My memory isn’t the greatest—I can’t remember what I wrote about in last month’s column or what I had for breakfast last Tuesday—but I can clearly remember certain events in my life, and one that is still quite vivid is the day I learned to ride a bike, way back in the golden summer of 1978. I was five years old, everyone had lots of hair, and “Fly Like an Eagle” was on the radio.
For my fifth birthday, which is in February, my Dad gave me a brand new blue and yellow Huffy with a number 5 stamped on a plastic card hanging from the handlebars. For three long months, while number 5 sat in the basement, I could only sit on it and imagine riding it. I finally started riding it for real in the spring, with training wheels, and when it came time to try riding without them, my Dad made a promise that he would take me out for an ice cream cone if I could complete two full-pedal revolutions. That was enough of an incentive for me, and on that day I took my first two complete pedal revolutions while rolling on two wheels. While attempting a third, I abruptly crashed to the ground and scraped my knee. With tear streak lines still visible on my dirty face, the black raspberry ice cream cone that I enjoyed later ended up serving two purposes: reward for my successful ride and pain relief for my sore knee.
Luckily, when I crashed, I didn’t land on my head, because like every kid on a bike back in the ’70s, I wasn’t wearing a helmet. And for the next six years, I rode my bike around the neighborhood, into town, into swimming pools, through the woods, over jumps, and down the steepest hills I could find going as fast as I could, and not once with a helmet on my head.
It wasn’t until the hair-sprayed summer of 1987, after we had moved from a house in the neighborhood to a house in the country, that I finally was ordered to wear one. Our new house was set back from a busy road that the locals used to make good time, so my parents insisted I wear a helmet when I biked on that road because of the high speeds of the cars and trucks flying by. Apparently, the possibility of being hit by a fast car or truck was the only good reason to protect your head back then. But at least it was a start in the right direction, and look how far we’ve come. Today, kids are wearing helmets even before they start riding bikes. Strapped into a bike trailer, surrounded by a metal roll cage, they’ve got helmets on. I have no problem with this, and although fitting a baby with a helmet is similar to bathing a cat, only not as fun, I am always willing to help parents out because I understand how important helmets are. They are truly the seatbelts of the bicycle and should be worn at all times.
I can say that at least once, a helmet saved my life. It was the cargo-pants-wearing spring of 2003, and I was 30. I was riding through town with some friends on our way to a little zone of mountain bike trails, when I went to do a routine wheelie drop off a four-foot retaining wall onto a parking lot. Before we left for the ride, I had noticed a small amount of shock oil accumulating just below the crown of my fork. I assumed it was due to a bad seal and so for that day’s ride at least, not too big of a deal. What I later learned was the leak was due to a crack in the stanchion tube, and so for that day’s ride, it was a really, really big deal.
When doing a wheelie drop, you ride a wheelie off a drop so that when you land, your rear wheel hits the ground first. If you attempt a wheelie drop, it is imperative that you get that front wheel up before you lift off, or you’ll plummet like a dive bomber. It is equally critical that the stanchion tubes of your fork aren’t cracked. All was going perfectly well for me until my front wheel touched down. In an instant, my fork snapped on both sides just below the crown. My front wheel rolled off in the direction that I should have gone, dragging my fork with it, leaving a trail of shock oil and coil springs. It happened so fast that when my face hit the pavement, my hands were still firmly gripping my handlebars. I had just done the equivalent of a sailor dive from a four foot high ledge onto a parking lot.
I was knocked unconscious, and when I came around a few seconds later, my helmet, still strapped to my head, had a narrowly-skirted-death-sized dent in it. My entire face was a swollen, bloody mess, with bits of pavement sticking out from my multiple wounds, and for the next few weeks, I looked like something that crawled out of a swamp in the middle of a bad horror movie. As far as trauma to my head, I’m pretty sure it was minimal, since my memory is just as bad now as it was then. After a few days, I felt good enough for an ice cream cone, and after a few months, my wounds were mostly healed. I now have only a really cool tear-shaped scar next to my left eye to show for it and a simple but significant word to the wise: Always wear your helmet!
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