How one man’s mates got him back riding after a devastating accident

Mr Mayle was only 21 when he was involved in a catastrophic road accident while on his beloved Yamaha XS850. His then-girlfriend, Alison, had been riding with him on the back.

“I saw this headlight coming towards me, which turned out to be the pilot light of a Honda CX500,” the Potter Heigham local recalled.

“It swerved and disappeared off the road and on to the heath, and the next thing I knew it reappeared and drove straight over the top of me at 50mph. I was only doing 30mph but I didn’t have time to brake.”

“His bike hit my foot, my knee, my arm. He was three times the legal limit for alcohol in his system.”

As his girlfriend lost consciousness, Mr Mayle remained aware of his surroundings.

“I was left up on the heath for about 45 minutes, my thigh bone sticking through my leathers, my arm broken in three places and hanging out very oddly,” he revealed to Forever Bikes.*

Alison had a broken leg and ended up in a coma for two weeks, but she survived. The other rider involved would sadly pass away.

The collision had left the former police cadet with multiple shattered bones, plus a brutal infection. Surgeons would operate on him twice a week, resetting his bones.

Throughout this, his friends remained by his side.

“All my biker mates, every single one of them, came in and made sure I had everything I wanted, but all I really needed was company because I was in a side room with this weird infection,” he recounted.

After three months in the hospital, he was finally allowed to go home but then, he unfortunately caught sepsis.

Mr Mayle would be given the option of continuous, possibly painful operations or leg amputation - he bravely chose the latter.

This would come with a lot of life adjustments, but, for a motorbike fanatic, not being able to ride was the hardest.

His brother-in-law, Chris, plus a group of Mr Mayle’s friends then hatched a plan.

“He met my mate Pete, or ‘Elvis’ as we called him, who was starting up his own business called Jap Bikes, and while I thought he was working in London most weekends the tricky little beggars were playing trike builders,” he said.

“Loads of them got together and started fabricating – they all had different skills and put them together.”

“They got this Yamaha XS750 from a breakers yard and started chopping bits off. It had been a getaway vehicle from a petrol station robbery in Essex. It wasn’t very successful because it broke down!”

Eventually, they would work out the kinks and, in 1989, the biker group would reveal their extra-special gift.

Fondly remembering that moment, he said; “I went out with the revellers, and there were cameras flashing and video cameras whirring away. There in the garage was the trike and I was taken aback and humbled. It was bloody marvellous. I got on it and the beast was mine.”

It would take a lot of practice but eventually, Mr Mayle got his biking freedom back.

“I was a little apprehensive, but I still had the urge. I think it’s in the blood – I’ve got oil in my veins. I just wanted to get on there and keep riding.”

Now married to his wife, Fiona, and happily settled down, he still has the trike, stating that it represents “really good mates, really good times”.