Ash – Evel Knievel

When I was a little kid I had a bad habit of being an asshole by mistake. Like the time someone left their locker door open and I kicked it shut — right on the finger of a little girl I had a crush on. The teacher looked at me like I was evil incarnate. No chance to explain.

Or the time I convinced my friend to do a trick on his new bike.

We rode our bikes all over town. They were like hot rods to us. As long as you were home for dinner you could spend the whole day exploring, riding down steep hills and checking out other neighborhoods.

Our hero was Evel Knievel. He always said don’t try this at home, but we all knew he really meant. Do crazy stuff.

Our bikes had the kind of brakes where you push down on the pedal. My friends and I loved to get a little speed ride up the driveway and eeerrrrrrt! Leave black skid marks on the concrete. That made us feel like badasses. Probably from all the Starsky and Hutch we watched.

One day my friend Mike turned up with a new bike. “It’s got front AND back brakes!” he said. He rode around in the street a few times and showed me how it worked. Back brakes worked like normal, with the pedal, so he rode around a bit and then made a skid mark in his driveway.

“What happens if you do a skid with your front brakes?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I never tried it,” he said. He rode to the corner, turned around and started pedaling. I waited in his driveway to see what would happen. I honestly had no idea.

It was pretty spectacular all right. He got about halfway up the driveway, locked up the front brakes, did a somersault, smashing his ribs against the handlebars.

He said, “Um. I. Need to go inside for a minute.” He stumbled inside, slammed the door and I heard, “Waaaaaaaaah!”

Then his mom came to the door. “Sorry, Mike can’t play right now.”

Lesson learned. Sort of. I had plenty of bike crashes of my own, but not the same way as Mike.