Unfortunately the trip ended in a bad way.
We were driving home from the ferry on the freeway in tight traffic.
Everybody going 80 which is the speed limit.
There was an ambulance parked with lights going, so we slowed down to 55.
Mathias pulled out in front of me in the outer lane, to wave me down in case I wasn't aware of the ambulance and that bit of kindness saved his life.
Just as he pulled in front of me , a german car came up from behind doing 80, hit the car next to me and slewed across maybe 3 feet ahead of me and hit Mathias from the back, TOTALLY disintegrating his bike.
It just exploded in a cloud of debris. Fairing, windshield etc just blew up. We found pieces of it 300 feet up the road afterwards.
He rolled of towards the median and I zig-zagged through the pieces of dead bike.
The German continued down the road.
Thinking that I couldn't do anything for Mathias that the ambulance crew couldn't do better, I set off after the German, because I thought he was trying do a hit and run thing.
Well, it turned out he had suffered total brake failure, so it took him half a mile to stop.
I ran back, absolutely sure that Mathias was a goner.
When I got there, the ambulance crew was looking him over.
So I yelled to ask if he was alive.
He turned his head and said: " well now I don't have to bother selling the bike". ( He has been trying to sell it for 3 months with no luck)
Turned out he hadn't even got a scratch, except for being banged up a bit.
There is wearing proper gear, for you!
The cops that showed up, were really professional about sorting everything out. There were 3 guys in the car that the German crashed into, they were pretty shell shocked.
In fact, those cops did such a fine job, that in the evening I write to the Staion and put in a commendation for them.
I stayed back to help translate, since I speak fluent German, Richard went with Mathias to the hospital, so he could get checked for organ damage.
Gary, I really wish I had put the camera on the BMW, it would have been some spectacular holiday video, when that bike simply exploded.
But then I wouldn't have been filming a boring ride down the freeway anyway.