First of all I would like to apologize for any spelling errors I may make, I am on a french computer and the key layout is a bit diffrent (and no spell check)
And maybe I should not say “ends with a bang” but “comes to a crashing halt”
As some of you know I was traveling across the country going from Saskatchewan to Newfoundland planning on ending up somewhere in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick but last Wendsday 197km north of Baie-Comeau, Quebec I slid off the road and into the ditch.
It was compleately my fault but I do feel like with all the recomended speed signs on the road they were calling wolf and something should be done about it. The yellow sign said 55, I was going 65, speed limit was 90 and it was raining. All other turns would have been safe going considerably faster but this time the road dropped into a steep decline and instead of the turn being banked in it was banked out (first out banked turn on the whole highway) to further complicate things there was a frost heave right at the start of the turn.
I started to slide as soon as I hit the frost heave and skidded most of the way around the corner and when I realized I would not be able to keep it on the road I straitened out trying to avoid rolling the veicle or hitting the truck sized rock further up the ditch. I was extreemly calm during this whole thing and remember thingking “these things are stupid” when my airbags went off and did not even touch me, seat belts are a good thing though.
As soon as I stoped moving I looked at the base of the Duglas Fir that was partly in my broken drivers side window and the one partialy on my hood. We don`t have many firs back home and they are one of my favoite trees. enough with the trees, how are my unicycles?
My three unicycles that I was bringing with me were on a rack on the back of the truck and they all seemed to be fine. The truck on the other hand was probably totaled. I didn`t get much time to look at the damage because then I heard a truck comming up the road so i got to the edge of the ditch and flaged it down. There were two guys and a girl int he truck the one guy spoke a bit of english and said that it is the third time he saw someone in the ditch on this turn. They gave me a ride to Manic-5 which is basicaly a gas station/everything store/motel. I called my insurance company, the tow truck, the police and took a room for the night.
The next day my wrist was a bit sore but that is all I suffered from the crash, I definately suffered worse playing road hockey with my cousin in Ottawa or going for a coker ride with Scott in Madison. Not bad at all. The tow showed up 20minutes late then we went out to get my veicle out of the ditch and back to Baie-Comeau. It took him about 40 minutes to get my 4Runner on the tow-truck while I stopped trafic. We got back to the shop and I noticed that the driver was taking most of the turns labeled 55 at 90km/h I was not wrong to think that most of them were labeled rediculiously slow. The tow ended up costing just about $700 and the shop would not let me leave untill either I payed or got my insurance to assure them that I could have the tow as part of my claim and that they would be payed by them.
This was all fine and dandy except that my adjuster was in a meeting and nobody else at SGI would help me. Eventualy I got ahold of my adjuster and she told the shop to fax her the invoice.
Now I have been sleeping most nights in my truck but that really is not an option any more so I have been camped out on the far side of a dam on Lac Comeau just north of town.
My 36er was knocked out of true by about 3mm which is not bad at all considering the fact that there was splinters of wood stuck between the bead and the rim so it obviously hit a tree with quite a bit of force. Here is one for an Airfoil/superwide hub setup and the other unicycles were fine even though the rack holding them was bent. An Asseser is going to have a look at my truck tomorrow then SGI needs to look up how much it is worth etc, etc, and I am sort of stuck here till everything is figured out. At least there is nice scenery here and friendly people (even if we don`t speak the same language). I am glad I am not stuck in Toronto.
