Sometime in the first half of 1999 :

I nervously turn left into the side road, then right into the entrance of the testing grounds. We park up, go inside to a room and sit down. After a few questions about common sense and road signs the fool tells me I've passed my DAS!

A few days later a complete bag of nerves rides away on a R reg GSX750F, praying that I didn't drop it, stall it or do any one of a thousand things that'd make me look a complete fool in front of the bike shop. Luckily none of the thousand things happened.

(GSX750F changed for ZZR1100 changed for ZX9R)

22nd June 2001 :

After commuting to Watford and back every working day for the past two years I know the junction up ahead is an accident blackspot. People trying to pull out of the side roads have fuck all view and numerous car wrecks have been born there.

So I, and the two cars on front of me back off down to approx 55mph. There's one car sitting facing our way waiting to turn across our paths. It waits for the cars, its seen us. Fine. Oh shit, its let the two cars go past and is now moving across in front of me. I'm 20 feet away, 10 feet away and its still moving slowly into my path. The only thing my mind is capable of thinking is "I CANNOT believe this fucking twat cannot see me!". Then there's such a *huge* bang. You know those explosions that blow up a whole building in films that suprise you when you're not expecting it, it feels like that. Its impossible to describe what it feels like hitting a stationary object on a bike doing 55mph. You hear it, you feel it, you feel it as your body is thrown forwards.

Anyway, the only other bits I remember are coming round on the verge once and some nice lass telling me the ambulance is on its way and then the paramedics trying to relocate my left wrist. And then the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling of MK A&E going past as I look up at them. And then waking up in the ward the next day.

Damage (1st estimate) : left wrist broken and dislocated. Plated and in plaster. Right femur : 2" of bone [1] smashed into little bits and damage to knee. IM nail and bolts put in.

10 days later additional : fractured finger in right hand opened up by physios and ignored to this day!

Let home after 12 days. Bed downstairs, restricted to bed, then bed and kitchen, then the downstairs floor, then the whole house... :-)

3 months later at a x-ray and checkup on the progress of healing they tell me that it isn't healing and I need a bone graft. Now I've never had a bone graft before. Fuck, I've never broken a bone before this. Now, nothing could hurt as much as the original accident right? Wrong!!! I have never known anything like it. Try to imagine someone has taken a sledge hammer to your thigh and hip. And then hot wired every single muscle on the upper leg and hip directly into your brains pain centre. You try to stand on it and collapse back on the bed and almost faint with the pain. And thats after a week. The first week is none stop pain. You can't lift your hips up, roll over, move the affected leg.

But the good news is that withing 3 weeks the pain has receeded a vast amount. 5 weeks later you are wondering what all the fuss was about.

6 Months post accident :

My leg was now healing nicely, so they said. I had a checkup just after christmas when they said I could put full weight on the leg. So I did. The physios started me on the "Early Knee Class" which is very mild circuit training for knackered knees.

About the same time I started the physio classes I noticed the amount I could bend the knee was getting less, not more. And the pain was increasing again.

After 4 weeks the pain was intense, I was on about double the recommended max dosage of pain killers and they still weren't doing any good. I went on for another routine checkup and the new consultant came into the waiting room with some x-rays and said "have you been in a lot of pain recently?" "Yes" said I. To which he replied by showing me an x-ray which showed that the two bolts at the bottom of the IM nail had snapped and the healing part of the femur had collapsed driving the IM nail right through my knee joint.

"Arse" thinks I. I'm immediately odered housebound and put on an emergency operation list. This took 4 weeks, during which time I just lounged around on the bed and did absolutely nothing.

9.5 Months post accident :

They took me in (again), replaced the IM Nail and all it bolts (heavier gauge everything this time) and took *another* bloody bone graft from the other side.

1 year and 2 days post accident :

I've just come back from a gentle ride on my new steed, a nice Honda Africa Twin. Bimbled out to see Pip and Lozzo. And *cough* grounded something down on the way out there... those tyres haven't got exactly the same profile as a BT010 have they? :-)

Bejesus, its good to be able to filter and nip past slow traffic again! :-)

Well thats the story upto date. I've left out the obvious off work, back to work, off work, buying Africa Twin, selling it and buying it back again, and the hassle and worry getting some income to live on, and of course the on-going legal battle to get compensation. Not to mention the stress and depression I've been through (there have been quite a few times I've wished I'd simply died in the accident)

The driver of the Merc was found guilty of DWODC&A and got 6 points, a £500 fine and £1k costs.

And I'm still on a waiting list to get my left wrist fused together so I can use it (will give me 50% limited movement but no pain, touch wood), and when the damaged leg is a lot stronger (and probably when I've waited another 14 months on another waiting list) I've got to persuade them to even up the lengths of my legs.

Oh yes, thats where the Two Inches comes in, the smashed leg is now 2" ~ 2.5" shorter than the good leg! :-)

So do you still want to be a biker? Remember this was completely someone elses fault. I still want to ride. I have just done!. Don't ask why. Maybe it's because I've got no responsibilities, no family, kids or g/f / wife. Whatever, biking *rocks*, and so long as I can, I will.

Also I'd like to add that before this happened I was getting well into ukrm socialising and partying. Over the past year I've withdrawn from the newsgroup, hiding in IRC every now and then. Now, as Arnie says : "I'll be back!" :-) ukrm and its denizens rock too, thank you.