Downhill Racer's.
I am often asked how we met.
My name is Taylor, I am often asked how I met Cameron socially we are chalk and cheese, Cameron the son of a well-known millionaire and philanthropist, me an unknown from the inner city working in my Grandfathers cycle shop in Pennyfarthing Street. This is our story.
I was testing my custom built downhill mountain racing cycle and fine tuning it for the impending Fort William downhill races, unofficially, in a nearby military training area. The test gully had been formed over decades of water run-off from Salisbury plain into the Chalk valley. Varied from twenty to thirty feet wide over fifteen feet deep with converging gullies, dropping four hundred feet in half a mile, inclination's at times less than 10% and strewn with scree and loose boulders to catch you out.
My cycle, my pride and joy had taken me over a year to build from a scrap, light-weight certified titanium, cycle frame I found. By contrast Cameron's cycle was custom made off ultra-light space age black carbon fibre, costing more than ten grand. Both our cycles were certified to competition standard by the National Governing Body For Cycling.
Decked out in my racing white cycle body armour and helmet I must have looked like a Star Ship Trooper. Cameron in his matt black racing cycle body armour and helmet Darth Vader lookalike.
Unbeknown to each other, we were cycling down converging gullies, heads down, minds racing assessing every micro change needed in front of us, stones scattering left and right with invisible gullies whizzing by. My first indication of Cameron's presence was out the corner of my eye something black moving quickly over my right shoulder.
We collided hard, cycles, body armour and helmets clashed, Cameron front wheel hit mine twisting our handlebars at right angles pulling both of us up and over catapulting us into each other then the gully side, where we rolled down the gully fifty or more feet. Just as well we had parted from our cycles as Cameron's carbon fibre front twin disc wheel disintegrated from the impact filling the air with black shrapnel, I felt it hit my right leg as it shredded my leg armour. All I could see was blood splatter and black bits raining down as we rolled down the gully.
Nobody knew we were their let alone help us, literally we crawled over to each other, my right leg badly cut and bleeding, couldn't take my weight, Cameron's left arm was broken at a crooked angle. Both covered in each other's blood from the exploding wheel shrapnel and contact with rocks. Our cycle helmets had cracked open, face masks disintegrated and pulled off as our heads collided, we both had concussion but didn't know it.
Somehow we crawled over to our wrecked cycles retrieved our medical
{crash}
kits. I had been in the Army Cadet Force, Cameron the Combined Cadet Force
{private education version for Sandhurst fodder}
both of us were trained as First Responders to basic Army field level standers.
We did running repairs on each other using my arm and Cameron's leg armour as splints, our medical kits contained a stab self-administration morphine phial which we used, we didn't even know each other's name. Couldn't wait for help nobody about and nobody knew where we were, like us out cycles terminally damaged.
Somehow we managed to get to our feet arms linked supporting each other hobbled for what felt like hours before reaching a field with a tractor working in it. It was during this painful walk supporting each other we bonded in the face of adversity.
The farmer seeing our open and closing hand signal
{I need help}
raced his tractor across to us. He could see from our mix of blood splattered black and white field splints, trauma bandaging we were in need of urgent medical assistance. He literally lifted us, as was, into his cab, radioing for assistance as he raced cross country to meet an ambulance which would take us by road to hospital.
Somewhere during this journey we passed out until we woke in a hospital Intensive Care Unit
{ICU}
with all sorts of drips and things plumed and wired into us. Cameron's arm was in plaster, my leg bandaged ankle to crotch inside an inflated leg splint, both festoon with bandages and plasters. We must have looked like cyber mummies.
A young nurse from Thailand called Polly asked who we were and where we lived, both high as kites between adrenalin, shock and morphine and her foreign accent. We rambled through what we thought happened, Cameron kept referring to me as 'his partner and how he loved the way I look after him' it didn't help that I kept saying 'no; I love the way he look's after me.'
Somehow Cameron's and my morphine induced statement got back to our parents. Later Cameron's father and my parents, who arrive about the same time, were told we were in a relationship, which was a bigger shock to them than seeing us plumed and wired into a bank of ICU monitors.
We had a lot of explaining to do which was confounded by the dregs of our morphine high's, I don't think they believed us, I was 19 Cameron 20 both social recluses. By contrast we were relaxed and intimate with each other. That's how we met and became friends.
Cameron's father being a well know philanthropist our predicament, rather Cameron's, attracted a lot of media's attention. We found out about our now gay relationship from Social Media, which developed a following of its own. We were moved out of ICU, Cameron's father arranged for us to have a shared private room, which added to social media's speculation; that was only the start as the story fed itself on various opinions about us.