Today at Makara Peak I had a slight mishap: I managed to catapult myself from my bike quite dramatically!
I’ve been told that I did in fact fly.
There are four tracks that I usually take to get to the top of Makara Peak: Koru, Sally Alley, Missing Link and Aratihi.
I am well versed in Koru and Sally Alley, as I’ve ridden that fairly often, either as a shorter loop of an evening or if I’m feeling a little tired. These I can do no problem. I get a little hesitant when I venture further up the trail however, past the easier, well known tracks. For me the rocks and dust cause me no end of grief, I slip about, I get my feet caught and I fear that i’ll end up falling off of the edge of the track.
This time my bike did go a little off the edge of the track, though I corrected myself and thought i was okay, until my front wheel got caught, catapulting me from the bike.
I assume that it must have looked quite impressive as one of my friends did say that he wished that I could have got it on camera. That didn’t make it hurt any less though. Following my little adventure I picked myself up and realised that i’d taken a considerable chuck out of my knee and bashed my right hand fairly badly. I was bleeding everywhere and in quite a bit of pain. The bad news was that, by this point, it was easier to continue up the track than to go back. I didn’t mind as I thought that up or down is still going to feel the same!
We continued to the end of the next track, stopping underneath an electricity pylon and looking on our phones to see where was best to go from here. Sadly it was up! There are two ways forward from this point: up the next track; Aratihi or the 4 wheel drive service track, both are up to the Peak before you can head down in various directions. I chose to continue up the track and poodle along behind tmy friends. This didn’t last for very long as my hand was resonating with achy pain and I soon got off and started walking. I did eventually reach the Peak, but by this time I was sore and tired.
One of my friends an I decided to take the quick route down via the 4 wheel drive service track, with the rest of the group taking the mountain bike trails down: theres no point in everyones afternoon being spoilt because I fell off!
It was really hard to stay on the bike, because the weather was so hot the gravel and dust were just terrible! There was no grip and I eventually decided to just walk, and even then I was falling all over the place.
Once at the bottom of the trails, we decided that the best thing for my wrist/hand was to get it looked at by a proper doctor or nurse, so off to A&E we went. And after four hours we were told that I’ve sprained a tendon in my hand and cut up my knee pretty badly. Cue a rather fetching sling, one stitch in my knee and me being signed off of work for a week.
Lessons learnt today: I’m not bionic and I bruise like a peach 
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