Water is rapidly condensing on the ice bag next to my keyboard. It’s double-bagged, refrigerator-made ice. When I put the ice in the bag it was aligned in a tight, color-guard formation and as cold as Shackleton’s mustache. The ziplock bags are name brand. I checked because I didn’t want it leaking all over the carpet. 

The Beginning

It all started yesterday when I woke up. At my crashpad in Memphis I got up early and did what I do every morning- check my name on the reserve list and make the best damn cup of coffee that I can dream up. It was Dunkin Doughnuts original blend and just thinking of that orange, crackly wrapper gets me excited again. The wispy, white steam rising out of my gifted, black coffee mug were a sign that the day would be glorious. I used my meditative powers to slow down time and become hyper-aware. Each hot sip burned down the inside of my throat and breathed air into my plans. 

The Idea

I strolled into the kitchen and stood there in my black socks staring at the spiked, rubber wheels on my bike. Yeah, they were too muddy to be inside but it’s too cold and too wet outside for a good bike that was house trained the day I brought it home. Today’s mission: Get outside and ride before the sun goes down. But first, training. 

Training

I opened Youtube and began watching RedBull athletes fly down mountains on bikes. In one video they raced down a snowy mountain sliding faster than an oiled eel around treacherous curves full of rocks and death. In a different video some guy biked down a cliff line that would challenge a goat and then back flipped into the air sticking the landing like a gold medal gymnast. Each trick increased my confidence. By the time my friend Mike got off work and we rolled out to the trails, I was practically Danny MacAskill.

Coming into Glory

With one bike and two people, we were alternating who got to ride and who had to run. I was on foot when we broke through the trees on the trail and came into the abandoned BMX track on the edge of Stanky Creek. I felt like Maximus Decimus Meridius walking onto the battlefield for Rome. Today was my day for glory. Shortly after that was when a beefy reality came off the top rope and put some Krav Maga on my skinny dreams. 

The Warm-Up

I watched a couple of pretty good riders hit some bigger jumps and then lined up with some easy warm up stuff. After a few minutes it was time to get to work. With all eyes on me, I stood up hard on the pedal, dropped the brakes and rolled into the bowl to set up my jump. The first one was amazing! So good in fact that I almost got both tires off the ground. Fortune favors the bold!

The Takeoff

Jump number two went down like this. I wizzed around to the other side of the bowl to set up. I stopped and took a few deep breaths and when I kicked off, I clicked up two full gears before I dropped in for the jump line! I accelerated downward and then rotated toward the sky. Reaching the top of the lip of earth I executed my best bunny hop and to my satisfaction, I came loose from the ground like a Space X Falcon 9. I reached my pinnacle at about 6 inches off the ground. That was one half of a second after both of my feet had left their approved landing locations on the pedals and drifted about weightlessly and aimlessly in the sky. Imagine what a jugglers ball might do if you hit the performer in the kneecap with a ball peen hammer mid show. The ride down was a disaster in the making. My legs doing a type of running man dance, my feet frantically searching for something to land on and my eyes getting bigger and bigger. If my crotch could have packed a bag in that beautiful arc across the sky, I’m sure it would have ran away from home because the final product of that attitude and the gravity that was upon me was shaping up for the worst.

The Offset Manuever

By the grace of the universe I managed to offset my body just enough so that when my feet missed the pedals and my body came crashing down, my right ass cheek jammed into the center bar of my frame. You might imagine the onlookers view as as the front wheel wobbled wildly while the rear wheel chased after it and the speed of the ordeal bled off with a 6 foot tall, 180 pound man riding, nay, balancing precariously somewhere between the seat and the front handlebars but never at the same place for more than an instant with both legs flailing for something solid and with my right butt cheek bearing the weight of the nation. My mouth was open in horror. Whether from the embarrassment I endured at the behest of the onlookers or the narrow margin with which my manly-parts dodged the throngs of hellfire I do not know. I wish I could stop here and say that was it but it wasn’t. I was destined for glory and wouldn’t t have it any other way.

Please sir, may I have another?

About fifteen minutes later while still gathering back some semblance of courage from the first snafu and meticulously nursing my pride, I biked around the park looking over the carefully carved beams of earth for my next “big trick.” I would stop and stare longingly at an obstacle thinking of the lines I might run with my current skill set to show off my “dope” moves. My forehead furrowed like Churchhill on D-Day I contemplated one more go and while standing up and traveling at the slowest speed you can on a bike whilst still appearing to be a rider and not a stand-a-rounder, my front tire was stopped by a root. I reacted naturally with inertia by moving my center of gravity forward a bit. It was immediately then when I executed my jerk-up-the-front-wheel-and-hope-for-the-best maneuver but my dear friend, it was too late. At nary a half mile per hour speed, I had shifted my center of gravity forward without restraint past the seat, past the water bottle area, past the front bars, and yes, past the front tire. The jerking maneuver only accelerated the inevitable wrist cracking face plant that was decidedly mine and; I owned it. I was ass over tits into the dirt. The ability to slam dunk yourself on a bike from a near standstill is something I didn’t even get to witness on Youtube. Had it not been for the many times I’ve seen my wife perform this maneuver riding near our home I would have been utterly lost. From afar it must have looked benign but I’ll tell you from the front seat it was spectacular.

It is from these events and the rapidly diverging paths between what Youtube led me to believe and my actual reality that I must now stop writing to you and again, ice this unfortunate wrist and my ailing spirit.

Until soon,

Brad