With that in mind, have a look at these pictures that I found at my mom's last summer. I think that I am about 12 years old. Here is the back story....
The city decided that they were going to cut off a gravel road that went down into a valley by our house, so they put a big pile of dirt at the bottom..... and, from the top of the hill, that dirt that looked an awful lot like a ramp!
My brother, Lenny (not his real name), went down the hill first, came to the pile of dirt and then rode over it quite slowly just to see what it was like. Then he yelled up the hill to me, "The jump looks really good! Pedal hard and hit it as fast as you can!"
So I did!
By the time I thought, "Maybe this is not a good idea" it was too late. I launched off the jump higher than I had ever been before.... then the trouble started. I was going to land nose first on the front tire with the back tire still way up in the air. I tried to lean backwards but there was no saving it. I went flying over the handlebars. The bike went tumbling one way and I went the other.
As I laying on the gravel, hands stinging and knees bleeding, Lenny came over and said, "Ummm - maybe you should not hit it quite that fast next time!"
Over the next several weeks, we kept trying the jump until we mastered it.... and then we took the camera out to capture ourselves in all our Evel Kneivel glory.
1. We are a long way from anywhere here. If we hurt ourselves, which was pretty much inevitable, there was no help in sight.
2. Safety first - that was our motto - which is why I am wearing my CSA approved Trucker's Cap
3. Painting your motocross bike was the way to make it super cool - just like you!
Sadly - these are the only pictures I have otherwise I would also tell about how we used to....
- Tie a rope to a 10-speed and then get on a skateboard and have the bike rider pull us as fast as he could down a hill and around a corner by our house - with no safety gear at all (that was fun until our friend Heath wiped out on the pavement and was just one big scab from head to toe for the next three months)
- Walk out on the ice in the spring to see how thin it was....we liked the cracking sound.... until I fell in up to my neck.... then could barely get out..... then had to walk all the way home.... by the time I got there I could barely move my fingers I was so cold.... then our next door neighbour saw me and gave us a 5 minute speech about how stupid we were and how we could have died (good times!)
Or about how we told our mom that we were going to go play in the gavel pit a mile from home and instead rode out 10 speed bikes 20 miles to Buffalo Pound Provincial Park.... we did not call her to tell her where we were.... we did not take food or water..... we were gone so long that she thought we got buried in a rock slide at the gravel pit and she had half the neighbourhood looking for us. Our uncle even put off going on vacation because of us.
You can imagine the reception we got when we eventually showed up. :(
Man - I used to be awesome!
2 comments:
Ah Good times. Kids nowadays don't know what it's like. We didn't have parents who kept tabs on us. I remember going sledding with my brother and some friends, I was in the front and we went so far we hit a barb wired fence. We all leaned back but I couldn't quite get down enough. We stopped with the fence pressing against my neck. Good times. Or when we decided to rollerskate down the steep hill at our house in Calgary that connects with a very busy street. We just had to bail at the end to stop ourselves from flying into traffic. We also tried to ride down that hill on a wagon. Or when I decided to walk home from school across the valley in Estevan in the middle of winter. The snow was above my waist and it took me 4 hours to get home. My parents never even asked where I was. I was exhausted. Ah... the memories.
Exactly Justin! Thanks for the stories!
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