Special Crash Update

December 2 – I’ve had an amazing ride from Lima to Cuzco. The first day was a sweeping highway along the Peruvian coast, waves to the right, huge dunes to the left. I made it to the Nazca line and paid the 60 cents to climb the tower to see the lines which were a lot smaller than I thought, I think they were actually made by the same people who made the tower. Last night stayed in Nazca, continued this morning…….. yada yada yada now to the interesting stuff – the crash!

It’s the first time I’ve slid on pavement at 100kmh. Story starts at lunchtime, halfway through the 10 hour ride to cuzco. I checked my email and discovered pretty bad personal news. It doesn’t matter what it was but let’s say when I got on the bike I was letting out some anger inside my helmet. I rode stupid, still processing what I found out and was not concentrating. Usually I’m watching for anything down to a butterfly on the road 100m ahead. I was absolutely ripping the bike through a beautiful valley, which ran alongside a river. Until then I had been trying to ride it gentle with the new gaskets, but now I didn’t care. I was letting out steam and the roar of the muffler expressed my feelings well!

One of the most dangerous features of Peruvian roads probably has a name but I don’t know what it is. Instead of digging a tunnel under the road to allow water to pass, they create a dip in the road and the water funnels on top. If there’s not a lot of cars like this one, the cement obviously has time to grow moss and get pretty slippery. I’ve passed over 200 of these no problem. You just ease off the accelerator and don’t turn the bike or move a muscle when you cross.

This time was different. As best as I can remember, by the time I realised it, I was on top of this little slippery flow of water going 100kmh. I don’t even know if I tried to brake or do nothing, my mind was on the way to do something but it was too late, the back wheel of my bike lost traction instantly and the only though I remember was “It’s actually happening.” I was sliding on the road and my left leg started to burn. I had been through this situation in my head hundreds of times on this trip, considering what would happen in worst case scenarios and what would be best to do, but it was always only guessing what it would be like. I wear hiking boots, jeans, protective riding jacket and a backpack. The only thing was I never knew if it was worth planning for because I didn’t know if you could actually control the slide. As the bike scraped along the empty (thankfully) road, making a horrible krrchhhhhhhhh sound, I moved my weight to start sliding on my shoulder. I wish I could describe this better… I would compare it to when we used to toboggan with garbage bags to get down the snow from Staff Housing. We had to pivot our body weight to slide on our lower back because if your butt just digs into the snow and you don’t go anywhere. So i lifted my legs up and pushed my shoulder into the road.

Then it stopped, I stood up before I realised that I was even lying on the road. It took me a few seconds to realise what happened, and then I realised how lucky I was that I was actually walking. I had a bit of burning on my arm and on my leg and that’s all. Seriously, did that just happen? I look at my bike lying in the middle of the road. Shit, yes it did just happen. I move it off the centreline and roll it to the side of the road. I was in shock, but not from injury, from the fact I was barely hurt. I looked at the bike the front plastics were scraped bad, the handlebar now bent downwards and the throttle was jammed. There were little bits and pieces all over the road. When I had rolled to my shoulder my backpack strap had snapped. which was fine, it took some of the burn for me. My jeans would not have protected me for a milisecond longer. The burns on my hip and knee were not much worse than the football rash I would get on a Saturday morning when I was a kid.

I thought there was no chance I could ride on and tried to start the bike just for fun. It started first time (but revvved crazily from the jammed throttle). After some twisting and bending and the newly styled handlebars it rode as good as new. Truly a testament to the strength of the KLR! I was stoked, and actually continued to make it to Cuzco before dark. Actually, I’m kind of appreciating what happened. It’s gonna cost me on resale and to straighten it all up, but I have learned so much from the experience. For my first time going down on asphalt, it was ideal. There were no cars, my direction kept me on the road and not off a cliff, and I needed new headphones anyway because one earpiece had lost a cushion. My camera was in my pocket and scraped bad but BARELY survived to use another day. My laptop also made it, even though it got a hard knock in my tank bag. Tonight my body is sore, but I’m alive and better off. A small milestone I had in Canada was to arrive in Machu Pichu and now I’m here it feels great.