...after returning from a 340km round trip to Mengyin. A very exciting ride but a disappointing ending.

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I didn't do the Chinese thing - leaving my bike as it landed until the police arrive - but i did take a few snaps before moving it out of the road.

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I'd left the wife's place at 07:20 and arrived outside my house at 09:30 but I was peckish and decided to go to Mcdonalds for a McMuffin first. The McMuffin was lovely and I was feeling euphoric after having such a good long ride. That feeling, combined with the deadly feeling of safety from almost arriving home combined caused me to relax, enough so that I let my guard down and failed to notice the woman in-front of me abruptly hit her brakes. I slammed mine on - too late -, went over on my left-side and then ground my way along the road for a meter or two before slamming into the car's rear fender.

It was my fault, I guess, for not leaving a big enough gap, riding too fast, not paying enough attention and for being foreign. Still, after the police had arrived and everyone was waiting for a ultimatum to be issued we just agreed to go our seperate ways. I rode 1km down the road to the Yamaha repair shop with handle bars almost wrapped around my fuel-tank and she drove off with a little dent in the back of her vehicle.

Although I felt confident with my new licence in my pocket, nobody even asked to see it! I knew my insurance had recently expired and was wondering what would become of that. I think I overheard her telling her friend that her insurance had expired too, but she didn't think that I understood that. I thought it was best to ride away while I still could and just pay for my own damages. Had the police discovered that we were both uninsured then the same thing would have happened anyway + a possible punishment for us both for not renewing them in-time.

I'll need:
- a new set of gauges: there is nothing left of my old one now.
- a new handlebar: it's bend back more than a chopper's handlebar now.
- a new set of forks: they're visibly bent and I could feel the vibrations riding at 30kph back to the repair shop
- a new attitude toward riding: I've made this kind of mistake before but with lesser consequences. I need to shape up.