By Ashter in plaster.

August 14th and the holiday I have been waiting for all year finally begins as Team Banana Racing arrive in the Picos de Europa in Northern Spain for what is going to be 14 days of beautiful alpinesque trail bashing and general holiday buffoonery.

August 18th, four days later and I am back in grim grey Sheffield, flat out on my back in the Northern General Hospital mumbling something vaguely embarrassing through a morphine induced haze to a nurse who then pushes a bed pan towards me.

Piecing things together, the statisticians said it must have happened something like this.

5500 feet up and we crest the last Col, 6 miles of descent ahead of us and excited expectation and mountain mist hang in the air around us. FAST - 20 mph, one sweeping fire road, 100's of loose rocks, VERY FAST - 25 mph, 1000's of loose rocks, SILLY FAST 25 mph, 1 scurrying lizard, DAFT FAST - 35 mph, three long lefts and one sharp right hander, 1 big drainage ditch..................................................... 1 Hospital room, 2 Spanish doctors babbling at me, 1 broken hand, PAIN, 1 broken collar bone, 6 pins, 3 screws, more pain, morphine, 1 bunch of grapes, 1 neurosurgical consultant, 3 hours in surgery, 1 flight home, 1 bone graft, another 4 hours in surgery, 12 weeks in plaster, another 4 hours in surgery, more pain, more morphine, more grapes but only 1 good hand and 1 month off work.....

Because Team Banana Racing can't count to 6 we have since taken these 5 numbers to heart.

1) Carry a Walky Talky or Mobile and make sure that the mobile contains the number of the local police and not just the local Pizza Hut. We spent 25 minutes phoning baffled panicking work colleagues in the UK trying to find the number of the mountain rescue services in Northern Spain!

2) Learn 1st aid. ABC's and all that. Believe me, nothing is worse than coming across the face down unconscious twisted wreck of a good friend who sounds like they are breathing through a bong pipe as blood and sputum exude from their gaping mouth - and you haven't got a f***** clue what to do.

3) Carry a space blanket, whistle, compress and other first aid emergency goodies. We could only offer Ambre Solaire factor 6, mosquito repellent and a Twix.

4) Take out insurance, and don't skimp on the numbers, go for the hazardous sports cover and fork out the extra 20 quid or so. Helicopter lifts off mountain sides and emergency flights home are not easily paid for with your Sainsburys points.

5) Why say it - p r o t e c t i o n? My Specialised helmet now hangs on my wall, crushed both front and back and cracked right in two as a sobering reminder of what could have been. Without it, the contents of my head would have been sloshing around the insides of the bag as they loaded me into the cargo hold to fly my body home. And my Oakleys M-frames, God bless 'em, they sacrificied themselves for me. The scaring on my cheek bone starts exactly where the Oakley shield stopped.

P r o t e c t i o n - enuff' said.

5.5) Yes I could have ridden slower, yes I shouldn't have ridden fast around a blind corner, but after 6 of us have been doing this 50 weekends a year for over 5 years and you are frequently riding on the limit somewhere between harmony and chaos theory then a biggy IS gonna happen to 1 of you, 1 day.

I found out, and you will find out that you are not an exception, you have no magical get out clause, the 'Force' will not protect you. You ARE just another number in a prison of probabilities.

So, when someone does shout out that yours has come up, just try to make sure that its not the ultimate calling of the Grim Reaper.

Mountain biking disasters - its a numbers game.

This incident occurred during 'Operation Amazing Cheese' 'Click' here for more images of this TBR world domination operation.