Maybe there was something in the water in So Cal back in the late 50s and early 60s, from my earliest memories, racing and surfing were my 2 biggest fantasies. I remember being 4 or 5 and having races with other kids on the street on tricycles. A great many of the safety rules I learned were in elementary school at what they called "bicycle roundups" which were after school classes for kids who wanted to ride their bikes to school. No one had helmets back then. Those rules were re-inforced and added to by years of continuing bicycling. My dad had a couple motorcycles when I was young and both my parents thought it very important to point out real life examples of dangerous situations every time we were on the road in the car. When we moved to Sacramento, there was lots of pasture land at the end of the street and we all learned to ride our bicycles in the dirt as well, some of us went on to ride dirt bikes, and I had a couple jr.high friends get killed trail riding so no matter where you are or what you're doing, especially if it involves motion at anything greater than a walking speed, you have to be careful. They were riding in an area that was commonly used, someone had strung a chain across the trail at a curve, they came around the curve fast and the chain took the first kids head off. Learning from others experiences is invaluable and essential to survival. Someone said 10% skill and 90% confidence? I think thats a dangerous equation, you need all the skills you can get, have 110% confidence in those skills, but only 80% confidence in the fact that those skills will actually save you. It's overconfidence that will send you into a corner too fast, even if "too fast" is only 5mph.
