Swimming in the goo that surrounds my brain, the boat of my thoughts harboured the idea of someday sitting on the saddle and churning the peddles of a bicycle. I had this plumbers blockade telling me it’d never happen. but then my bingo numbers came up while living on the Island. it was fire engine red, as quick as an insane Bolt and 70 squids. it livened me up to the joys of two wheels, of having the cold icey wind cut through my hair. it replaced my imaginary friend and together we rode into the sunset.
but then i flogged in for 80 quid, made me a quick buck and bought a tube of Mcvities biscuits.
After returning to jozi, my boss chewed my ear urging me to saddle up. it was time. i harvested my nuts, sent an electronic transfer and all of a sudden I had this beast in the back seat of my car. Wheels rugged for off road, the frame matt silver- indiscretely welded together to give it the AArrghh effect, the brakes holding anchor at the gentlest of clutches, the shocks turning this ride into a moon walk. these great components all came together to create a machine the great Jackie ickx wouldn’t recognise.
Yes the afrikaaners strolled in to the hinterland to start the great city of jozi, but this my friends is the true Great TREK
It was off to the spruit on a bright sunnyside up Sunday.my padded shorts clinging to me, the paddding reminding me of days on the beach when my trunks were full of sand.
We were going off road, a narrow beaten path tracked its lengthy way mimicking the snaking river path. the flora bushy from the nights rain, the fauna, the rat on a stick.
i was really shyte on a bike, but i figured how hard could it really be. I sat behind my posse peddling, mimicking their every movement , the long wet grass slapping me around, the air of crushed eucalyptus billowing in my flared nostrils, snot cascading from my snout dribbling to a fine pool at the top of my lip, my heart screaming to be emancpiated from its rib cage, my eyes honed, zeroed in on the front mans movements, but then like the smoked salmon at a shmorgasbord, they were gone amongst the trees, vapourised/scotty -beamed up.
i was alone,my thoughts, my friend. all of a sudden the theme music raced,i took no notice. there in the clearing, a rock the size of Gibralatar lurched up at me. there was no retreating now, i was 300 AARRGG. my rubbered tyres attemptin a bite at the rock, rock paper scissors it was a no brainer. the rock gripping and flinging my tire which is connected to the shocks which is connected to the frame which is connected to the handle bars which is connected to ,well, me. sent me and my components on a stairway to heaven, but the return home was a horoshima fallout. I was over my handle bars flyin through the air like a pre blazing zeppelin staring down into the cavernous precipice and waiting for the rock bed to knock me out. My landing was made for tv. my arms were my airbags. the slow motion button released. i was back in real time and hurting like a hammered thumb.
'nah im fine, ill ride through the treachourous pain.' I got back on my chariot,whipped my legs into action and charlton hestoned my way on.
this was no march into the sunset but rather a treacherous road to ammarillo.
My left elbow as able as a beached ship was sent to the clinic, the blood pressure reading extracted in LED from the velcro wrapped around my arm, my bp good enough to 'keep me moving'
I had xrays, my arm laid out on the chilled stainless steel gurney,im sure dead bodies had shared this same experience as my arm. miss Xray nukes my limp panelled elbow. tzdt dzzt and there before my very eyes I could see in inside myself, I could see the bones that stretch my skin, that give me shape and form. it was a truely outer bodyily experience. and there too was the hairline crack, an addict would be proud of.
apart from eating a 3 day over expired yoghurt, im proud to say im truelly extreme.
yours truelly on a fine autumnal eve,
the russian bear hunter, master swordsman and soon to be proud donator of his name to a new series of gut splitting leatherman tools
