You'll break your neck!

As I've mentioned several times, one of my biggest childhood pastimes was riding my bicycle. A bicycle meant freedom, and to me, that meant the freedom to ride almost anywhere within a 20-mile radius of my home. But, it also meant the freedom to be a stunt rider. Yep, I was a mini Evel Knievel for sure. I could ride wheelies, stand up on the seat and balance myself, ride backwards, frontward, and even sideways, however, the greatest thing in the world was soaring through the air off of the end of a ramp. That's what this particular story is about...

I guess I was around 12 or 13-years old. Kevin and I had been riding our bikes all morning long. We had been zooming down the steep hill on Maloneyville Rd., just up from my parent's house, and ramping off of a 3-foot bank in front of my Uncle Jim's. We did this for a few hours and had perfected our jumps to a T. Well; we soon tired of this and decided that we needed a bigger ramp so that we could jump longer distances. Being some pretty smart country boys, we knew where to scrounge up the proper ramp building materials. We went out behind my dad's chicken house and found some old boards and some cinder blocks. We drug these items to the front yard and began building our dream ramp.

I can't rightly recollect how many cinder blocks we used but it was several. We started out just building it about 3-feet high and trying it out. That worked great but still wasn't enough. We added more blocks. Finally we had the ramp standing up at about 5-feet high, with a running board about 10-feet long. Just looking at it made us dizzy. We were a little nervous about trying it out. We had never ramped off of anything that high before. Who would attempt it first? Whoever it was had to hit the ramp fast and pull up hard on the handlebars. It was decided that Kevin would be the guinea pig. So, he rode out to the backyard to get a good running start. I stood about 10-feet off to the side so I could get a good view of the jump. Kevin slammed his feet hard against the bike pedals and roared into motion. Faster and faster he made his way toward that ramp. Dogs, cats, and small children were running in fear of the sound of the wind whipping through his wheel spokes. Finally he reached the ramp, hitting it with full force. Up he went, yanked back on the handlebars and did the most beautiful jump you have ever seen in your life. It was like slow motion. The entire world stood still as he hung in mid-air with the wind blowing through his hair. He made a perfect landing, only slightly wavering on contact with the ground. He slammed on the brakes and pumped his right hand up in the air giving a loud "YEAH!!!" I was jumping up and down in sheer delight of seeing this marvelous stunt. We had hit the big time. Now we could start jumping cars, trucks, and airplanes. We would certainly become famous stunt riders and be on television within the next year.

I was so excited about trying the ramp for myself. I clamored on board my bike and began to peddle toward the back yard. Little did I know that my mother had watched this whole scene take place from the window of our living room. She came streaking out to the front yard. "Take down that ramp right now!" she yelled. I spun around to see what was going on. "Take it down right now! Are you trying to break your necks?" I don't know why mom was always worried about me breaking my neck. As far as I know, there wasn't ever anyone in my family that broke their neck. I was distraught. How could she do this to me? "But, mom," I began. "Don't but mom me," she said. "You get that ramp down right this instance. Your lucky that Kevin didn't kill his self."

So, reluctantly, we dismantled the ramp. I never did get to try it out. Sometimes I have dreams in the middle of the night about soaring through the air. I guess that's as far as I'll ever come to the real thing. Oh well, who knows, I might have actually broken my neck if I had tried it. I reckon we will never know.

Moral of this story: If you are going to do something stupid, let somebody else try it first. Always protect your neck, apparently it is the most vulnerable bone in your body...

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If you want to see some amazing bicycle stunts, check out the video below. If anyone is going to break their neck, it's gonna be this guy!