My son has had an 'off'.

[661-Pete]

I'm typing from my sister's house near Ilkley where we're stopping the night, we should be at fort W tomorrow evening. Thanks once again everyone.

The mystery of the missing bike gets deeper and deeper. Strathclyde police phoned this afternoon to say they couldn't find it but perhaps it was out of their area? (apparently plod cars are supposed to turn round when they reach the borders of their area). But now they've passed on to Highland who are going to send a PC to interview our son (what he'll be able to tell them I don't know). Anyway we'll be looking around the area ourselves tomorrow. It was a good frame, a Thorn tourer, though (luckily) not with Rohloff - it had a SRAM 7 which didn't work very well on that frame anyway - I posted about some of his woes with the combination, last year when he had to abort his European tour on that same bike. MAybe it's a 'jinx' bike. But it will be a shame to lose it even if it's damaged (our son was too groggy to notice if it was).

 

[fossyant]

Good luck.....thoughts are with you.......

 

[661-Pete]

Update again: I have to take back all I the nasty things I said about police & ambulance not being all there - they did come up with the goods after all! We stopped at where we thought it had happened (beside Loch Tulla) to have a search for the bike, but it turns out Strathclyde police had already collected it and taken it to Oban. So we've got it back OK. The front forks are bent right back, they curve in the opposite direction to how they should, but can't see much other damage, surprisingly the front wheel still seems true and the tyre isn't even punctured. It's a puzzle as to what happened, but I must ask people not to speculate please, my son doesn't want that, he just wants to put this behind him. And he is still talking about his future touring plans so he's being positive!

As for Geoffrey, well we've brought him back home now, he's pretty much OK and perfectly fighting fit, apart from his face which is all covered in scabs and stitches and looks a sight! And one of his eyes is badly bloodshot but we've been assured that will heal up OK. The rest of his body is perfectly OK, hardly a scratch. All the tests they did on him, CT scan X-rays etc., all turned out OK apart from a small fracture on his cheek. He's on all sorts of painkillers and antibiotics but it's mainly a precaution. No photos, sorry!

 

[Coco]

Excellent news Pete. Tell him to get well soon from all of us here.

 

[Dayvo]

Glad to hear he's on the road to recovery and optimistic about a forthcoming tour!

 

[arallsopp]

Excellent news. Pass on our good wishes.

 

[HLaB]

I'm glad things are working out for you and your son Pete.

 

[wafflycat]

Glad he's on the mend.

 

[clarion]

Glad you've got him and that you can nurse him back to health & riding.

 

[adds21]

Excellent news. Thanks for letting us know. All the best

 

[boydj]

Thanks for the update, Pete. Good to know that the damage is superficial and recovery is well under way.

Not to speculate, but........

I had very similar results both to me and to the bike. I was late for school and hammering along, almost there and next thing I know I'm trying to push the bike along and getting no response, while a 3rd year girl was having hysterics standing next to me. Turns out my haversack had fallen into the front wheel, completely bending the forks in the wrong direction and the blood was pouring off my head and face. Fortunately all superficial, but it did earn a couple of nights in hospital while they searched for a brain to check for damage.

That was in 1966, just before I became a mod and bought a Lambretta - - and a parka - proper ex-army one. Little did I know how far ahead I was of fashion riding a single-speed at the time.

 

[dondare]

Update again: I have to take back all I the nasty things I said about police & ambulance not being all there - they did come up with the goods after all! We stopped at where we thought it had happened (beside Loch Tulla) to have a search for the bike, but it turns out Strathclyde police had already collected it and taken it to Oban. So we've got it back OK. The front forks are bent right back, they curve in the opposite direction to how they should, but can't see much other damage, surprisingly the front wheel still seems true and the tyre isn't even punctured. It's a puzzle as to what happened, but I must ask people not to speculate please, my son doesn't want that, he just wants to put this behind him. And he is still talking about his future touring plans so he's being positive!

As for Geoffrey, well we've brought him back home now, he's pretty much OK and perfectly fighting fit, apart from his face which is all covered in scabs and stitches and looks a sight! And one of his eyes is badly bloodshot but we've been assured that will heal up OK. The rest of his body is perfectly OK, hardly a scratch. All the tests they did on him, CT scan X-rays etc., all turned out OK apart from a small fracture on his cheek. He's on all sorts of painkillers and antibiotics but it's mainly a precaution. No photos, sorry!

Thanks for the update and thanks to your son's lucky stars.

 

[mcshroom]

Great to here and good luck for his future touring plans

 

[661-Pete]

As it happens, I have a follow-up story, totally unrelated apart from the psychological effect especially on me and Mrs P (more so than our son!).

Coming back from Scotland we were driving along the A65 Skipton by-pass, Thursday evening, we witnessed (or rather, came very close to witnessing) a very nasty-looking RTA. Collision between two motorbikes, or to be more precise, between a motorbike and a motor-trike. Both bikers appeared to be badly injured. I only missed seeing the actual crash because my view was momentarily blocked by a lorry in front of me. I was one of those who summoned the ambulance/paramedics (who took over 20 minutes to show up, the cops got there earlier ).

I can tell you, it positively gave me the jitters, threatened to awake the nightmares all over again. Honestly I thought for a moment that one of the bikers was dead (he wasn't). I only hope those two unknown guys (both middle-aged men) get through it OK. Not a nice thing to see just after having picked up Geoff from hospital!

 

[Riding in Circles]

Good to hear he is in the bosom of his family again, I know what you mean about the SRAM but to be fair SRAM market their internal hubs for city bikes not touring as such, personally I am not a fan, when they break they seize, go Rohloff or derailleur for touring.