Here is one of my stories:
I was 16 and it was the last day of summer before my junior year of High school started. I had now owned my Honda CB350 for most of the summer and would now be considered an expert rider. Considered an expert rider by me anyway. The bike was running perfectly as I was headed home from getting my haircut. As I was cruising down Lincoln Street in Worcester Mass I noticed that my cousin was sitting at the bus stop waiting for a ride home. At this point I think it is important to tell you that because I am a 16 year old, badass biker, my 350 is equipped with straight pipes. I mean come on what could sound meaner or more impressive than a 350 Honda with no baffles?
As I am riding by my cousin, I pull in the clutch and rev the motor. I do this to impress him and everyone else within a mile or so. Seriously how could they not be impressed? I am 16 years old, my golden locks are flowing out of my helmet, I have my best pair of skin tight (it’s the 80s) Levi red tag dungarees and a black concert T shirt on. If that is not impressive then Joe Dirt is not a stud.
Side note: For those of you not old enough to know this, dungarees are what people called “jeans” back in the day when you wore your underwear UNDER your jeans.
So as I am feeling like a rock star and my bike is making more noise than a 13 year old girl at a Justin Beiber concert, I let the clutch out. In a normal situation this would not be any big deal but today is not my day and this is not a normal situation. As it turns out, dumping your clutch while coasting down a hill, pulling 7000 RPMs and being in the middle of a patch of oil tend to add up to something bad about to happen. Just like that I go from hero to zero. Yes I know I was only a hero in my own head but this is my story and not yours so like I said, hero to zero.
In one swift move the bike flips out from under me, slams me to the ground, pins my leg under the bike and the bike and I do our best impersonation of a slip and slide all the way through the intersection. When I come to a stop I look over and my cousin is bent over laughing as are all the other people at the bus stop. I pull myself out from under the bike and by some miracle I don’t have a single scratch on me. My best Levi’s have a few holes in them but no holes in my skin. The bike is another story. The bars are bent up, a mirror is gone and the forks no longer point forward. So much for taking the bike to school tomorrow. I end up pushing the bike about 2 ½ miles home which is no easy task considering the shape the front end is in. On the long push home, reality sets in. I am not a rock star. I am not a hero and I’m in no way cool. I’m a dork that has to walk to school in the morning.
Soon the bike is fixed and I am back to being a hero in my own eyes. For a poor kid that grew up in a crappy neighborhood I felt like a millionaire every time I rode that bike to school. A lot of kids had cars but very few had bikes and that felt pretty darn cool.
