Jed Metcher is on the road to recovery after sustaining a broken leg at Broadford in March, looking forward to continuing his assault in the Formula Oz category of the Swann Insurance Australasian Superbike Championship. CycleOnline.com.au spoke to Metcher this week to get an update on his return and more.

Image: Russell Colvin.

Jed, it’s been a while since your crash at Broadford at the end of March. You’re up and about which is great to see. Tell us, what have you been up to and how’s everything going with the recovery?

It’s going fairly well to be honest. A regular day consists of basically planning out my diet so I’m eating well to help not gain weight as I can’t do a lot of cardiovascular work. Next step in the morning is to head down to the physio James Telford from HPC Physiotherapy and Sport Injuries. James is also the dedicated physio for Fitmoto riders, which is a fitness company that runs out of Bulleen Health and Fitness run and owned by Stephen Mion. I’m lucky enough that James has been working on my foot and leg daily which has really accelerated the level of healing. The only reason I’m not walking and even riding is simply to ensure that we make a 100 percent recovery. We want to give it as much time as we can before we get back on the bike just in case something does go wrong. So in other words, it is pretty much healed to the point where I can walk, but not run or even jog at the moment.

So have you been able to do any fitness work at all lately?

I have been cycling a little bit on the exercise bikes, not high intensity stuff, just spinning my leg over to try and get the muscle to rebuild as I have lost a lot of muscle. Between the physio and the gym work, my fitness is not at a level like it was before but it has been maintained fairly well. It’s been quite good, we have been doing a lot of motorcycle-related upper-body strength training which has involved a lot of gymnastics equipment with the rings. So my upper body is pretty strong and I have been able to maintain small muscle mass perfect for racing – the lighter you are the better. Other than that I have just had to rest and recover. The rehab is the most important thing, we don’t want to over do anything with the ankle, it’s important to rest. Hopefully next week we can start walking in the swimming pool to get my walking action back. It’s a little bit strange to even remember how to walk at the moment, seeing as I have not done it for eight weeks now. So I have to get myself back into that without limping on the leg.

When do you think you will be back on the Race Center ZX-10R? Has there been any work done on the bike since that weekend at Broadford?

We are hoping within two to three weeks time we will be back out on track. We will head up to Broadford and test what has been done to the bike now. Darren Sciberras from Race Center and my father [Mal Metcher] have made some modifications to build the bike up to be a Superbike, rather than the street bike that it was before I crashed. We have a new rear link on it’s way, which will be a big new test for us. Engine development-wise, it has been a little bit slow, as the dyno is currently being prepared at the Race Center factory in Brunswick. The dyno is there, it’s just a matter of building the room around it. Once we have all of that set up and a bit more testing under our belt, we should be ready for the World Superbikes in February at Phillip Island next year.

After being off the bike for so long, what will it feel like to swing your leg back over a bike again?

I’m not sure! I have never had an injury that has put me out for this long. It will be interesting, that’s for sure. I don’t feel that I have lost any confidence because it wasn’t really a crash that was my fault. It was almost unavoidable at the time. So I feel pretty confident, I won’t know until I get on the bike, but it should be fine.

Can you run us through what happened on that warm-up lap when you crashed?

I came out of pit lane a little bit late and I let a few people go past. Then when I came across the top straight, I was wide open on the gas to get the tyres and everything warm. As I went over the crest I was about 15 meters behind the rider in front and he jumped on the brakes very early and very hard while I was still going for my braking marker, which was well up the road, and I reacted as quick as I could. I reacted so quickly that the rear wheel left the ground slightly, so I tried to steer the bike to the left but I couldn’t steer it quick enough as the rear wheel wasn’t in contact with the ground. Then when I did make contact with the rider in front it snapped the front brake on and made me do a front-flip. At some point when I was sliding on the ground the bike caught up to me doing cartwheels and crushed my leg. From then myself and the bike got pushed along the road for about 100 meters or so and then came to a stop. Once I stopped I looked at the back of my leg and there was a big hole in my calf.

Sounds like a spinning wheel of fun… So what injuries did you get exactly?

Where my calf was cut open, the surgeons talked about a skin graft, but managed to just stitch it up. I have lost a little bit of muscle, other than that it’s pretty much okay. I broke my leg halfway up in the fibula and I broke my foot in five places over four metatarsals, including an injury called the Lisfranc. So now there is three plates and a handful screws in my foot.

Image: Russell Colvin.

How long do you think it will take you to be 100 percent fit again?

In terms of being able to run again, doctors don’t know. Because there are so many breaks in my foot it’s sort of touch and go. I will need to experiment with how much pain will occur in my foot when I do try and run and stuff like that, but I will be back on the bike very soon.

Being back racing here in Oz again, I know you have only been able to do one round so far of the ASC. What is it like being back racing in Australia again?

Yeah, well of course it’s not as nice as racing in Europe and the tracks are not that fantastic – it’s all organised very differently to what the world championship is. But I’m happy with how it is going in Australia now. The Superbike class has really picked up in Terry O’Neill’s championship, so it looks like the future of Australian racing may be on the way up; but don’t hold me to it. It would be nice to see some of the young guys get an opportunity to ride some of the factory bikes and become stars in Australia, because at the moment they keep juggling the same factory riders. I understand their consistently fast round by round, but there are some young kids out there that I say want it more than the other factory riders in the future.

Talking about young riders. You’re now on board helping out 16-year-old Callum Alderson. What exactly are you doing with Callum?

Yeah, so I am going to help out young Cal. He has jumped up from a Yamaha TZ125 to ride a Yamaha R6 this year. Both Cal and his Father Bryan have only just started out on the R6, so with my experience with what I have learnt from the R6, I can help get them on the right track set up-wise. I’m aiming to teach Callum as much as I can riding and feedback-wise – hopefully I can eliminate some of the mistakes that I made when I was young and get him fast-tracked to going quicker.

One final question. Is there any chance what so ever you can get back over to Europe to race in some form of world championship or European championship?

There is a possibility I will go overseas to race the final two rounds of the World Superbikes on a Superstock 1000. But at the moment it’s still up in the air on how the team can do it financially. I need to be able to cover my costs to make it reasonable to head over. It’s hard at the moment, all the teams don’t have money, and until they have money, it’s going to be really, really tough to ride overseas. My focus at this point is to bring the Race Center Superbike to a level that is competitive prior to the Phillip Island round of World Superbike 2015 and improve my riding ready for any opportunity that arises.