Psychotic Breakdowns

The quote for today is "This is going on the blog". We'll come back to this in a minute.

First, sorry for the lack of noise, but I've been away a bit. Proper away. To Ibiza, with The Missus and the Wee Yin and a bundle of people whom I am privileged to call "friends". There was Chief, Chief-esse, Young Sky, Isabella (Danish princess who happens also to be the Missus of young Sky), my gangly friend and his Missus.

I flew out this time. Finished work on Friday, flew out Friday night complete with laptops (yes, two of them) and mobile phone. The Missus and the Wee Yin were already there. So, just to set the scene for you, I am on the bus from the car park to the airport logged into work computers trying to un-fuck things (pardon the language). Saturday morning, with the princely sum of a couple of hours sleep, I am on the phone again and logged in again. Monday, I'm at it again. You get the idea.

I was supposed to be coming back on Saturday night (yes, a 1-night stopover) and failed to do this - the plan being that I'd come back Monday instead. Then, during Monday, something just went pop. Big pop. Super-duper pop.

So I'm in a conference call discussing Very Important Stuff hearing the Wee Yin splashing around in the pool and trying to perform a coup d'etat against Young Sky who had become the self-declared "King of the Pool" (which involved staying on the floating li-lo without being toppled off). I'm listening to my mighty mighty friends chatting and laughing. I see sunshine. And I'm on my fucking mobile phone talking about stuff that - in the grand scheme of things - doesn't matter.

We have just lost cabin pressure. I am Jack's festering anger. I kind of told them on the call that I couldn't help them and they really needed to find somebody who had the skills and knowledge they need. Thanks. Goodbye. That was on Tuesday. I will turn up at work on Monday to find out if I still have a job or not.

So, anyway, this cabin pressure thing. After some fairly distressing trauma - including bawling my eyes out to Young Sky that I wished I could be as clever and brilliant as he is - and some massive amount of support from my friends (including gay hugs from Young Sky and Chief and my gangly friend) I end up completely on my back just wanting to die. Really. Just wanting my heart to stop and not take another beat. Not able to eat. Not able to move. Not able to smile. Words flashing through my brain - words like gnawing, biting, gnashing, frothing - those kinds of words.

After being on such a high for so long, this hit me like a truck. It was like being pile-driven to the floor by a grizzly bear who you had stolen something from. I started to turn my mighty intellect, and knowledge of the laws of Physics, to what I thought was good use. You know, things like "is there enough fuel in the little AJP to fill the garage with enough carbon monoxide to kill me if I run it for long enough with the doors closed?". That kind of useful stuff.

So I'm shaving, and The Missus walks in the bathroom:

"Are you OK?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I'm smack bang in the middle of a psychotic breakdown"

"OK. Do you want fries with that?"

God bless her. And God bless my friends. I've said before that the nicest people I've ever met are the ones I've met through biking, but that's only half-true - and I realised the flaw this week.

The truth is, that it is me who has changed since I discovered biking. It is me who is more open about being ill and all that that means. It is me who is letting my guard down and being prepared to see kindness and friendship where I refused to see it before.

In other words, it is not that the people I have met through biking are the nicest people in the world. It is that I have discovered that I am not a leper and that people actually do care, and it is biking which has caused me to open up and allow the kindness and goodness of these people in. I am so lucky, and privileged, to have friends like I have. I really am.

Martin had a bit of a problem. He had a trail riding day booked today - Enduro Africa - and couldn't do it. I had agreed to do it. He was getting very worried indeed - I hadn't been in touch, and the people were arriving today. He was concerned that (his words) I might have just gone walkabout and disappeared. He was concerned that this would have given the guys today a bit of a problem and, also in his words, that I wouldn't be whipping his ass in the near future on the enduro track.

The thing is, that I was never going to let him down - no matter how bad I felt or how unwell I was. So, persuaded by The Missus, I set off this morning to AJP for the Enduro Africa day. Martin couldn't do it and I was out on my own - he was relying on me.

We had Chris, a grinning ex-Air Force ski-ing champion (yes, they ski in the RAF but don't ask me why) who hailed from Sheffield. He worked with massive gas turbines in power stations in some very scary parts of the world. We had Dave - who started life as a shelf stacker in a massive supermarket and now ran the place. We had Graham - who manages and keeps safe the M25 - and we had Alan, who drove all the way from Manchester to be with us today.

All Enduro Africa guys. All novices. All looking forward to it. As soon as I put the lid on, so was I.

This must be how Batman feels. This must be how Darth Vader feels. Once that lid goes on, I am a different person. I am an enduro rider. I am an offroad instructor. I am riding the fucking Husaberg apparently. I am armoured, invincible and utterly utterly focused on looking after the guys who have put themselves in my care. Utterly focused on not letting Martin down. Utterly focused on making sure that these guys know how to take care of themselves in Africa. I am an offroad instructor.

We did all the usual stuff - up on the pegs and all of that good stuff - and worked the day the way I like to work it. The morning is very stop-start. There's lots of stop-talk-explain-show-do cycles going on. The explain part is, I think, the most important part. It's not enough to know what to do, you need to know why you're doing it. Only then can you apply it to different situations.

For example, standing on your pegs. I could just say to the guys "stand on your pegs". But if they didn't know why this was a good thing, then what use would it be? When I explain how this puts your weight at the lowest point of the motorcycle and lowers your centre of gravity, then it makes sense. They know why. They're not just doing what they're told, they're developing their own riding style based on what they know. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. People always learn things better if they understand what's going on rather than simply learning by rote.

So the morning was lots of this. Lots of explaining and doing and then doing again a little differently this time. And boy, did it show.

Graham, during an uphill momentum lesson, forgot to pull in the clutch at the top of the hill and gave it 'andful instead. The resulting wheelie and backwards somersault was spectacular. He spent the rest of the day boasting about how little Jane had thrown herself on her back with her legs in the air - he has this effect on women apparently.


Yet, by the end of the day at the BMX track, he was coasting up hills and rolling over the top almost at a standstill. Then, in perfect control, rolling down the other side and setting himself up for the tight hairpin turn before having to give it 'andful to get momentum for the next hill.

At 10:30 this morning, such a thing was not possible. By 4:30 this afternoon, these guys were some of the most confident and competent enduro riders that will be in Africa in October. I stood there, watching, and had tears in my eyes - I really did. It was a privilege, an honour, to have been part of that transformation.

Dave, who had never ridden offroad before, was terrified this morning - he couldn't even get on and off the bike without tentatively putting the siestand down first. By lunchtime, I couldn't keep his front wheel on the ground - the thing he loved most about being offroad was the opportunity it gave him to get the bike off the ground.

And Chris, well he was more of a Marine than an Airman. For one thing, he was game for anything. He had the most infectious grin that would have made a Cheshire Cat jealous. Constantly up-beat, the kind of guy you'd not mind being stuck in a sweeper truck with for a few days.

Don't ask me how he did it, or how Physics even went along with such an absurd idea, but he rode over the top of an upturned .303 bullet. It sunk right into his tyre until there was only about a quarter inch sticking out of it. Bearing in mind that a .303 bullet is nearly 3 inches long, that gives you some idea of how deep it went. One of the downsides of riding on a military firing range I suppose.

Out came the slime, to fill the tyre, and the pliers to get the bullet out. Out came the cable ties to hold the tyre on to the rim. Out came a broken front brake lever - which I had changed earlier in the day - and I took the threaded bolt out of it. I screwed it into the hole in the tyre (about half and inch diamter of hole) to try and keep it shut. I found a bottle top, punched a couple of holes in it, and cable-tied this little lot on top of the threaded bolt to keep it in place. More slime was applied into the tyre. Slime expands when it makes contact with air, and the idea was to keep the tyre inflated so we could ride home.

The guys were absolutely amazed at this piece of jury-rigging. They had never seen anything like it before. They didn't realise that it was par for the course for when we're out on the Plain - we carry pretty much everything we need to do pretty much anything to a bike to make it rideable. Chris turned to Graham and delivered the quote of the day:

"This is going on the blog"

I asked which of them kept a blog. Neither of them did, and everything went a bit quiet. Then it dawned on me which blog they were talking about.

I think that they didn't know whether to say anything more or not - especially if they read my posting about the "Dakar nutter" a few weeks back. And me? I really didn't mind at all. In fact, I was rather proud that they had even read my blog, even if I was a little sad if I've created an impression that it's not OK to talk about my illness.

If people can take the piss out of you, then it means they're comfortable with you and vice-versa. There are no awkward silences between people who are comfortable with eachother - there are only silences, and they're never awkward. I'd much rather people said things like "you know what, I never expected that mentally ill people would be so ugly" rather than not say anything.

Anyway, there was no drama and no trauma. The guys were having a great time and so was I. Nobody was getting upset today. And yes, it did go straight on the blog - as you knew it would. Thank you for taking the time to read.

And here's a funny thing. I'm willing to bet that part of it was that I didn't, well, seem mentally ill. I was teaching them to ride bikes and (even if it's me who says so) I was doing a damn good job of it. So it surely couldn't have been me could it? It must have been another John, another Martin, another AJP. I mean, could you really say to somebody - "Sorry mate, I thought you were somebody else, a mentally ill guy"? I don't think I could.

Chris rode with a flat tyre for a fair few miles and then swapped for the Husaberg. Her name is Hoop. Hula-hoop. Hooligan hoop. I took the sick little PR3 with the very flat tyre - Nadia - and rode her back through the woods and roads back to AJP. It's quite exciting riding a bike with a flat tyre which is cable-tied to the rim. A year ago, I'd have been terrified at the prospect. Today, I knew that it was just part and parcel of long rallies and I should be grateful that it was the back tyre and not the front one.

Anyway, Chris and Graham are coming back in a few weeks and bringing some mates. Graham took Martin aside when we got back and said something about how fantastic I had been and how I was a real asset to Martin. Much grinning and handshaking. I felt very very proud.

So, that's a psychotic breakdown, a bullet, and proud as punch in a single week. When I talk about the savage beauty of mental illness - maybe you kind of see what I mean.

Fries with that anyone?