I'd had a crap year. I was 20, been thrown out of university, blown up my z650 dispatching (rebuilt one weekend, building one good engine out of two bad ones), I'd also had 5 or 6 crashes that year (I used to crash a lot) - nothing serious, but all had slowly but surely turned the bike into a ratter. By now it was matt black, with drop bars, and some noisy, american 4-1 pipe [ which I once removed the baffles of by doing a kill-switch backfire. No kidding, it fired the entire baffle assembly 20 foot down the road.] The bars and levers, indicators and headlamp all pointed in odd directions.

Anyway, it was early September, near my birthday, so my mates said - "Come on, Champ, let's go for a buzz into the Cotswolds, we'll buy you a drink".

One of the other little idiosyncracies the bike had developed was a tendency for the front brake to slowly bind on. Somehow, all the fluid wasn't getting back to the master cylinder. In fact, I'd spent the last couple of weeks dispatching without using the front brake (except for in emergencies - it still stopped you well). I'd taken to keeping a 10mm spanner in my pocket - if it started to bind, I stopped, gave the bleed nipple a quick loosen/tighten, a little spurt of fluid came out and all was well for a while.

Anyway, we were hacking about in the Cotswolds, around dusk, and in my enthusiasm, I'd forgotten about the brake. We came barrelling into a village (even if there had been a speed limit, we paid them no attention in those days), and, cranked over, I hit a pot hole. The suspension loaded then unloaded, the binding brake decided that now was it's chance to grab the front disc properly, and down I went.

I dusted myself down, checked that the fresh rips in my jeans and gravel rash weren't too bad, and walked over to check my bike, which my mates were now picking up and checking over.

As I approached, my oldest mate Peeb finished giving it the one over and called out "Hey, Champ - you've bent it straight!"