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Came off the mountain bike 1 week ago, to the hour, at Redwoods in Vegas down a grade 5. f**ked up a drop, ended up going over the bars and headfirst into the ground. Full face helmet exploded, I remember sliding along dirt and tasting it with my body ragdolling behind my neck. It wasn't a nice feeling. Once came to a stop was on my back and staring up at the tree canopy. Can I feel my toes? Yes. Thanks f**k. Can I move my fingers? Yes. Thank f**k. Can I Breathe.... Yesss... THONK(Owwww). Can I get up? No. Things are crunchy. Rescue medics came pretty quick and stabilised my spine, was thrown onto a stretcher and 6 people lifted my ass out of the forrest and into a ute. Ute met ambulance who took me to Rotorua A&E. Xrays and CT scans, quickly reviewed. Multiple broken vertebrae, sternum is broken in multiple places (I over heard the CT tech says "f**k I bet that stings" ). Due to how smashed sternum is, and the amount of force required to do it, they were worried that my squishy important innards took a beating. so got 2x ECGs which showed normal cardio activity. Rotorua then ordered my ass a helicopter, which flew me (wrapped up like a burrito) to middlemore emergency (who have the best spinal unit in country). 4 more X-rays, two more CTs, cardio ultrasounds and ECGs. Alll damage is structural! I have broken 4 vertebrae (C1, T5, T6, T7... so essentially i folded into a staple shape....) No neurological damage, no spinal damage, no cardio damage. 4 days after nearly ending myself I became vertical for first time and got to see something other than ceilings.. catheter then comes out (which took 3 people and me biting on a rolled up towel, the f**ken pain was unreal). The next day Im walking around. I can feed myself. I can wash myself. I can go to the toilet. 7 days after coming within millimeters of the edge, I've been discharged and am at home with my family. I owe a lot to the rescue and medical professionals, and to the engineer who designed my helmet. Will be at least 6 weeks until am out of brace, and then can think about driving again... but Im pretty sure I just won the lottery.

Wow. Good to hear you've come through it. I had a similar experience some years back now. Helmet was probably the only reason I'm around today as well. All the best with the recovery.

Glad to see you’re recovering, I ride bikes as well and can only imagine how gnarly that crash must’ve been. Recently had to carry my mate to a helicopter in a stretcher at the top of coronet peak in Queenstown, never a fun time. Wishing you a speedy recovery!

Great you see the positive out of it with how the medical team worked to stabilise you. There are some phenomenal people that fix us up when we get broken. One of those life events, happy to have survived …. But fu$k, that was a bit close. Speedy and progressive recovery.

Finally got round to getting some photos. 9000ono for bimmersport members before I list it on trademe, Facebook etc. 330d, not to be confused with the 320d, this one has the far superior m57 straight six. Incredibly hard to find in wagon form.

I decided to go the whole hog and change out the master cylinder to better suit the new setup. The new item is from a M3 with MK60 ABS pump which has a 25.4mm front and 22.2mm rear bore. Side benefit of the later model master is the ports for pressure sensors, will integrate them into my custom electronics for monitoring at some point. The swap out will change the (calculated) front bias from 63.4% to 60.5% and should firm up the pedal feel. It's all completed now and the brakes certainly have a very solid feel so pretty happy with the result for sure and was well worth the effort, seat of the pants test suggests braking performance is improved but could be related to how solid it feels. Now for the story in pictures ... first up was the booster and master sourced from Ebay / https://mpartsworldwide.com/ at a pretty reasonable cost even with the shipping. Removal of the 318 item and a side by side comparison reveals that the M3 uses two M12x1.0 ports and the 318 item is one M12 and one M10. I sourced an adapter from Ebay (and unfortunately their international shipping program ugghhh) which is USA made and adapts M12 to M10 bubble flare directly on the master. The other issue is the reservoir from the M3 was filthy and I could not remove the filter successfully to clean it. Ordered a replacement reservoir along with fresh grommets. My alternate plan was to use the reservoir from the 318 but it turns out the retaining screw on the M3 item inserts from the other side making this not possible without machining, who would have thought !! While having both units out I also compared all of the critical dimensions, and successfully confirmed they were a like for like fitment 👍 Disassembly of the M3 master for a full clean, based on what i saw in the reservoir. Can not source replacement seals unfortunately so re-assembled. That's really about it, reassembled everything and bled the system ... happy days !!

Win!

Rant...

this should be compulsory viewing, at 2% of the fleet now but what happens when its 20%, imagine on the cook straight ferry

That’s a great effort. Great that you got all the right care too. Hope you recover well. I’ll just add this, imagine having the catheter in for 14 days.

RIP 540