So quiet I thought I would share my recent misadventure

I am ok, thanks for asking.
The story is one that has had a few people laughing so I figured I would share it.

Beginning of December last year the weather was great and I rolled the machine out of the shed early to head up the mountain to Comboyne for coffee and my favorite coffee shop (The Udder Cow owned by the Holsteins.. lol)
I got there 1/2 an hour early, the bike was running really well, so I decided to head out of town and take the Lansdowne Rd to Bulli Rd and head back up Koppin Yarrat Rd to complete the loop on Lorne Rd back to Comboyne.
Back in time for coffee and maybe a bit of breakfast.

I have done this run in both directions, solo and with a passenger, there is nothing too it really, but some sections are narrow and washed out which was expected due to recent rains. I took it reasonably easy. Just before the Bulli Rd turn off I passed a guy and a dog, waved and kept going. Bulli Rd ends at Koppin Yarrat Rd which is meant to go down the mountain and back into Wingham, but has been closed for 5 or 6 years at a washout.

I was going to head down Koppin Yarrat as far as Money Rope Creek (where the landslip is) and then to head back for breakfast, but changed my mind. So I threw it in reverse and backed up Bulli Rd, Dropped it into 1st and turned into Koppin Yarrat to finish the loop.
It is a steep downhill lefthander. I was trying to keep the bike out of the washed out rut where the road crown used to be, the dirt track was about as wide as the bike with a huge ditch in the middle and I was trying to straddle it but ended up with the entire bike on the right hand side of the washout. The left would have been a better choice but the Ural turning circle wouldn't get me there and I was committed before I could change direction.

No problem really, all I needed to do was gently ease it around making sure the chair tire didn't drop into the ditch. Which I managed until the dirt on the right became grass and I started slipping away from the road towards a fence.
The downward angle and loss of any sort of braking action meant I just slid gracefully into the fence. Now if the fence was like my fences - old, slack and shitty it wouldn't have been a problem, but it was brand new Warratah high tensile blue barb with steel strainers and pinging a good B note when plucked. My guess is it was replaced after the fires went through in 2019.

So I was stuck on a right side downhill angled grass slope with the engine bar hooked on a star picket. I got off, tried reverse and started to realize how good a simple little winch would have been if I had bothered to fit one...
Decided to see if I could just get the engine bar disengaged and maybe steer the front out of the fence since I was pointing downhill anyway. Grabbed the front wheel mudguard grabrail, gave an enormous heave and it popped free.

And I went down on my arse from a great height managing to hit the only bit of flat rock on the entire road. I bounced with the impact and about that time two things happened. I thought maybe I should have taken my helmet off first and secondly I wondered how I was going to stop myself from being run over by 320 kilograms of bike intent on making advantage of it new found freedom. None of that mattered really, I knew I had hurt myself and managed to get a foot up under the frame. The front wheel turned back into the fence and the whole thing stopped again with me under it.

The guy with the dog, remember him?, well he turned up just as I was taking my helmet off and assessing the bodily damage.
We chatted for a while, patted the dog and he helped me get it off the fence. I wasn't much use to be honest and he did all the heavy work. Fired it up, and headed back to Comboyne, skipped coffee and headed down the hill some 50k's to home cursing every little bump and knock. Sat on the couch a while before I decide a trip to Taree base hospital was in order.

So the end result was some seriously good drugs, two fractured vertebrae (one of them was an old injury) and lots of couch time over Xmas. The ER guy said I was extremely lucky, a few degrees left or right from horizontal could have been a different story ending in an ambulance ride and a very different outcome. I guess we don't bounce well as we get older.

The bike is in the shed, there are a few scars on it from the fence, but if you squint you can't see them. I have managed to get back on the tractor and get the paddocks slashed and do some other stuff, I can spend a few hours on the ride-on, but I am not quite up to getting back on the bike. Maybe next week. It really needs a wash. One thing I do know is that even though I still have some constant discomfort and can't really lift anything over 25kg's yet, I am eternally grateful as it could have been a lot worse.

Ride safe,
Andy