The Ride from Hell or the worst ever trip you have had....

[NordieBoy]

My black burn stain remains on the road today and it reminds me every time I ride past.

"Yep. Did a burnout there once"...

Has a certain ring to it...

[dmc]

Riding home from Akaroa with a broken ankle wasn't much fun.

[Peril]

Every trip on the Tenere is a bad trip.Something usually goes wrong with it.

[AlpinePossum]

Post some photos, stories and highlights from your 'trip from hell'

Ok, I certainly can't top the "flaming ducati" guy....

Anyhoo, I decided to see what Swaziland was like... it's a wee inland mountainous kingdom on the eastern side of Southern Africa.

The trip down was absolutely beautiful, nothing much eventful except to learn that rotten logs are slippery as hell under the bark. (Front wheel gripped the bark, ripped it all off and went off side-aways whilst in true newtonian fashion I carried on straight forward.)

(Why was I driving over logs you ask? Something about being utterly unable to resist "long short cuts" very much off the road)

One morning up in the mountains I woke surrounded by brilliant red headed millipedes crawling everywhere through the misty twisty rocks. Deeply weird.

Got hungry and decided to look for a restaurant as a change from my camp cooking... Saw a sign and followed it down a dirt track. Missed the restaurant and then heard a devil of a racket. Bellowing like the apocalypse was right here, right now.

A bunch of guys had a rope around the back legs of a cow and was hauling up a tree.

I decided that would be a Good place to eat that night. Obviously the beef was going to be fresh....

Got to the far end of Swaziland when a ute undertook me whilst I was turning right. Except he hit my rear wheel. (I'm rather nervous about metal plated idiots coming up behind me these days for some reason...)

So I'm lying on my back looking at the stars... and the driver comes up and grabs my ankles... and starts pumping them. That's right, picks up my ankles and pumps them like I'm riding a bicycle and he's the pedals.

I think it's some Swazi form of artificial respiration.

Great idea... except I'm not winded... and my ankle doesn't feel too good.

So eventually I get him to stop and then say I'm Ok, I'm Ok, and to soothe them down I stand up...

...and fall straight down again.

Left ankle is broken.

Anyhoo they get me to the local hospital and get a cast on it.

So now I've got to get me and bike many hundreds of km's home.

With a cast on left leg.

The one that changes gears.

Friendly hotel owner wires an old pool cue to the gear shift and loosely to handlebars.

So off I go... Clutch in, right hand off throttle, grab pool cue, yank it up, clutch out, grab throttle...

Oh yes. This is on ye olde kick start bike.

Fortunately the Swazi's are an absolutely marvelously friendly bunch. I always get a bunch of guys who offer without even asking to start the bike for me.

Doc gave me a supply of nice little blue pills to kill the pain.

Way too few.

So it's blue pill in the morning when I'm driving... several vodka's when I stop at night to get to sleep. Those work better than blue pills... but no good if you trying to ride.

Get home and to the doc for a check up. All the hopping around has made things worse... he needs to reset the bone.

Except his anesthetic turns the blood in my veins into peanut butter, destroying the vein and just plain not working to stop the pain...

Remind me why I'm back to motorbiking again?

Oh yes, it's that "unable to resist the 'long short cuts' very much off the road" thing again.

[bart]

Poor bugger. That would suck.

I broke my gear change ankle playing rugby when I was a young fella. Peice of bailing twine attached to the gear lever and draped across tank, and attached to right side of handle bar, and I was away. Down changes were easy with the cast. Up changes, pull in clutch with left hand, pull bailing twine with right, away you go.......got very interesting when you had to stop though.

[Jules13]

AlpinePossum I love the way you tell a story. Just when I was feeling yuk looking at poor monstamans bike feeling like it was a death you made me smile with your story.

[Waihou Thumper]

Ok, I certainly can't top the "flaming ducati" guy....

Anyhoo, I decided to see what Swaziland was like... it's a wee inland mountainous kingdom on the eastern side of Southern Africa.

The trip down was absolutely beautiful, nothing much eventful except to learn that rotten logs are slippery as hell under the bark. (Front wheel gripped the bark, ripped it all off and went off side-aways whilst in true newtonian fashion I carried on straight forward.)

(Why was I driving over logs you ask? Something about being utterly unable to resist "long short cuts" very much off the road)

One morning up in the mountains I woke surrounded by brilliant red headed millipedes crawling everywhere through the misty twisty rocks. Deeply weird.

Got hungry and decided to look for a restaurant as a change from my camp cooking... Saw a sign and followed it down a dirt track. Missed the restaurant and then heard a devil of a racket. Bellowing like the apocalypse was right here, right now.

A bunch of guys had a rope around the back legs of a cow and was hauling up a tree.

I decided that would be a Good place to eat that night. Obviously the beef was going to be fresh....

Got to the far end of Swaziland when a ute undertook me whilst I was turning right. Except he hit my rear wheel. (I'm rather nervous about metal plated idiots coming up behind me these days for some reason...)

So I'm lying on my back looking at the stars... and the driver comes up and grabs my ankles... and starts pumping them. That's right, picks up my ankles and pumps them like I'm riding a bicycle and he's the pedals.

I think it's some Swazi form of artificial respiration.

Great idea... except I'm not winded... and my ankle doesn't feel too good.

So eventually I get him to stop and then say I'm Ok, I'm Ok, and to soothe them down I stand up...

...and fall straight down again.

Left ankle is broken.

Anyhoo they get me to the local hospital and get a cast on it.

So now I've got to get me and bike many hundreds of km's home.

With a cast on left leg.

The one that changes gears.

Friendly hotel owner wires an old pool cue to the gear shift and loosely to handlebars.

So off I go... Clutch in, right hand off throttle, grab pool cue, yank it up, clutch out, grab throttle...

Oh yes. This is on ye olde kick start bike.

Fortunately the Swazi's are an absolutely marvelously friendly bunch. I always get a bunch of guys who offer without even asking to start the bike for me.

Doc gave me a supply of nice little blue pills to kill the pain.

Way too few.

So it's blue pill in the morning when I'm driving... several vodka's when I stop at night to get to sleep. Those work better than blue pills... but no good if you trying to ride.

Get home and to the doc for a check up. All the hopping around has made things worse... he needs to reset the bone.

Except his anesthetic turns the blood in my veins into peanut butter, destroying the vein and just plain not working to stop the pain...

Remind me why I'm back to motorbiking again?

Oh yes, it's that "unable to resist the 'long short cuts' very much off the road" thing again.

Yes, these are the things that keep us riding and coming back...
Those hard luck rides from hell we all read about on ADV.com and here....
It is good to know that we all still have some wierd, wacky tales to share.....

[Monstaman]

Faarrrkk, you win. I'm not going to even try and compete with that.

You don't have to mate it is not recommended ... do NOT try this at home

The first post would be the show stopper....

Wasn't meant to be, I am sure there are many more and worse, I have a really bad one in which we let a mate go on the road in my arms as probably a few of have, not gonna talk about that one tho, bike baddies is far enough for me and at least keeps a positive spin on our crazy recreation .

"Yep. Did a burnout there once"...

Has a certain ring to it...

Never thought of it like that, next rally I go to with a burnout contest I will larf remembering your post.

Ok, I certainly can't top the "flaming ducati" guy....

Glad you can't and don't.

Very cool story you wrote and one that inspires you to carry on in face of injury and doubt love it!!