Life’s Outtakes
(Daris Howard, award-winning, syndicated columnist, playwright, and author, can be contacted at daris@darishoward.com; or visit his website at http://www.darishoward.com)
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Word Count 690
Off Road Bicycling
By
Daris Howard
We brought our bikes to a stop at the top of the steepest hill in Binghamton, New York. I was breathing hard, but, Evans, the young man whom I worked with, was barely panting.
“You need to get in better shape,” he commented.
I wanted to remind him of the reason I was more tired than he was. My bike weighed about as much as a small car, while his was light, sleek, and weighed about as much as a postage stamp.
In addition, I had about 70 pounds of books and other presentation material strapped to mine. Evans, afraid of scratching his new bike, refused to take anything on it besides himself.
But, before I could remind him how uneven things were, he headed down the hill.
The road down the hill was about two miles long. At the bottom it made a T. On the right was a huge mall, on the left were houses, and straight ahead was a large open pasture with a barbed wire fence.
I paused for a few more breaths after Evans left, and then I started on my way, too. He was about a quarter of a mile ahead of me, but with all the added weight on my bike, and the steep downhill slope, my bike quickly picked up speed.
I knew the speed limit on this road was 45 miles per hour, and as I sped past a car traveling the same direction, I grew concerned. I decided that it was more important for me to slow down than to catch up to Evans.
I applied the brakes carefully, and a smell of burning rubber filled the air. The steepness of the incline and the extra weight continued to propel me forward with an inertia the brakes couldn’t slow. I applied more and more pressure, but my speed increased even as my bike began to vibrate violently, threatening to throw me into the path of the cars.
But I had an even bigger problem. I was rapidly approaching the intersection. If the light changed and I slid into oncoming traffic, my chance of survival would be in the single digits. I knew I had to make it through the light.
Evans, now less than 25 yards ahead of me, entered the intersection just as the light turned yellow. I released my brakes slightly, and I reached the intersection just as the light turned red.
At the speed I was going I had to lean almost parallel with the pavement as I turned. But the amount of weight on my bike caused both tires to start sliding perpendicular to the direction my bike was aimed. When they hit the gravel on the side of the road, I could no longer hold it. I flipped, slamming into the gravel as my bike tumbled away. It hit the four strands of barb wire, snapping them.
I, too, tumbled through the new hole in the fence, grateful the bike had split the wires so I wouldn’t be cut to ribbons. I bounced over and over, finally coming to rest in the pasture. People and cows came running from all directions.
A man knelt by me. “Are you all right?”
My pants were ripped off nearly to my waist, and patches of skin were torn off of my legs and my arms. The wounds were full of dirt and gravel, stopping the bleeding. I stood and nodded.
Everyone helped me gather my books and presentation materials. The last man to leave said, “That has got to be the worst bike crash I have ever seen. You shouldn’t carry so much. It’s a miracle you aren’t dead.”
My tank of a bike survived with only slightly bent tires, and after closing the fence the best I could, I climbed on my bike and wobbled away. I met Evans about a quarter of a mile down the road.
“Thanks for the help,” I said sarcastically.
“Hey,” he replied. “I was embarrassed to have anyone know I knew you.”
Then, after a short pause, he added, “Man, you really need to learn how to ride a bike better.”
Article from 5 years back as a second choice.
The Ten Speed Bike
By
Daris Howard
I had never seen anything like it. It was shiny, red, and it had ten speeds. I was sure it was the most beautiful bike in the world. I looked at my ugly orange, girl’s, one-speed bike, a hand-me-down from the stone age, and suddenly I felt very envious. It wasn’t that my bike didn’t work well; it did. In fact, it was so sturdy it wouldn’t break down in a head-on collision with a train, because it was built like a Humvee and weighed twice as much. But this new bike was light and fast.
We boys all gathered around to stare at it. It belonged to our new neighbor, “Rod”, who had just moved into the area. “Wow! That’s a beauty!” Lenny said, running his hand along the sleek steel.
“Where did you get it?” Butch asked.
“A K-Mart in Salt Lake City,” Rod answered.
“What’s a K-Mart?” Buster queried.
“It’s bigger than any store you have around here,” Rod replied. “In fact you could probably fit ten stores the size of the grocery store inside of it.”
The grocery store was the biggest store in the area and by the look on some of the other boys’ faces, I could tell they didn’t believe Rod any more than I did. Surely no store could be that big. We hadn’t known Rod long, but we had already become suspicious that he exaggerated, especially when it came to stories about his life in the big city.
We all wanted to ask the big question, but no one dared. We all wanted to ride it, but we felt lucky just to be able to touch it and get close to it.
Rod showed us how it changed gears. He even turned it upside down and we watched as the gears slid onto smaller and smaller sprockets and the wheel turned faster and faster. We shook our heads in disbelief. None of us had ever seen a bike with more than one gear. Heck, none of us had ever seen a bike that wasn’t held together with baling twine, wire, and duct tape. This was truly a marvel of engineering.
Next, Rod had to show us how it worked. He rode it up the road a short distance and then came whizzing by.
“Wow!” Buster said. “It can really fly.”
Flying made us consider one other thing. We had developed a dirt ramp in Lenny’s barnyard that we liked to ride our bikes up and jump, coming down hard on the other side, and immediately sliding to a stop a safe distance from the barn. We rode to Lenny’s house and each of us took our bikes and made the jump. We all watched Rod to see what he would do. He rode away about 50 yards, turned, and flew down the road toward us. He sailed off of the jump, air born for much longer than any of us, and then slid to a stop in a shorter distance. We all whistled our admiration.
The other boys kept nudging me, so finally I asked. “Can I give it a try?”
Rod was new there and he paused, his reluctance apparent, but he didn’t want to give up the chance to make new friends. He hesitantly handed it over. To the other boys’ cheering I went down the road about a hundred yards, turned, and headed at full speed toward the ramp. I had never felt such speed and power. As I launched into the air, I felt as if I truly was flying, and I sailed farther even then Rod had. When I landed, I started pedaling backward to bring myself to a stop, but nothing happened.
The barn was approaching fast and fear choked the scream in my throat. I heard Rod yell “Squeeze the handbrake! Squeeze the handbrake!” just seconds before impact.
Rod came over and grabbed his bike, which was snapped in the middle, and yelled at me. “Haven’t you ever heard of handbrakes before, you Moron! You ruined my bike!”
I thought, “Who cares about your stupid bike. What about my head?”
And that’s the story of how Rod ended up with a bike that looked like the bikes the rest of us had - held together with bailing twine, wire, and duct tape.
(Daris Howard, award-winning, syndicated columnist, playwright, and author, can be contacted at daris@darishoward.com; or visit his website at http://www.darishoward.com)
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