Where do I start...?

You could say that nothing in life worth having comes easy – and I think I’ve experienced that first-hand just recently

- Tom Neave

I must have cursed myself in the last column, to be honest. For anyone who doesn’t know what I’m on about, I spoke about how the off season had been really kind to me and everything was going smoothly… well, that didn’t last long.

I’d really been looking forward to a proper pre-season testing programme this year. We had nine days of riding planned in Spain at three different circuits: Monteblanco, followed by Andalucia, and then the official BSB test at Navarra. I was relishing the thought of loads of laps in the sun on the superbike in a relatively pressure-free environment to really get comfy on the bike and try some new components we had for it. This was all prior to the race season, which started on Easter weekend at Silverstone – ideal! All this testing is something I didn’t have the benefit of having going into my first full season of superbike action last year. As it turns out, I only ended up with the same amount as last year... unfortunately, half way through the third day I suffered a really weird and uncharacteristic crash that resulted in me breaking my collar bone and knocking myself out. That wasn’t part of the plan!