Team GWA, Paris – Dakar Rally

Well, it had to happen some time . . . I entered the Welsh Tarrenig Rally due to run on Sunday 10th May and booked myself onto Simon Pavey’s level 3 enduro course for the 7th & 8th May at ‘Walters Arena’ to get some last minute training in before the race. I was part of a small group of three being led by my old friend Gwyn riding the new BMW450 Enduro bikes, and all was going really well with the first two hours doing some fast trails and gnarly ascents & descents. We then stopped for a short refreshment break before resuming with practicing our technique on riding quickly around a coned off area with the objective of improving our race performance around tight corners, this started off well with all of us improving our ability each lap we completed, until on one of the faster laps I managed to get the front wheel to wash out while turning in resulting in me being pitched over the side of the bike and falling heavily onto my right shoulder. This was a low speed accident of no more than 20mph and normally would result in just the frustration of falling off, the ground on the whole is pretty soft and I wouldn’t expect any injury with the exception of a bruise or two. But luck was not with me and the piece of ground I impacted on was solid stone! I knew immediately that I had done myself some damage and had to be lifted to my feet by Gwyn, who then helped me get my body amour off exposing my collar protruding at an unnatural angle and my shoulder sagging. The pain was pretty severe and I knew that sadly my riding was going to be over for a while, I wasn’t quite sure of the extent of my injury and was hoping the pain in my shoulder was due to dislocation, if so the it would quickly recover once reset.

Gwyn gave me a lift on the back of his bike back to our base area where I was subsequently air lifted to hospital. After being x-rayed it was confirmed that my shoulder is broken along with a couple of ribs at my back, not a good way to start the weekend! At the moment I’m being told that it will take 7-8 weeks before this will heal and that I won’t be able to drive for 4 weeks, but have made an appointment with the ‘Bone Doctor’ a clinic based in Ipswich that has had a lot of success in healing broken limbs a lot quicker then would normally be the case ‘www.physioclinic.net’. I will post an update next week once I have been.

I would like to thank everyone at the BMW off-road school for all of their support and caring and to stress that this was just an unfortunate accident that in no way reflects on the school or their instructors who always place rider safety as a top priority.