Me and My Bike

No, not my motorcycle. I mean by bicycle from years gone past. I used to ride my bike a lot. I didn’t sit inside and play videogames if it was nice out. I was outside riding my bike, going places my mom told me not to go, and generally getting into something that would resemble trouble.

My niece hasn’t fared so well at learning to ride her bike. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that she lives on a very busy street and can’t “practice” all the time. I’m not sure she has many other kids to play with on her street. I said she could come over here and ride since there is hardly any traffic and there are always kids outside learning to ride their bikes.

And I love my mom, but anytime bicycles are brought up she has to recant that I got stitched up a lot “falling off my bike.” Hearing it from my mom you would have thought I was a ‘tard that didn’t know how to ride a bicycle. “But there was gravel….” She’d say, as if this made it all better. As if it made it OK to wipe out. What she doesn’t realize is that now I sound like an even bigger ‘tard.

“Yup, there was gravel there but Brad was so retarded that he’d ride in it anyway, fall off his bicycle and then we’d take him to the hospital to get stitched up.”

Actually my mom would never say anything like that, but you can see the wheels spinning even in the minds of seven year olds (even if they can’t ride a bike very well). You can see them looking at me, an old man in their eyes, and thinking I’m an idiot. So much for respect.

That’s when I always have to tell the kids what it was really all about. I’d tell them how I’d ride my bike for hours all over the place. How we had real trees and woods to ride in. We’d go down to the creek and setup ramps to jump across the creek – sometimes we didn’t make it.

And the gravel? Well that was an opportunity now wasn’t it? You’d have to start way, way, way back. As in maybe at the other end of the block, preferably uphill from the gravel. Why? So you could build up plenty of speed of course.

You’d mount your bike and start peddling. Then you’d lean over the handlebars to get the maximum amount of torque possible to will the bike to go faster and faster….and as the wind picked up, your hair blew back off your head, and the landscape would become a blur you would spot your target – the accumulation of gravel in the corner from weeks of traffic without rain or maybe even a refresher from the friendly road crew.

Balls out, no fear…. You hit the gravel!! And…..lock up the rear tired and put the bike into a power slide….5 feet….10 feet….15 feet!!! You just did a monster power-slide through the gravel!!
Of course, it didn’t always work out that way. Sometimes it was epic failure. Sometimes, like a tard, I’d wipe out and have to go get stitched up. Maybe mom is right after all.