Everytime I see a rider like this on the street, especially these mini stunt bikes I must admit the part of me that is envious starts to creep in. It always seems like a fun thing, I even like seeing them do wheelies, I really want to be a motorcycle rider but its hard for me to make the descion to actually buy one despite my longing for it because of the associated risks.

I loved riding bikes as a kid and would even do some pretty extreme stunts, my parents even bought me a ramp one year for christmas and that thing got a lot of jumps from me, my cousins and even the neighborhood kids.

One year when I was in middle school I went to a hill in my city, the hill has two sides a really steep side and a much less steeper side, all my life I had only done the less steep side. I had seen others do the steep side before so I knew it was possible so today I decided it was my turn to try. I was not ready and actually had a bad accident. To be fair to my self I actually had managed to make it all the way down safely, where I got injured is when I was trying to stop for some runners at the bottom of the hill that I didn’t see (and I’m pretty sure didn’t see me, this is why you should have spotters when attempting stunts like this, could have avoided the whole thing). Anyway I pretty much immediatly blacked out and although never offically diagnosed I likely gave my self a concusion that day and scracthed up my face pretty hard on the pavement, Thankfully I was wearing a helmet or else this could have been worse. In fact the following weeks in school I had been given the nickname scar face. I did end up going back to conquer that hill by the way but my love for danger and adrenaline had taken a major hit that day and jumps that I used to do on the bike no problem became more scary for me.

My love for bikes didn’t end there and neither did my accidents. My summer before highschool (and a other highschool summer) I did bike deliverys for jimmy john’s and had one very minor accident with a distracted driver leaving a parking garage while I was on the sidewalk, I did get bumped off my bike, but nothing broken or bruised just a bit spooked. With my jimmy johns money that summer I had bought a used moped for about $200. And by the time summer came around I had gotten into an accident in it, this time I was not wearing my helmet but it was a solo accident. I was on the moped getting home from somewhere when it had started to rain HARD. I was dying to get home and dry so when I had pulled up on my house I had decided to cut through the yard instead of the driveway (saving me maybe 10 seconds) well I hit a bump in the yard that I did not expect and flew up and off the bike. Hit the ground and tumbled pretty hard, I was in some pain my arm and ribs were sore but miracualsly not broken. The scene must have looked pretty dramatic as one of the neighbors had seen it and in the pouring rain had gone outside to check up on me. I assured them I was fine and they went back inside, at the moment saying “im fine” was a bit of a white lie but ultimatly I was.

I say all that to tell you this. I love bikes but I also know that they are dangerous thru my own personal experience. But data backs this up too.

So despite how fun I think it would be to do a wheelie on a grom, or go really fast in something more open to the world around me than a convertible, or even run from police. I think my mind is rightfully telling me to not buy a motorcyle in interest of my own life and longevity, but man I really would like to.