When I was 23 I learned a valuable lesson. That I learned anything at 23 is amazing because at the time I believed I was bulletproof. I was living in South Jersey and hanging with a group of guys that all had motorcycles, except me. A Kawasaki 650 or better was kind of like your entry card into the club. I had two problems. One, I had no money and two; I didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle. I could get around the money issue, I’d just take another auto loan at 18+% like I currently had on my car….problem solved.
The learning how part was a different story and was solved like this:
During that summer a housing construction project was going on in the pine barrens and they had just bulldozed the street outlines through the woods. This left a perfect motor-cross track. One of our friends had a racing motorcycle. So everyone was taking turns on it blazing trails. Finally at one point the guy who owned the bike asked me if I wanted to try. It looked simple enough, no cars coming the other way to cream me, and we were starting at the top of a hill.
What happened next as much as it almost took my life, probably saved me in the long run. Picture being on top of a hill, that if you go straight ahead, you’ll have a gradual decline. But, to your left is a sheer 15 or 20-foot cliff, with a good size tree running up along the side of it. I sit on the bike; grab the brake (very important to know where that is) and the throttle. Without being in gear, I rev the throttle a couple of times and everyone around me, almost in unison says, “Wo-Wo-Wo, you don’t want to give it that much gas to start or you’ll pop a wheelie. (very sound advice). So I rev it again and everyone is in agreement, this is much better and I seem to have the hang of it. (They were all wrong). It’s too late though because the adrenaline is flowing and I’m ready for launch…literally. I must have had a brain fart, because it appeared that I skipped back to my first revision of throttle control. I engage the rocket engine that ‘s attached to the scraps of metal I’m sitting on and the missile is off. What happens next, all took place in less than 10 seconds, but will always be irrevocably etched into the gray matter that sits on top of my shoulders. I IMMEDIATELY pop a wheelie, which throws me back. In doing so, I’m now pulling back on the throttle even more, pouring a small reservoir of gas into the engine. I’m now moving at Mach 9. Simultaneously, I’m squeezing the brake as hard as I can, but what I learned the hard way is that on a motorcycle, the throttle is like a super hero in strength compared to the brake. It’s almost like the brake is really only there for show, it doesn’t really have to do anything. I race on one wheel for about 10 feet or so with my legs flailing like a rag doll. Then, for whatever reason (like I’m driving this rocket ship at this point?) I hit a hard left and jump off the cliff. As I’m sailing through the air, I come so close to the huge pine tree I can almost smell the sap. I land on one wheel go another 15 feet and wipe out in a large ditch. I get up, check all major and critical body parts and look for my “friends.” They’re all lying on the ground up on top of the hill. They’re laughing so hard they can’t stand up. They tell me, “Steve, in 7 seconds you did the three things you can do on a motorcycle. You popped a wheelie, you did a jump, and you wiped out.” So now we’re on level ground. We’ve reattached the gas line that came undone during my 7 second mission to break the land speed record, and they ask me if I want to try it again. After a brief battle controlling a stammer, I say, sure. I get on the bike, ride it once around the track, hand it back over… and I’ve never been on a motorcycle since.
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