Fell into the water trough at my grandparents’ place when I was 3 and to this day I can relate every detail of the event. Must have been veeeery close.
Fell off my bike and almost put the brake lever into my brain via my right eye.
Rode into the back of a truck at full speed on the same bike. (Only tore open my knee on that one)
Drove into the back of another truck on a motorbike. Brakes locked, only dinged the front mudguard.
Electrocuted myself by not understanding the concept of serial switches
Fell off a ladder onto the concrete floor and broke two ribs.
Done a couple of million kilometers in the air which must place me in some statistically very dodgy risk segment

But definitely the most stupid thing I’ve done is this.

I bought a Suzuki 150 in 1967.
It was the first vehicle in our household.
Dad didn’t get around to buying a Mini 850 until a year later.

A caveman discovering fire would rank close to how I felt.

No more buses. No more going nowhere. No more hoping that someone would come by and pick you up.

I went crazy.

I’d head out to Henderson in West Auckland and buy rough homemade red wine from the Dally farmers.
I’d head out to Muriwai and blast up and down the beach as if it was the Bonneville salt flats.
I’dp otter round up Warkworth way on a Sunday and then decide to go up to
Whangarei – 150 km – to see Isla and Bill and then drive back down next
morning and go straight to work.

And I rode to the very tip of the South Island in early 1969.

Down the west coast of the North Island, across to Picton on the ferry and
then down through Arthur’s Pass to Christchurch, south through
Ashburton and Geraldine and over the Omarama Pass and down to
Invercargil and Bluff.

Back in those days, main roads were sealed.

The rest were metalled – dirt covered with coarse aggregrate.

Keeps you on your toes (the Fast Learning Curve School of Power Drifts) and hell for the bike.

Spokes started fracturing.

I just cut them out.

Didn’t think.

But like plants, the more you prune the more they grow.

Or fracture.

I knew that I had to get them fixed at some stage, but I figured I’d wait until I was back in Auckland.

Snip, snip.

Snip, snip.

The mechanic’s face turned ghostly white when he saw what was left.

He had no idea how the front wheel was still (sort of) round.

No physical justification for it.

None at all