Crash Course :: Essays Papers

Crash Course Ever since I was young, I have had a fascination with bikes and motorcycles. I enjoyed reading and learning about them. As an adolescent riding my bike was a sort of nirvana for me. Interestingly enough, I was never very skilled at the art of bicycle riding. True, I did find it interesting and exciting, among other things, but I just wasn't any good at it. I would be willing to venture that the number of accidents I had on my bike would rival the totals of some race riders, although I was never that daring. Consequently, I walked away (most of the time) from those accidents with quite a few scars and just as many stories. My first accident happened not long after my maiden voyage. In fact it happened on my maiden voyage. I lived in a small, Leave it to Beaver type town (with more dirt and more hoodlums), all the kids on the street were skilled bike riders, and "riding bikes" was the most frequent use of playtime. At nine or ten years old, I was suffering from distinct feelings of inferiority because there were kindergartners on my block who could ride their bikes when I hadn't yet learned. To this day I haven't been able to decide what kept me from learning for so long. Being the only kid on the block who has to ride with training wheels is not a distinction most ten-year-olds would want to call their own. And I was no different. I hated feeling like a baby. In the summer of my tenth year I decided that I would put an end to this feeling of inferiority once and for all. I had it all planned out. While I was spending a week at my grandparents house, I would teach myself to ride a two-wheeler. I would go away a chump and come back a champ: the ultimate "Rags to Riches" story, at least that is what it would be to my ten-year-old mind. I got to work on my mission as soon as I arrived. I went to my grandparents shed behind their house and opened it, stepping into the sun-baked shed and smelling the familiar warm musty odor that I had expected. Then I saw it: the old copper finish sparkling where some rays of sunshine snuck in the door to help me find it. It was old, most likely older than I was.