A few days ago, as I was riding to work on the C-17 motorway, I changed lanes to overtake a car and suddenly saw a block of wood that must have fallen from a truck.

I could not avoid it, and the front wheel hit it at about 100km/h. The block was rather big, and I felt the motorbike lift off the tarmac and the block graze the back wheel. I was airborne for an instant only, but I had time to be perfectly aware of the situation and think that if the bike went into a tank slapper when it landed, things could end up really, really bad for me, so I held tight onto the handlebars and prepared for the worst.

The hit the ground and wiggled a bit, but it kept going straight almost immediately. Knowing that such an impact could have destroyed the front tire, I let the throttle go and braked gently with the back wheel to shed speed without loading the front wheel. The handlebars seemed to vibrate a little, but that was about it, the front tire had not gone flat. As the traffic was heavy and mi exit was the next one, I decided not to stop on the hard shoulder, as it might be dangerous. Out of the motorway and with the bike parked, I took a look at the front wheel and found this:

The impact had been only on the right side, and even though the rim had visibly bent, it still held the air, unlike the time this happened in Kazakhstan.

I called my insurance to see if that was covered, but didn’t held much hope, as this was my commuter bike and had a rather simple policy.

As I suspected, I was not covered against own damage and if I had not seen which truck the block fell from or had a written police report stating that there was a dangerous object on the road, I had to pay for the repairs myself. So, lesson learned: if you happen to be in a similar situation, stop right there and call the police to report the presence of the object on the road. If necessary, take pictures, and do not leave without having obtained a written copy of the police report. Only with that do you have a chance to claim the repair costs from whichever authority is responsible for that road, but even so, there is no guarantee…