‘Stuff just seems to happen to me!’
Our man looks back on a misspent youth... and crashing into bulls!
I’ve done some pretty daft things on bikes in my time. I once hit a bull on the road, f**k that hurt! I was 17 and on my TZR125 and we had a bit of a race track near where we lived; there was a blind, flat out, left-hander and you had to get the bike straight before the jump. It was a bit like the TT for me, like a Ballacrye-type section. I came through there on the limiter and there was a stray bull on the road. I veered to the left and hit my arm on its head. It swelled up like a cartoon bruise! My arm was massive. I couldn’t ride the bike back, it didn’t half hurt. I went home and Becky took me to hospital, nothing was broken but boy it hurt. Another time, I went to get a bottle of wine for Becky’s mum and I had the bottle down my top coming back. I pulled a big wheelie and when I landed it, the bottle hit the bike and dented the tank. I was gutted, I loved that TZR125.
There was this other time when I was oiling the chain on my AP50 and I was spinning the wheel around and Mum shouted that my tea was ready, and as I looked over I got my finger caught in the chain! That’s why one of my fingers is shorter than it should be.
Birdy took delivery of a brand new 999 Ducati and they called me up and told me to chuck some miles on it to run it in. I know the roads round here like the back of my hand and there’s this jump I like to do. But this time I was going pretty quick and when I landed the back wheel just spun. I looked down and I’d ripped the sump off. That was an embarrassing phone call.
I’m a bit calmer on the roads these days, but I’m sure there’ll be more fun and games in 2019. Stuff just seems to happen to me.
‘I LOOKED OVER AND GOT MY FINGER CAUGHT IN THE CHAIN’