drive across to meet up with him in the car, she didn’t have to say anything, her face told me it was a firm no.
I’m so grateful for how I ended up and I am seriously indebted to my gear. I have no doubt it played a key role in saving me from more serious injury.
Although I am so fine on the scale of what could be, or what may have happened to others on the road, it still has effected me more than I thought it would, my mental health coping it more than my physical. Small compared to “what could have been”, I’ve had to deal with a heap of things that actually mean quite a lot to me.
I had to cancel the Melbourne Marathon that I had been training months for, a run that I was really excited to complete with my mate Hughsey.
I’ve had to pull out of a 24 hour adventure race that I was doing with three work mates, its in a few weeks. Again hours of training plus I’ve now let down 3 mates and miss out on doing something epic with them.
My phone, camera and a lot of my gear was damaged. My Postie bike was left in a horrible state as well.
My exercise has been limited, I still can’t run or put significant pressure on my left foot. Not only regressing all my recent hard work and training, its effected my mental health not being able to move my body. Man, the physical and the mental health sure are connected.
Here is the worst part. I keep thinking about how I had to call Zoe, who is 22 weeks pregnant today, and tell her I am laying in a ditch on the side of the road after a car accident. Not something any wife, pregnant or not, needs to hear. I am so pumped to be a Dad, I don’t need any stupid accidents fucking up the plans I have for being a parent and supporting Zoe over the next few months.
Again I acknowledge how lucky I am and how worse it could have been.
You get the picture.
If I had not been wearing the right gear, who knows what state I would be in. I don’t want to even think about it - so heres my obvious lesson.
Before my next ride, I will be going and replacing all my gear with even better stuff than I had previously owned. I wont be riding without the full safety set up from now on. Long are the days where I thought I was too cool for it, the cool thing is to protect yourself from the unexpected. My accident was a bit of a freak incident, the bike was serviced and checked the day before and the tires were fine. I wasn’t on my phone, speeding or fucking around, it was just something completely out of my control. What I can control is what I am wearing.
If you ride bikes, do yourself a favor and buy good protective wear!!!
Take it from me, laying in a ditch bloodied and bruised thanking my past self for investing in the right gear. It is so so worth it.
Happy to still be here, enjoy the ride!
Walksey.
