Thursday, May 13, 2010

The Bike Incident

If you don't know about Another David, you need to go to his blog right now. He's so much smarter than I likely ever will be plus he rides bicycles and goes for insane 20 mile rides. How he doesn't permanently have a bike seat glued to his ass- I don't know. But he's fab and I love him to bits. AND if we ever meet up he's promised me an evening filled with midgets and debauchery.

Who doesn't need a friend like that?

Anyways. So I remember commenting on his blog somewhere about what I refer to as "The Bike Incident" which is what makes me leery to own a bike even though I know I would, for the most part, like it.

The story begins when I was around 12. This is me at like age 10. Apparently I wasn't cute enough to get pictures taken of me at age 12 or something. But you'll see I was still a hot bitch rocking my black spandex cropped leggins with the lace trim, the matching black/white shirt WITH a hot pink sweatshirt. While hiking in Jay Cooke State Park. In sandals.

Yo betta recognize.

Anyways. So most kids get bikes for Christmas and that's fine because they can actually ride their bikes on Christmas. For us it's kind of a great gift but torture because you know it's another 6 months before you can go out and really have fun with it. Bikes aren't super conducive to snow. Well when I was 10, my brother was 10, our parents got us mountain bikes. Not real ones, but we thought they were. All I knew was mine was white with pink and green paint splotches with black accents. It was the fucking hotness. It had gears and 10 speeds and hand brakes and yeah. It was the most bad ass bike I had ever had.

Fast forward to the spring and my dad decided he was going to teach us how to properly ride a bike. Now, I had bikes in the past and knew how to ride it. I mean, I wasn't a toddler here. But I apparently didn't know enough to not break this bike and my dad didn't want to see $100 go down the toilet. He was adamant about bike care and how we should use the kick stand and not just throw it on the ground, etc. He wanted us to take pride in our new vehicles.

So one afternoon dad comes home with this jalopy of bike he got from god knows where and he was going to take us out to what we called "The Gully" by our house. The Gully was basically an old logging road for trucks, unpaved but well worn and wide that would take you straight to the St. Louis River which is what the paper mill sits on. We had played back there and we knew that there were other trails we just didn't know we were allowed to go that far into the woods. Well, that wasn't mostly me because I was the chicken shit when I was younger and Travis probably was back there all the time lighting fires and such.

Anyways- so we get on our bikes and I figure I'm good to go. We are riding along this trail which was kind of high up. To our right was a bunch of woods and to the left was a drop off with train tracks at the bottom. We went as far as we could on our trail before realizing we had to turn around or ride down this drop off hill and ride along the train tracks.

At that moment, Travis screwed up his brakes. My dad stopped to help him and looked at me, told me to "take 'er easy" down the hill. I'm SURE he said "down the hill" which to me, means ride your bike down the hill. I see a path that is worn into the hill which obviously means it's safe because bikes have been down it. So I start out on this little path.

Approximately 2 seconds into said ride down the little path I hear my dad yell my name, and then I see it. A barrel. Half sticking out of the ground that you couldn't see from the top. Obviously, I panic and hit the barrel.

I then go airborne, do two complete somersaults in the air, at which point I separated from my bike, hit the ground, roll down the hill, land on the railroad tracks. It felt like 10 minutes that I laid there when it really only could have been a second when my bike came down. And landed on top of me.

I pretty much started crying and thought I was going to die. But here comes my brother and Dad, taking their leisurely fucking time around the path, not the way I went, and asked me if I was ok. I remember my dad telling me to get up because I had to ride the bike home and him asking me several times if the bike was ok.

Nice.

At some point I was hobbling along and it felt like I had blood running down my leg. My dad told me that I had to take my pants off to see if I had gotten hurt. So there I am, age 12, half naked next to some railroad tracks, crying, and the biggest bruise I have ever seen developing in my left inner thigh. This thing was the size of a dinner plate and was the inner thigh and part of the front and back. Black as night. And puffy. It was getting more and more puffy and it hurt like a som'of'a'bitch.

I had to walk home like that because riding the bike was not going to happen. My mom laughed. Travis teased me. My dad said I needed more lessons.

I rode my bike again, on flat roads only, for a few more years. And every once in awhile, I see them go on sale and I think I'd like to buy one and take the kids out. But then I think oy...I don't want to be that loser parent that rides bikes with their kids. Those kids always got beat up.

8 comments:

Ann said...

Bwhahahaha! TOO damn funny!

Krysten @ Why Girls Are Weird said...

Oh Sara.

I was super mad at my parents when I was probably about 15. So I strapped on my rollerblades and started away from the house.

Well, I took the wrong street and the street I was on was really this huge hill. And by the time I realized I was going to fast that I couldn't stop.

Needless to say I got to the bottom, crashed and ended up totally ruining a nice pair of jeans AND my mom's jacket, which I'd "stolen."

Of course, my parents didn't care that my legs and arms were all cut up. They were more mad that I stole and wrecked my mom's jacket.

Parents rock, they really do.

Kelly said...

you should totally buy a road bike..i love mine! i've done a 200 mile ride, twice (www.pmc.org) ..i never thought i would love it so much, a friend got me into it and its is unbelievably good exercise..get one!

Julie H said...

My kids love it when we ride bikes together. So far no one has beat them up!

My dad lived out in the country and they would get pissed at me because I didn't want to ride my bike in the deep gravel driveway. Uh yeah. I was scared to death I was going to fall!

Chicken said...

Maybe all that built up blood from that giant ass bruise is what makes your junk in the trunk so firm and jiggle free. I was so glad to read a funny post from you, I hope your spirits are a little more chipper, I don't like it when you're gloomy. :(

Ashley said...

Hey, I used to ride bikes with my parents!

Anonymous said...

Yeah for the funny post!

I too took tumble after tumble on my bike. I was the lovely age of six when I flew oever the handlebars (after hitting a big rock), landing on my head and biting the very tip of my tongue off.

Thank God for all of y'all it did not affect my ability to grow up into a mouthy opinionated bitch.

*kisses*

Another David said...

damn, i was never lucky enough to get airborne. the worst crash i ever had, i was going about 20 mph, weaving through scaffolding, i swerved to avoid someone and my left pedal caught the ground. the whole bike spun around and i kept going forward. the funny thing is, i would have gotten away without a scratch if i'd've let go of the bike, but because i was still holding on, i took a good chunk of skin off my left arm and knuckles. fun fun fun.