Epic Fail

Today I had my motorbike test…

It didn’t go so well.

I’d done heaps of lessons with my brother-in-law Leigh who is an awesome teacher and had done everything right. I was actually doing pretty well in all my lessons – a bit shaky on a few things every now and then but not too bad overall. I was nervous about the test. I was pretty confident that I could ride ok, just not so sure I could do it well in test conditions.

The morning didn’t start off all that well… maybe it was a sign. Cam was riding the bike down to the licensing centre to meet me there when a fuse blew. He was stuck on the side of the road until two wonderful passers by stopped to help him out. They replaced the fuse which worked really well – for another km or so… then it blew again. Cam hardwired it and drove to Repco to get a bigger fuse – disaster averted!

So we made it in good time for the test. It started off ok – I hadn’t stuffed anything up too badly until it came time for the emergency stop. Then in a complete brain fade moment I fully locked up the back brake, stupid legs wouldn’t listen to my brain, instead of backing it off I jammed it on even harder and dropped the bike over on top of myself on the road. Bugger!

I’m pretty disappointed, I don’t really like stuffing things up. But, I choose to be happy that…

1) Apart from a tiny little broken clutch handle… the bike is fine (Cam’s talking to the wreckers now)

2) I am fine! I had a tiny bit of redness on my hand which is completely gone and a little scrape and bruise on my leg. Pretty amazing really. The guy told me that the last two people who did the same thing (Yay, I’m not the only one!) didn’t come off so well. One broke a collar bone and the other lost all the skin off one palm and severely damaged the tendons! Matilda told me after that God used his special powers to put a bandaid on my hand so that my skin didn’t all come off – awesome!

3) I am not superwoman. Sorry to disappoint. Sometimes I think I can do everything… but I can’t. That’s kind of freeing.

4) If I really had to for some reason ride the motorbike somewhere in Moz – I’m actually ok at it, I promise.

And most importantly…
5) I got to spend quite a few hours hanging out doing lessons with Leigh who is not only a wonderful brother in law but a really great friend and one of my most favourite people in the world. And I would crash again in a heartbeat for that reason alone.

But for now… I’m not going to even try to rebook a test. For now… I surrender!