27. The Day I Thought May Never Happen

It's been 1618 days since that near fatal day I went for a ride on a Yamaha WR450 wearing a t-shirt, shorts and runners and two minutes later, I was laying under it with my leg stuck in the ground and my foot sitting next to me attached only by the achilles tendon.

The bike in question just on a different day when I believed I was invincible. Not even a fucking helmet!

Just let that sink in, one thousand six hundred and eighteen days. Over four years of utter hell. Surgery after surgery, specialist after specialist and oh so many times I wanted to amputate my left leg below the knee and just get on with life.

But someone else had a different plan for me, and I kept my leg although now, it is mostly all but dead to me, a stiff, painful mostly useless lump of disfigured flesh attached to my leg. I have to wear an AFO for the rest of my life to be able to walk kind of pain free but mostly to save it from further damage because if that does happen it will be an amputation. They (surgeons) have already told me that is without question.

There is no cartilage left bewteen ankle and tib/fib. It's fused together with titanium bolts and plates holding in place. It isn't strong and it did not 'unite' as with most ankle fusions.

It's about 4-5cm shorter than my right leg and although I am a tall thin man anyway, it has no calf muscle that functions becaue of the fusion. I reckon I could fall down a single stair and with just the right amount of force snap it pretty easily.

I have to use a ketamine laced compound cream twice a day to numb the nerve pain which is super weird because I can barely feel anything with my left foot but it simultaneously remains hypersensitive and painful in ways the defy words.

But despite all of this, despite what I have learned about severe pain, my first k-hole experience where I thought I had died, and myself, endurace and resilience, one tiny little ridiculous thing has kept me going and it's something that defies logic to anyone who has never ridden a motorcycle, but I knew if I kept going and got back to a functional level that I would ride a motorbike again.

It's in my blood to be oh so cliche.

It's true.

I did give up about two years in, at a really low point after a physiotherapist caused me to fracture my now super fragile leg bones again - I sold my Indian FTR 1200 Carbon.

But I did that because it was definitely gonna take a lot longer than everyone thought for my leg to heal to this point and paying insurance and registration for another few years was gonna hurt more than just saying ok let's sell it on the proviso that I could buy another one when I was ready.

And so I did.

I bought this.

Indian 101 Scout

It's a freaking cruiser come bobber, a bike I would never have entertained riding before the accident. A crusier? Me? NOOOooooo...

But I looked high and low, every auto on the market represented something I have already owned and it just seemed boring or worse, a step backwards. And I'm moving forwards.

It took a while to figure out sitting on a lot of bikes testing their weight and centre of balance because now my balance is nowhere near as good as it was and a cruiser just made sense.

Sit back, feet out up front, and six inch risers give it the perfect 'riders vee' and it felt super easy to oick up off its stand and hold up comfortably.

I liked the new Sport Chief as well but with a massive air cooled 1800cc twin under its skimpy swim wear it just weighed too much. I really need to be able to manoeuvre it when it's switched iff under my own steam or this just wasn't gonna work.

The 101 Scout has a water cooled 1250cc twin under the tank and if you ask me it's basically the new V Rod Harley should have made. Or a least a nod to the Lowrider ST series of Harleys... and it sounds slightly tamer than a V Rod with slash cut pipes but with the two into one S&S pipe I opted for, it still sounds totally horn inducing.

The S&S bolt on goes on

And of course it had to be made automatic because while at first I thought I could endure gear shifts in good boots by moving my whole foot up over and on off again with every gear change... it was pretty clear to me that even on a cruiser it was gonnna be too painful.

And my toes dont work, dunno if I mentioned that but I had surgeries to straighten them out after developing hammer toes in all five toes but the drawback is that they don't really move much and are still to this day super tender and sensitive.

So auto.

Kliktronic seemed the most talked about solution so one was ordered and sent directly to the Indian Dealer in Ballarat for fitment.

It consists of an electronic actuator that pumps the gear shift up and down via two buttons that fit neatly under your thumb on the clutch side. Nifty.

My new means of gear change

It took em quite some while to get it fitted mostly because the 101 Scout, (get this aside quickly its build date is 01 01 2025) is a pretty new build chassis up from the already hugely popular Scout Range (that I never considered before ever) which means that it doesn't have many compatibilities with the said Scout Range and aftermarket parts.. yet. So they had to fabricate brackets and work out placement, then figure out to wire it into the loom and fire it up.

err actuactor

But here we are. It's almost midnight while I write this, and about 12pm AEST tomorrow, I get to ride it home.

The long way.

For real.

Never give up.

Ride on.