Day 3 of riding saw us cover another 200km; today everyone had built their confidence up, and the pace was at its highest. More brilliant climbs and drops were to end in a series of 36 hairpins within 20km, where we were warned that brake fade would be a problem. Unfortunately I was to miss riding this section as I had a crash that took my bike out of the equation. We had passed through giant bamboo forests and past elephants working in the forests, and were ascending the steepest twistiest climb of the trip.

We were flying up the switchbacks on the six thousand feet climb up the Western Ghats towards Kodighar and Ooty, with Big Mick Beauchamp leading with Nurse Izzy riding Pillion, then Doctor John following, new boy Piers in third, myself fourth and Barney Dumbell in the tail gunner slot. We were having a ball as we had found a stretch with decent tarmac, and a series of maybe two or three hundred switchbacks with about thirty proper hairpins.

The rhythm was flowing, the speed increasing (to a dizzy 60 km/h in places!) when we came upon a nasty left hander which had a bad change of camber half way through. Big Mick and Doctor John got through fine, but as Piers dropped into second and laid the Enfield into the corner, the front corner of a big 3 axle Tata truck appeared coming down the slope, occupying the majority of the road. The first 2 machines had been on a good tight line and negotiated it without a problem, but the camber caught young Piers out and he shot off at a tangent towards the truck.

As he bore down on the machine I heard a distant wail, and he stuck his right leg out to fend off. I had taken a tight line but I stuck the machine down further as far as I could with the pegs scraping to avoid the incident.

Piers hit the rear wheel of the big yellow beast, and was thrown up into the air, bounced off the side of the wagon and span like a frisbee up the road. The front of his bike went under the wheels of the truck, and the huge lorry then spat the bike out like a mouthful of cold coffee. I thought I was clear, but the mangled bike landed directly across my path and I T-boned it on the rear wheel, my bike was thrown up into the air catapulting me up and forwards. I cleared both bikes, went straight over Piers lying on the road, and landed gracefully on my head and right shoulder, before rolling to the ground.

Mindful of the convoy of about 40 bikes close behind us, as the adrenaline kicked in I leapt up, aware that Piers was staggering to the side of the road, and bodily picked up my bike and dumped it at the side of the road. The rear wheel was locked as it had stalled in gear on impact, and the front was locked as the forks had bent back, jamming the mudguard against the tyre so I guess I must have simply lifted and dragged it. The sorry remains of Piers' bike was moved with helped from Barney (it was totally trashed - forks mangled, most spokes ripped out of the hub - it looked just like the bike on the "Dali Havidson" T shirt).

When the Enfield factory boys arrived they dragged the wreckage on to the trucks, and team leader Bobby Lillywhite, a local, gave us a bollocking for riding irresponsibly. Divine retribution was upon him however, as he was in a collision the following day with a jeep. His injuries were worse than mine or Piers', but thankfully not serious - a couple of broken fingers.

I spent the rest of the day in the support bus - only about 50 km, but very beautiful as we drove through the tea plantations on the way to Ooty. Unfortunately the driver got lost and it took us 5 hours to do the 50 k to the finish, which meant I missed out on the trip to the nearest bar - about 12km in freezing fog from the meditation centre where we were staying. Some people will do anything for a beer!