I hadn't slept well. Ramadam's fasting during the day is followed by big parties in the evening. Even young children were up till gone midnight and the noise from the town didn't die down till gone 3.
Breakfast was good and we were soon packing the bikes for the day. I usually keep all my documents in a small leather case which then goes in my bike's tank bag where I can keep a good eye on it. Today we would be doing a long river crossing though so I had packed into a waterproof bag along with clothes and tools. This was then strapped to the rear of my bike along with my lunch under an elastic net.
We rode for a couple of hours on small winding tracks through tiny villages As we made our way though one a chicken decided to play 'chicken' with me He won't be playing again. Other than not wanting to kill other living when riding, the sad fact is the family that kept that chicken may have been using it for eggs and, one day, meat. Left in the road it would only feed the wild cats and dogs.
Julian's bike (well it's Bill's actually) had developed a misfile and lack of power and we stopped so that Bill could catch up in the Landy and look at it. With little that could easily be done at the side of the road Bill told Julian to just keep the revs up.
We began our first off road section and within a couple of minutes I'd made a complete tit of myself. With Bill filming I'd managed to fall off just turning the bike around. Within a few more seconds I'd got it stuck up to its rear axle in soft sand. It was so wedged that that I could walk away from it and it stayed upright! I had to get help from the others to get it out. I was so annoyed with myself as everyone else had handled the obstacle with relative ease.
As we continued the ride I was not concentrating enough and failed to notice two things. Firstly Jim was no longer behind me and secondly neither was my waterproof bag! Realising this contained all my documents I immediately stopped and went back.
I eventually came across Jim. He'd picked up my bag and then waited for Bill. I was even more annoyed with myself now! And I'd lost my lunch!
We left the bag with Bill and sped off to find the group. However, we found no one. We sped back to a small village square to make sure we did not miss Bill who knows the routes. As we fell in line behind Bill like a couple of ducklings the locals started shouting and Jim beeped me. It transpired that my lunch and elastic net were still precariously hanging on the bike. As I pulled over it went through the back wheel turning it into more road kill.
I had reached boiling point. I grabbed it all, threw it in the gutter and sped off to find Bill. When he led us back to Julian we discovered that Phil and Colin were also MIA. As we pondered our options they appeared on a ridge line above us.
They had taken a wrong turn and ended up seriously stuck in the mud. So much so thet they'd had to pay two local farmers to help them haul the bikes out. Their bikes and they were covered. We knew that the region had experienced higher than average rainfall for the time of year. And to make things worse, more rain had started to fall.
As we got ready to leave Phil said "Did you see the tortoise on the trail?", "No" I said, "Ohh" he said. I was now worried I'd run that over too! Could this day get any worse? Ohh yes!
After a couple of miles off road we once again joined some tarmac for a ride to the trail with the river crossing on it. The rain had made the surface slippery and the bike felt uneasy beneath me. I was also dropping back from the other riders. I began to wonder to wonder if I was holding up Jim and if I was losing my bottle.
My intuition had been correct though and as I came around a kink in the road on a fairly steep downhill section a multi-bike pile up was happening at the next corner. Julian had gone down, the bike shedding bits and scraping the tarmac. Mark had managed to stop but had lost his footing and had to lay his bike down. Colin had swerved off the road and stopped in the gravel. Phil had unwittingly also bought a ticket to the bike crash jamboree and now it was his turn.
His rear wheel had locked and the bike was fishtailing badly. On about the fourth swing the bike decided it had had enough of Phil and spat him off. Phil landed heavily on the tarmac next to Colin who then dropped his bike to go to Phil's aid. So as I went by there were four bikes down and two riders down.
I parked up and went back to the scene. Everyone was OK and the process of picking up the pieces and seeing if the bikes were rideable had started. Phil's ribs hurt, but his body armour had done its job and saved any broken bones. We waited for Bill to arrive with tools to repair his bike.
I'm out of time for this blog but later;
* Colin's mudguard got ripped off.
* Wheels jammed with mud stopped turning.
* Mark's bike hit the deck.
* We crossed a river.
* Phil and Julian fell over again - and they weren't even on their bikes.
* Phil took a swim in a pig poo puddle.
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