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This is a submitted story by Myles of RushRabbit.
I started riding a bike when I was four years old, by the time I reached twelve I had crashed so many times, and in so many ways, that I swear I can’t even remember some of the more painful experiences I’ve had falling off the saddle. The letters B, M, and X especially, bring back a part of my childhood which I will forever relate with dust, teeth lying on the ground, and blood on my shirt collar. I have been beaten up so badly by bike related misfortune that even the bike shop owner near my house started refusing to sell me bike parts for fear that my parents would take him to court for aiding in my imminent demise. But of course, he eventually relented and I continued on with my career in self-humiliation on two-wheels, the last one being the time I crashed after a disastrous table-top jump which ended in the utter destruction of the last BMX that I would ever own. I went home to a neighbor’s house after that crash, mistaking it for my own house in the bloodied state of haze that I was in. Imagine the expression on my neighbors’ faces when I walked into their living room looking like a grotesque zombie, clutching the remains of my broken bicycle and half a shirt hanging on to my shoulders by a thread. I promised my parents I would never ride a BMX after that, and so I moved up to riding mountain bikes immediately after I regained some feeling in my upper extremities. It was then I discovered that mountain biking afforded me greater freedom than any BMX ever could, and with greater freedom came even bigger crashes and even deeper cuts and wounds.
I’m almost proud to say that I’ve moved on from my freewheeling days and have since learned the benefits of safety. The first thing I did was to get myself a good helmet, and then I started to ride with people who didn’t find crashing into trees and ravines even slightly amusing. It was then that I learned that there was more to cycling than just riding around like a circus freak waiting for a chance to explode into a ball of fire. I discovered that people actually competed with bicycles, that one could actually win a trophy or even a handsome basket of assorted fruits on some occasions, simply by pedaling fast and getting to the finish line first. I was really proud of myself for having discovered this and took it very seriously, getting into the motions of training and trying to learn more about cycling as I went along. Strangely enough, just when I thought I had cycling safety down to a science, it was then that I had the privilege of having the biggest crash of my entire life. I was riding down a steep road, exhilarated by the wind washing across my face. I looked down at the bike computer mounted on the newly-installed aerobar which I was planning to use at my next triathlon race, the speedometer read a little above sixty, at least that’s what I remember seeing behind those clear droplets of rain that had started to fall on the bike computer’s face. This, just as I was zipping around a perfect bend of asphalt, completely caught up in the moment that I didn’t even have enough time to realize that both my tires had lost touch with the pavement. I don’t even remember in what position I hit the dirt, or which part of my body made contact first. The only thing I remember was sliding after my bike uncontrollably towards the side of the road with my chin and right shoulder pinned to the ground, both my feet waving in the air like a contorted salute to the art of ejecting from a careening bicycle. Fortunately for me, I was able to walk away with just a broken bike frame and a few scratches as a result of scraping my mortal self against the sturdy indifference of hard concrete. I will never forget that day. It’s a scenario that runs in review whenever I find myself in a quick descent on two wheels. It’s a slow motion sequence that mocks my sense of bravado in situations where I know an expensive helmet will do absolutely nothing for me other than keep my head intact while the rest of my body is slowly sanded away. Thankfully, adventure racing came into the picture and rescued me from my dilemma, and in a heartbeat I traded pencil-thin tires for “knobbies” and plunged myself headlong into a completely different world of suffering.
Adventure racing has kept me from any further contagion of road rash by keeping me busy with other meaningful distractions, things like keeping a frantic eye at a boulder on the other side of a swollen river while trying to swim across it with a backpack. I would also love to describe the time that I’ve had swim in open water amid large waves towards an island several kilometers from shore, in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, there are only so many words that can be used to describe complete darkness and utter horror. So instead, I’ll just talk about the desert I had to cross immediately before that episode of midnight swimming. It was in a race that required us to cross the summit of a volcano and then traverse the desert of “lahar” that lay beyond it, staggering towards a coastline that shimmered like a mirage on the horizon the entire day that it took to cross that vast and empty wasteland of heat-induced hallucinations. We arrived at the edge of that desert at four in the afternoon, staring up at a tree-choked hillside across a flooded bridge that lay beneath three feet of water. We immediately set ourselves upon the task of cooking the native chicken that the tribesman that served as our guide had caught along the trail by throwing a rock at it. That was the point then that I looked down on my heavily blistered feet and began to ask myself “why?”
It’s a very simple question that every other adventure worn traveler gets to ask himself at some point down the path less traveled by. It’s the kind of question one would ask while resting against a moss-covered tree deep in the jungle, patiently waiting for a band of red-eyed insurgents to finish rummaging through your pack looking for sandwiches. And through the years, I have done a lot of sitting against mossy trees, silently taking stock of all the shiny new pocket knives and nifty Zippo lighters relieved from my possession, apparently for the benefit of the greater good. It’s a little difficult you see, to reason with people wielding rust encrusted rifles and newly sharpened machetes, pacing around nervously in a place where bravery is often a word they throw in after you into a hastily dug shallow grave.
Eventually, I ran out of pocket knives and lighters to give away, and so I slowly found my way back to the simple preoccupation of pedaling. Things are of course far different than what they were before, and I’ve had to struggle to catch up with the years that I lost walking, swimming, getting lost, and doing other things. Right now, I’m just enjoying the feeling of being able to go out before the sun rises to ride my bicycle and watch the world wake up to another day. I’m also very happy to have been able to go back to racing my bike once more, the last one being an endurance event where I had to ride a circuit for twenty-four hours. It was a simple task really, until I fell asleep on my handle bars while descending an especially steep section of the race course. I tumbled down the grade like a sack of potatoes, just ahead of a long line of cyclists behind me who watched in horror wondering if I would still be alive by the time I hit the bottom of the hill. Well obviously I made it, and as I lay there on my back staring up at the night sky I started to laugh at the garland of stars slowly being enveloped by a thick blanket of thunder clouds. All these years of trying to get away from falling off my bike and it ends with another crash, it is kind of ironic but then I realized that it was all part of the fun. I simply picked myself up again and rode off into the night in pursuit of the other riders who rode and crashed with me throughout the race, none so different from each other, just fellow cyclists all praying for the same thing, that the guy in front crashes again soon so that we can all get ahead.
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Crash
This is a submitted story by Myles of RushRabbit.
I’m almost proud to say that I’ve moved on from my freewheeling days and have since learned the benefits of safety. The first thing I did was to get myself a good helmet, and then I started to ride with people who didn’t find crashing into trees and ravines even slightly amusing. It was then that I learned that there was more to cycling than just riding around like a circus freak waiting for a chance to explode into a ball of fire. I discovered that people actually competed with bicycles, that one could actually win a trophy or even a handsome basket of assorted fruits on some occasions, simply by pedaling fast and getting to the finish line first. I was really proud of myself for having discovered this and took it very seriously, getting into the motions of training and trying to learn more about cycling as I went along. Strangely enough, just when I thought I had cycling safety down to a science, it was then that I had the privilege of having the biggest crash of my entire life. I was riding down a steep road, exhilarated by the wind washing across my face. I looked down at the bike computer mounted on the newly-installed aerobar which I was planning to use at my next triathlon race, the speedometer read a little above sixty, at least that’s what I remember seeing behind those clear droplets of rain that had started to fall on the bike computer’s face. This, just as I was zipping around a perfect bend of asphalt, completely caught up in the moment that I didn’t even have enough time to realize that both my tires had lost touch with the pavement. I don’t even remember in what position I hit the dirt, or which part of my body made contact first. The only thing I remember was sliding after my bike uncontrollably towards the side of the road with my chin and right shoulder pinned to the ground, both my feet waving in the air like a contorted salute to the art of ejecting from a careening bicycle. Fortunately for me, I was able to walk away with just a broken bike frame and a few scratches as a result of scraping my mortal self against the sturdy indifference of hard concrete. I will never forget that day. It’s a scenario that runs in review whenever I find myself in a quick descent on two wheels. It’s a slow motion sequence that mocks my sense of bravado in situations where I know an expensive helmet will do absolutely nothing for me other than keep my head intact while the rest of my body is slowly sanded away. Thankfully, adventure racing came into the picture and rescued me from my dilemma, and in a heartbeat I traded pencil-thin tires for “knobbies” and plunged myself headlong into a completely different world of suffering.
Adventure racing has kept me from any further contagion of road rash by keeping me busy with other meaningful distractions, things like keeping a frantic eye at a boulder on the other side of a swollen river while trying to swim across it with a backpack. I would also love to describe the time that I’ve had swim in open water amid large waves towards an island several kilometers from shore, in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, there are only so many words that can be used to describe complete darkness and utter horror. So instead, I’ll just talk about the desert I had to cross immediately before that episode of midnight swimming. It was in a race that required us to cross the summit of a volcano and then traverse the desert of “lahar” that lay beyond it, staggering towards a coastline that shimmered like a mirage on the horizon the entire day that it took to cross that vast and empty wasteland of heat-induced hallucinations. We arrived at the edge of that desert at four in the afternoon, staring up at a tree-choked hillside across a flooded bridge that lay beneath three feet of water. We immediately set ourselves upon the task of cooking the native chicken that the tribesman that served as our guide had caught along the trail by throwing a rock at it. That was the point then that I looked down on my heavily blistered feet and began to ask myself “why?”
It’s a very simple question that every other adventure worn traveler gets to ask himself at some point down the path less traveled by. It’s the kind of question one would ask while resting against a moss-covered tree deep in the jungle, patiently waiting for a band of red-eyed insurgents to finish rummaging through your pack looking for sandwiches. And through the years, I have done a lot of sitting against mossy trees, silently taking stock of all the shiny new pocket knives and nifty Zippo lighters relieved from my possession, apparently for the benefit of the greater good. It’s a little difficult you see, to reason with people wielding rust encrusted rifles and newly sharpened machetes, pacing around nervously in a place where bravery is often a word they throw in after you into a hastily dug shallow grave.
Eventually, I ran out of pocket knives and lighters to give away, and so I slowly found my way back to the simple preoccupation of pedaling. Things are of course far different than what they were before, and I’ve had to struggle to catch up with the years that I lost walking, swimming, getting lost, and doing other things. Right now, I’m just enjoying the feeling of being able to go out before the sun rises to ride my bicycle and watch the world wake up to another day. I’m also very happy to have been able to go back to racing my bike once more, the last one being an endurance event where I had to ride a circuit for twenty-four hours. It was a simple task really, until I fell asleep on my handle bars while descending an especially steep section of the race course. I tumbled down the grade like a sack of potatoes, just ahead of a long line of cyclists behind me who watched in horror wondering if I would still be alive by the time I hit the bottom of the hill. Well obviously I made it, and as I lay there on my back staring up at the night sky I started to laugh at the garland of stars slowly being enveloped by a thick blanket of thunder clouds. All these years of trying to get away from falling off my bike and it ends with another crash, it is kind of ironic but then I realized that it was all part of the fun. I simply picked myself up again and rode off into the night in pursuit of the other riders who rode and crashed with me throughout the race, none so different from each other, just fellow cyclists all praying for the same thing, that the guy in front crashes again soon so that we can all get ahead.
Possibly Related Posts: