A couple weeks ago on Babar island I took my motorbike on the trail to Tela to see how passable the trail was before dragging along Kathy. I came to one narrow log bridge. There was a flat rock filling a pothole smack in the middle of the trail, right at the start of the bridge. I had to drive right over it. But as I gave it a bit of gas, the back wheel slipped sideways on the slippery rock, pointing the bike off to the left. At the same time the rear knobby tire grabbed onto the rough rock on the side and, well, I shot off the edge of the bridge.  The bike fell straight down with a flip 'n twirl somersault and then whumped the stony creek bed, while I was launched 4 or 5 meters and landed on a big boulder.

Slow mo replay: As the bike went left off the bridge, the front wheel dropped off the edge, then the engine hit the edge of the bridge and forward motion abruptly transferred into a somersault, the whole bike pivoting over where the engine was grabbing the edge of the bridge. The bike pivoted in a cartwheel and I was catapulted into space. But my weight and fall trajectory at the same time tipped the bike into a left ward fall so it flipped lengthwise and sideways at the same time. It just happened to be in a laying down position as it slammed into the stony creek bed, the axles pointing at the sky. 

I vaguely remember doing some fancy foot work and hand placements as I myself made contact with the creek bed, intentionally rolling into a somersault to lessen the impacts. You can bet I thanked God I was thrown clear. I only got a few scrapes, wrenched my back, burned my ankle on the muffler and got some pancake-sized bruises on my knee and wrist. 

As I lay on my back in the water writhing and screaming for a second or two, I was at the same time aware that this display was futile and I'd better get my backpack and bike out of the water before they were water-damaged. Whimpering, I immediately struggled to my feet again and limped over to the bike to stand it up. Fortunately no water went up its tail pipe. The stainless steel tail pipe was now all dimpled like from hail damage, from slamming into the stones of the creek bed. 

So now I had the bike nicely standing upright, parked down in the creek bed and no one for miles and no way to get it out because the creek banks were too steep. I climbed up out of the creek, took off my soaking wet shirt and layed it on a bush to dry. The sun was warm and dried me quickly. Calming down I realized I could make a ramp of rocks to walk the bike out. I went back down into the creek and started gathering head sized rocks to build a ramp. But then some other motorcyclers came and stopped to help and so we just lifted the bike straight up onto the edge of the bridge, and my ramp building was abandoned. 

I pressed on to Tela but didn't feel so good for some reason. The back forks were really bent so the rear tire was rubbing on the fender, making a burning rubber smell and a loud growling sound that caused some discussion amongst the gardeners I passed. Having met with the priest to arrange work with the translation team, I wanted to go back home to Tepa. I sawed off some of the chunks of fender using my trusty Gerber multi-tool, and headed home, crossing that bridge again, this time real careful like.