Slide like a boss!
At a recent European track event which was attended by some of the best looking riders in Ireland there was one memorable ‘flinging it away’. It was immediately followed by a slide so fast that the only thing that could possibly outpace it would be a last minute clause being put into a divorce settlement.
While the whole event was even more disappointing than visiting the VIP lounge in Alicante airport at least our very own hunk of smouldering sexiness, Mike didn’t hurt himself at all. Not even one little bit.
The bike, however, is now as broken as one of Josés promises not to act the maggot at the end of a great day. That is, of course, an entirely different story and one we’re never to speak of again.
Meanwhile a carbon wheel that’s been snapped like the spirit of a marketing consultant who’s been in the company of a person from Kerry for more than a few minutes is just one of the more obvious pieces of damage done to the bike. The rest of it was malojened* almost beyond recognition.
While Mike initially seemed quite calm and reasonable about the whole thing, the piss poor deserts in the buffet and the long “shining’ type corridors in the hotel that led to the rooms finally caused him to lose it. He was found, at 4am, hacking through Will’s bedroom door but with a badly scuffed S1000RR swingarm rather than an axe.
That last bit isn’t actually true since Will wasn’t at the event.
The whole event, the ‘off’ and not the fictional axe murder’ was all recorded in glorious Vista Vision thanks to the GoPro that was attached to the tail of the bike. Both it and, oddly enough, the tyre from the rear wheel that failed, just as Will had failed to make it to the best MC event yet, so spectacularly, made it out alive.
Fast riding regular, Bar, was quoted as saying “OMG Mike fell off?” before qualifying his question with a hastily added “I don’t care, the buffet is open and I’m getting myself a pint.”
Our hero then spent hours reviewing the action camera footage and reading the data. This enabled him to blame something nebulous before declaring that Will had a similar bike and it was about to lose a lot of parts as Will looked on incredulously. Will didn’t actually look on at anything in Andalucia as he wasn’t actually there since he had a previous engagement back in Dublin and missed the whole entire event.
Another rider, who had already made a fair old go of wrecking his S1000RR looked upon the mess that Mike had made of his, sucked in through his teeth and said, “Hmm, maybe mine isn’t so f***ed after all”.
Both bikes were wrapped up on a stillage and forklifted out of sight as Ian, the rider of the last surviving S1000RR, asked for both of them to be moved out of his site since it looked like some imaginary deity was collecting the things as some sort of souvenirs. This was putting him off his game.
One upside of the whole mess was that a world class writer who was using Will’s CBR600RR, Will wasn’t there, got to lend it to Mike so that our hero could get on with his track time and put that doctors dangle somewhere other than in the soup at the hotels buffet.
The fact that the 600 had handled like a wheelbarrow with a puncture was incidental. Upon getting hold of the bike the young Mike began to sort out the truly appalling suspension. It was so bad that it almost needed a sweeping brush and a dustpan to tidy it up. Will was really hurt. Or was he? We’ll never actually know as he was never there.
The following day, once the springs had been sorted, one of the greatest writers ever to have lived had the enjoyment of riding the best of laps on the best of tracks. This was all due to the ripped southsider sorting out the horrific mess that Will, who wasn’t there, had made of the set up.
Will was absolutely delighted. Not really, as we’ve previously acknowledged, he wasn’t there. Then again, maybe he was?
Later that evening the staff called the Guardia Civil and they removed José from the hotel bar after beating the proverbial seven shades out of him until they felt a little better about themselves.
José hasn’t been seen since. He’s presumably locked up in an Andalucian sanatorium while the staff continue to administer increasingly more powerful electric shock therapy while repeatedly asking “what the very f**k is wrong with this mentaller”.
Tune in next week when Peter has a price for the Doha event and Patricio continues to post pictures of his dinner on this WhatsApp group. The only question that remains is will Will delete this post?