By way of introduction, I'll say that it's summer here (Oz) at present, so getting outside and enjoying the fresh air is very much the done thing. In addition, I tend to be someone who once set a task will see it through despite personal hardship.

Around Jan 7, I posted an invitation on a motorcycling forum, asking if anyone wanted to go out for a ride on Sunday Jan 11, with the intention of exploring some remote forest roads an hour or so away from the city's outskirts. There was only one taker; most people shied away due to the 38C (100F) forecast.

Why did I want to go for a ride? Well, partly I hadn't been out there for a year, partly I'd been cooped up inside on weekends for months after we had a new addition to the family in September, and partly, well, it's just the general nuts-about-motorcycling mania that seizes one sometimes.

Still, I was tired. I had a sense of disquiet, and made comment to a colleague Friday afternoon after work that I'd see him Monday providing I didn't have any issues on the bike. I'm not superstitious, but I don't like giving myself extra emotional baggage to carry and so somehow ended up in a cycle of mild worry, then forced optimism, then worry again.

Come Sunday morning I left early, went to the local hardware market carpark and brushed up on a few motorcycle skills (this is something I never normally do, but it felt reassuring). Everything was working fine. I went to our meeting place and had an energy drink (Red Bull type thing).

Now, an interesting problem started to develop right about now. We were to meet at 9am. It was going to be 38C. A few naysayers had said it'd be too hot, and so I was really tempted to get our ride done before the worst of the heat, reaching the country town we'd be heading towards at perhaps 12 or 1pm. Despite originally planning for a gentle no-schedule ride, I now had a timetable and corresponding time pressure.

I won't go into the fine details of the ride - this isn't about the physics of motorcycling. Suffice it to say, that after meeting, we set off and all was well. The roads turned to pea gravel after about 20km, and from there we had about 60km of gravel before we were to reach tarmac again. Our bikes are not really off-road bikes, but if ridden carefully you could almost take any bike out these places; we were on roads after all.

And these roads started out in pretty good condition too. Smooth. Scenery was great. Saw a few kangaroos. No eagles though, which I had been hoping to see. It was also very cool; the forest is well shaded and a lot more comfortable than the city.

But the roads began to deteriorate in quality, and with it the safe speed at which we should ride was lowered too. I could see my arbitrary schedule slipping, and felt that I should be going faster, if I could.

After one particularly bad stretch, we turned onto what the GPS promised to be our last stretch of gravel road. This road was in far better condition than the one we had just been travelling, and speed consequently increased from a sluggish 30kph to a modest but still careful 50kph.

Cresting a rise, and leading the pair of us, I found myself facing a steep downhill section criss-crossed with ruts. The brain, sluggish with fatigue after the wrestling match that had seen us across the more technical roads behind us, needed to make a fast decision.

The road had been single lane, two tyre tracks and some deep pea-gravel between them. I was riding in the right track. The ruts ahead, hidden in shade, seemed to be mostly centre and to the right of the road; the left appeared to be quite clear of trouble. Presented with this situation, I think the word that escaped my lips was four letters, began with an F, and was not 'Fred'.

Stopping suddenly in pea-gravel would be problematic, even with the bike's ABS. The course of action I chose at that moment was to pick a safe line across the ruts and ride down the left side.

It wasn't so safe.

I wrestled the bike across the first couple of the deep ruts, after which the front suspension bottomed out, I suspect, on the last one, and flipped the bike into the air. As it did so, I took flight and instinct took over as to how to land.

As I fell downhill, behind me the bike flipped 270 degrees, first smashing its right side against the road, then rolling upside down to land on its left. Somewhere there, it landed against my right foot with force, and when it came to rest I found it pinning my left foot to the ground.

There is a sharp pain in my right foot, and I'm initially face down, with my left foot restricted. I roll over and find that the left foot is in a rut, with the bike covering it. The pain in the right foot is subsiding, but somehow familiar, reminiscent of a sprain I had in college.

Struggling to turn myself over and free my left foot, feeling a combination of humiliation and that I'm having a flashback from one of many childhood pushbike crashes, I heard my phone's SMS beep, an odd occurrence out here.

Brian had dropped his bike at the top of the hill, but is up and walking around. I shout that I'm okay.

Unable to put weight on my right foot I crawled around to the top of the bike, retrieved the phone and checked the message.

[Wife]: "Having fun yet?"

Note to self: Poetic coincidences do happen in real life.

Having apparently just come into mobile phone range, I called her back and let her know we'd been having fun until about two minutes ago, but I've hurt my foot, the bike's somewhat damaged, severity unknown. I'll call her back once I have the facts.

I tell Brian to take some photos. I've dropped my bike (at 0kph) a few times but am always so embarrassed and/or motivated by adrenaline that it's always upright again before I even think of taking a photo. This time however, I don't seem to be able to stand easily, so righting the bike is something that can definitely wait.

He gets the bike upright and safely on the side of the road. The front brake lever is broken off, so to walk the bike he has to leave it in gear and use the clutch as a brake. We agree that he should scout ahead to see what the road condition is, and whether the pavement starts again shortly as the GPS and maps suggest.

A few minutes later he returns, reporting that there's 1.4km of easy road before the gravel ends and we're back on a main road again.

With Brian as an escort, I rode the bike home. I couldn't put weight on my right foot, so braking had to be done by letting the heel of my boot drop gently on the rear brake pedal. But, we got home safely.

The coming weeks would reveal I had five fractures in my right foot, would require surgery to have a screw inserted, miss two weeks of work, my private health insurance wouldn't quite cover 100% of medical costs, my bike would cost $5,500 but should be covered by insurance, though I suspect if I was fit enough to fix it myself I could do it for $800 and just ignore the scratches.

It would also prove that returning to work would be a hassle, because I have to keep the foot elevated and have to go up and down stairs on crutches. Being an invalid at home is frustrating as I can't quite interact with the children as well as I want to, I can't just go fetch myself a drink or a snack as easily as I used to, using the ablutions and other common tasks are a lot more effort, and I become an extra chore for the Mrs.

So despite being a trying experience, in retrospect it was also a very educational one. I also learned a few things about fatigue and heat (it was hard to make a quick split-second decision after an arduous couple of hours wrestling a 200kg bike along a track), about overconfidence (after wrestling the bike over more difficult terrain earlier, I may not have given the situation at hand the respect it deserved) and about schedules (sometimes, the schedule is the enemy!).

Though I won't be riding for a while, it won't put me off riding altogether - despite the cost being heavier than I expected, it may also have been just the little bit of extra education I need to be able to enjoy the great outdoors a little safer next time.