Somewhere along my childhood days my Dad and Mom decided to dig a big pond next to our house. I was stoked! This would give me a place to fish all the time. I loved it! The bonus was after they dug it I found some new hills around it to jump on my bike. The dirt they took out of the pond was kind of an orange gray color and pretty dang hard. This made it great to get speed up on.
One day me and a bunch of my neighborhood buddies were gettin our jump on out by the pond. We were taking turns seeing how far we could jump and having a blast. Wait a minute, before go any further let me back up a bit. About two weeks prior to this day I bent my forks on the front of my bike. For those without bicycle knowledge the forks hold the front wheel on. After bending my front forks I had to find some replacements. It just so happened a buddy had a pair he wasn't using and sold them to me for five bucks. I rolled over to his house and we installed them and they worked perfectly.
This brings me back to the present time in our story. As you can tell by now I'm quite a competitive person. So as I mentioned before we were taking turns jumping a hill by the pond and seeing who could go the furthest and highest. Well, one of my buddies with not real good sense came flyin down by the pond and launched off the ramp. He flew what seemed forever and passed every ones marks up. I didn't let him know but I was quite impressed. However, not to be outdone I told everyone "That's nothin, Ya'll watch this!!" I got as far back as I could and built speed all the way to the jump. When I hit the dirt hill I was really movin. All at once I hit the ramp, lifted and sailed through the air. I could tell it was over for him as I was definitely gonna break his record. I crossed the bars for a little showmanship and then un crossed them for my landing. Ok, this is where it gets a bit confusing. All I can tell you after this is what I was told happened from my Mom. She told me she was in the kitchen when she heard all my buddies outside start yelling for her. When she went out the back door there were a couple of them there telling her in a panic that I had crashed my bike and was dead. Just about that time the rest of my buddies came around the house carrying my lifeless body. Thankfully I wasn't dead but just unconscious! Mom sat me up in a chair on the back porch and began wiping my head with a cold damp cloth. Suddenly everything was white and I began to see outlines of what I was sure was an angel. As things cleared up I was weirded out a bit at the sight of Mom but very happy to see her. My cheek bone was scraped pretty bad along with my collar bone. My eyebrow was about scraped off and the skin under my eye was a road rash shiner. Seemed the hard clay broke my fell pretty good!!
This brings us to another twist in the story. Ya see, I just couldn't for the life of me figure out what went wrong. However, as I investigated the crash site I noticed the front forks had broke on my bike. I couldn't believe it. After further inspection I noticed the forks looked like they had been welded back together. That's when two of my buddies decided to let the cat out of the bag and tell me they had welded them back together. Although neither were experienced welders and the forks weren't made of steel they figured surely it would be ok. Nothin like being a guinea pig! Oh, by the way, I did break his record!!
One day me and a bunch of my neighborhood buddies were gettin our jump on out by the pond. We were taking turns seeing how far we could jump and having a blast. Wait a minute, before go any further let me back up a bit. About two weeks prior to this day I bent my forks on the front of my bike. For those without bicycle knowledge the forks hold the front wheel on. After bending my front forks I had to find some replacements. It just so happened a buddy had a pair he wasn't using and sold them to me for five bucks. I rolled over to his house and we installed them and they worked perfectly.
This brings me back to the present time in our story. As you can tell by now I'm quite a competitive person. So as I mentioned before we were taking turns jumping a hill by the pond and seeing who could go the furthest and highest. Well, one of my buddies with not real good sense came flyin down by the pond and launched off the ramp. He flew what seemed forever and passed every ones marks up. I didn't let him know but I was quite impressed. However, not to be outdone I told everyone "That's nothin, Ya'll watch this!!" I got as far back as I could and built speed all the way to the jump. When I hit the dirt hill I was really movin. All at once I hit the ramp, lifted and sailed through the air. I could tell it was over for him as I was definitely gonna break his record. I crossed the bars for a little showmanship and then un crossed them for my landing. Ok, this is where it gets a bit confusing. All I can tell you after this is what I was told happened from my Mom. She told me she was in the kitchen when she heard all my buddies outside start yelling for her. When she went out the back door there were a couple of them there telling her in a panic that I had crashed my bike and was dead. Just about that time the rest of my buddies came around the house carrying my lifeless body. Thankfully I wasn't dead but just unconscious! Mom sat me up in a chair on the back porch and began wiping my head with a cold damp cloth. Suddenly everything was white and I began to see outlines of what I was sure was an angel. As things cleared up I was weirded out a bit at the sight of Mom but very happy to see her. My cheek bone was scraped pretty bad along with my collar bone. My eyebrow was about scraped off and the skin under my eye was a road rash shiner. Seemed the hard clay broke my fell pretty good!!
This brings us to another twist in the story. Ya see, I just couldn't for the life of me figure out what went wrong. However, as I investigated the crash site I noticed the front forks had broke on my bike. I couldn't believe it. After further inspection I noticed the forks looked like they had been welded back together. That's when two of my buddies decided to let the cat out of the bag and tell me they had welded them back together. Although neither were experienced welders and the forks weren't made of steel they figured surely it would be ok. Nothin like being a guinea pig! Oh, by the way, I did break his record!!
sweet story :)
ReplyDeleteWayne that was the same week I was there. I remember you having clay buried in your upper gums. We all couldn't quit laughing. Your forks snapped like a twig and you never had a chance to put your hands forward, so your face got the brunt of your fall. It might have helped if you would have landed on your back tire instead of the front. These are memories that I will never forget. The best memories I have of my childhood is when we got to go visit you all. Thank you for the time of my life.
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