day 16, sunday 15th august 99

I'm up at 8:00 a.m. Jeremy is up but heading back to bed, marvin's stirring but everyone else is still asleep. I have several teas at the cafe and admire the woman working behind the counter. I also use this time to wake up and catch up on this journal. It starts raining as Jeremy joins me. We are slowly joined by the others and we mooch around heavily enchanted by an Aussie sex-goddess that has wandered into the cafe. An extended breakfast is enjoyed and we finally pack up and leave at noon.

We decide to ride in smaller groups. Jeremy and I head up into the Alps and "the zone". The weather dries up and we have a good two hours hooning through the Austrian Alpine roads and (we think) get ahead of the others by some considerable distance.

I'm really thrashing the Trixie now, working the suspension, tyres and engine to what are, at least, my limits, and (I think) well on the way to theirs. Wonderful! We decide to forget the idea of lunch and press on for the first objective, Radstadt.

On a descending mountain road, while Jeremy and I were working the bikes and ourselves pretty damn hard, some bloke on a SuperMono cruises past us, legs dangling, not even bothering to put his feet on the pegs. He went past so quickly I thought I'd stopped and nearly got off to see what had gone wrong. He obviously knew the road really well and was in possession of more than your average fistful of skill. Git!

The rain starts again, really heavily now. We pull into a sheltered area for a while and wait for a gap in the clouds. While we're waiting, I check Trixie's oil level – they're known for drinking a bit of oil when pushed hard. Damn! The level is right down – barely showing in the sight glass. I have been banging here off the red line right through the gears all afternoon and should've remembered the oil situation. Have I got oil on me? Have I hell. As we pass some garages on the way, I look for oil, but they all have the wrong stuff.

In a rather pretty village, we meet up with the others at yet another petrol station that doesn't stock SG rated oil. The view here is very pastoral and rather lovely, in that cleaned-up and sanitised Austrian way.

 

view

 

We leave about five minutes before they do and head off for the next town. Soon I'm slapping a litre of the Right Stuff into her in a BP garage. As we mess about clearing up (the oil filler spout is in a damn awkward place), marvin, Jim and Iain go past. A few minutes later, an ambulance heads in the opposite direction. Frankly, it gets little attention from either of us.

Several minutes after that, just as we're considering leaving, an air ambulance goes overhead and lands just down the road. Our curiosity is awakened and Jeremy realises that neither Crispin nor Jeff has passed us. We jump on the bikes and go back down the road about 500 yards to see if it's one of them.

It is.

Jeff's bike is looking slightly mangled on the side of the road as we park up and walk round the Police and ambulance to see Jeff lying in the centre of the road, on his side. He's surrounded by medics and they're already preparing to transfer him to the air ambulance – a curiously military looking helicopter.

Crispin is there, but didn't see the accident, as Jeff was at the back of the group. Crispin did hear the bike going down. Jeremy wanders over and has a quick chat with Jeff. He comes back to report that Jeff's right leg is broken, that he's happy as can be, and that he's clearly drugged up to the eyeballs already.

He's loaded onto the air ambulance swiftly and efficiently and is soon off to the local accident & emergency hospital. While this is going on, the Police are asking for his documentation, so Crispin and I riffle his luggage to produce the necessaries. The Police are satisfied after some while and lots of questions and demand the bike is removed from the road. All well and good, so I hop onto the thing & prepare to take it over the road and into a small industrial estate that is opposite. Until I ask them, the Police aren't going to bother to stop the oncoming traffic. After I ask, they only stop the traffic in one direction. I wobble over the road with no brake lever and very vague handling from very knackered forks and park the bike up. We stand around and talk for a few minutes and then pack as much of Jeff's things as we think he'll want or need into one bag. Iain, Crispin and marvin decide to remain with the bike to supervise recovery. At this point, marvin's really showing his mettle, telephoning Jeff's wife, the recovery company and so on.

Jeff's down

Loaded into the 'copter

Taking off

Off to hospital

 

As has happened before, Andy the Pugh buggered off into the distance on a slightly different route earlier today and no contact can currently be made.

Jim, Jeremy and I take Jeff's kit and head for the hospital he's been taken to in the local town of Kalwang – about 40 klicks away. We find that the best route is on the motorway, but have no carnet for the Austrian motorways. A quick moment of thought (0.64 seconds, or thereabouts) and we go up the motorway anyway, cruising along the road & through the long mountain tunnels at around the ton. Twenty minutes later, we're there and easily find the very new looking hospital.

The hospital is nearly empty and we hang around looking confused for a minute or so, until a friendly Austrian truck driver volunteers to help by translating for us. He finds out where we have to go and we end up on the ward Jeff will be in. He's already in theatre having his leg repaired.

We go to the village and book into a guesthouse. We telephone marvin to let him know the situation and he lets us know that Andy the Pugh has arrived in Ramstadt, our intended destination, put up his tent, phoned marvin, taken his tent down again and is aiming for marvin and the bike. They've eaten (emergency pot noodles) and so aren't bothered about waiting or the recovery vehicle.

Poor old Crispin, Andy, marvin and Iain wait 3 hours for the recovery vehicle to finally arrive and when it does, it takes the bike no more than 2 kilometres across town. They're rightly annoyed – in the time they've waited they could have pushed the bike there.

We make sure there's a beer waiting for them when they arrive and after a short, tired chat, we turn in.

Mileage: 199

 

 

 

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