No Regular Roastie

My love, my lady. My pride, my joy and my old boney is bleeding. She is injured. I got swiped off the road by a tiny little Indian lady in a massive Dodge Journey. She took me out and the curb did the rest. As I traveled through the air I remembered, amongst other thoughts, the first real bail I took on her: It was a hot summers day at Witbank Dam.

Showing off has always been a part of being a man. From the first time the hairy hunchback started a fire to please the ladies we have always had an inert need to better our fellow man. There is no better place to show off that on top or inside of something travelling at speed. It has all the angles: Daring, reaction time, agility, strength, focus, bravery and outright silver-back Gorilla balls. The bigger, faster and more insane the better.

So we enter into the gates of Bankenveld in Witbank. It is a larney estate on the banks of the Witbank Dam. The mellow tar road meanders from the main security point through the housing estate, over speed humps and around lavishly maintained round abouts. You trickle past Zebra grazing at the par 5 on your right and saunter past architecturally magnificent houses on your left as you make your way along the shoreline.

I am on my boney. My love. My Honda XL 500S. Matthew and Greg are in his Audi behind me and we are returning from town towards the Yacht Club where we spent the night before and have set up a day of fun in the sun. Now, there is the boring yet beautiful tar road as I described or there is the dirt road that the construction workers use. It runs, for the most part, parallel to the tar road except in the place of splendour and round abouts it has lose track and swooping S-bends. This is my time to shine: Matt, Greg : take some notes buggers.

I drill her down in second, front wheel flicking up off the ground, as I enter into the dirt road on the right. The first section is simple and straight. I have her up through second and flicked into third gear. The back tyre is snaking around as she tries to put as much torque onto the ground as she can. As we come over the first rise the road dips down to the right and then swoops left over a drainage channel which leads the road back up and onto the next contour. 100 meter straight and this pattern repeats itself. Dip right, swoop left and up again. 100m straight. After the third or fourth set I started to get cheeky. I hit the bottom section, power slide out and counter steer up the hill with the front wheel lifting at the top of the hill as drill her down the straight again.

Superstar I tell you. Alfie Cox would be kakking in his pants. Up, over the hill and I cream it down to the next drainage crossing. Power slide out…way out with my bars almost at full lock as I lean as low as I could go when I saw the light. I thought I was mincemeat. It’s game over. Somehow the back tyre caught grip, swung back in and I popped up straight again. “Phew! Almost lost it there” I thought to myself cruising along at 70km/h or so. “Okay, I got lucky there. Stop acting silly. Just take the hump and settle down on the next straight”

There was no next straight. The road aggressively hooked to the right, unlike the sequences before and I was going way to fast and aiming in the entirely wrong direction. PRANG! I left the road surface and hit an anthill (big ass ant hill) square. I took flight over my handle bars at 70km/h and came crashing down onto the turf with my right hand stretched and entered the rough on my side to protect my pretty face. My bike was doing cartwheels in the background hurtling towards me and I remember the front wheel driving into the soil just next to my head as she flicked off into the bushveld.

Longest roastie of my life. It started from the tip of my index finger on my right hand and run all way down, past the bits of flesh missing from my elbow and hip, to just past my ass cheek. Most cheeses had never been grated like this.

Embarrassed and in pain I hopped up and picked her up off the ground. In my dazed state I tried to kick start her while still in gear. She hoped up out of my hands and took a few paces down the road before plonking over again.

Dumbass.

So, she is bleeding. I wrote a blog recently about being taken out on my way to work a few months ago. The damage to the kick-starter has, over time, now worn away the seal and given my oil a little escape route. She bled all over the stoep.

Such a dumbass.