Changing The Past?

I got to thinking about it and there are a couple of things that I could have done different.

I would have never have:

-used a chain saw without a hard hat

-ridden a motercylce without a helmet(particularly while drinking)

-gotten wasted on my 19th birthday blown off my sister, mom and dad, grandma and grandma then shown up at my sisters house at 4 in the morning in time to puke in her living room

-grabbed a hot muffler with my bare hands

-raced a mini bike with a girls bicycle that had no seat when I was 9. This resulted in a tragic accident which may explain why I have no children to this day and besides that it really hurt.

- and I most definitely would never have stuck my hand in a running lawn mower deck.

Peace

Mikel

As to why I always wear a helmet when on a two-wheeled vehicle (I've ridden both motorized and non-motorized), I have a helmet with a triangular-shaped piece about 3 inches to a side that broke off the front of the helmet when I landed on my head after being launched over the handlebars due to a piece of debris on the roadway catching in the front wheel and locking up the wheel. There is a almost identical piece on the back of the helmet where the shock wave from the impact passed through the helmet. I walked away from it without so much as a headache, although I did have to get some stitches in my face due to some mild lacerations, and still have some barely visible tattoos from imbedded asphalt. Many years ago, when I started US Cycling Federation-sanctioned bicycle road racing, one of my fellow competitors died after hitting the ground head-first while wearing one of the leather hairnets that passed for helmets in those days.
I've landed on my head at least three times--once from a motorcycle, and twice from bicycles--each time wearing a hardshell helmet, and each time walking away. I have some scars, but am still here.
Helmets do make a difference.

And the Darwin Award goes to..... OOOPs! Sorry Raven, I have puked in a relative's house, and I was hit by a car on my bike without a helmet. Never mind.

T.

Whenever I am about to crash my bicycle, I think of my mantra:





"Blood is inevitable, but chicks dig scars!"


T.

That must be why I am so popular

Unfortunately my hair hides most of my scars

Mikel

Same-same, folks! I have my share of adult bicycle scars also. Mostly from back in the days before helmets or leather hair nets. Never rode in the peloton but did a lot of touring in the Midwest (longest ride was 350 miles) and some urban tactical guerrilla racing with my homies on the streets of Minneapolis back in the day.

Chicks dig scars? Really? I should be more popular since I wear shorts all the time. I got some good ones, though they've faded with age.

RON

I really don't think I would change anything.

I am happy with the way my life has turned out for me even though there were a few bumps that I would not care to go through again.

The question is, if I was to change even one of them, would I be where I am at now in my life and would I have the wisdom that I collected from those experiences? I doubt it. I would probably have to experience those thing anyhow and who knows what the outcome would be the next time?

So again, I am happy just the way things are.

I came to cycling late. I began riding in 1990. I was 32 and I had just quit smoking. I spent a few years racing Cat 4/Cat 5 in USCF. I quit when I realized that the kids I was racing healed quicker than I did.

That same year, I began racing off road. More fun! Our team was based out of Corpus Christi, TX. Not many mountains in a coastal town, so we rode urban assult two nights a week. I have'nt raced since 2000, I'm hoping to begin again agter grad school. Hopefully a I prefer Mountain Bike racing. The racers have a sense of humor.

As for scars, I have crashed far more on the mountain bike, but my best scars are from the road bike.

T.

That was about the same time my wife and I gave up competitive powerlifting for the same reasons (she was a lot better than I was and has all the trophys to prove it )

We started doing music at that time ( there were sports injuries involved that pushed us that way)

But I did manage to have a pretty good road bike accident a few years ago and kind of gave that up since as it took me long enough to heal that I never got back into it. I had a car pull out in front of me and I hit him and went right over the hood and landed on the concrete (I was 39 at the time ) so you know that took some recovery. I'm so busy doing my day job and music right now that I just don't have time or I would probabaly go for the off road thing. It sounds like fun Single Speed.

Happy Cycling

Mikel

Classic little mtn. biking story. About 10 years ago now, my friend and surf buddy, "Coco" Fernandes, decided on a whim that he wanted to enter the Kamikaze Pro-Am Downhill events. He borrowed some BMX armor and a helmet from one guy, got a jersey from somebody else, borrowed $20 for gas from me and we sent him off down the road as "Team Pismo." I think the gig was at Mammoth Mountain.

We figured he'd either get killed or something and would have been happy if he just made it down alive. As it turned out his first race he came in about 19th out of a very, very big field......and he was hooked!

A few years later he was ranked 14th in the world! Haven't seen him in a few years but Coco did us all proud.

Crazy freakin' Peruvian!

*****
Hey, powerlifting, eh, Raven? Great! What was your best lift? I was training along those lines a few years ago but since I broke my back about 30 years ago in The Army my training is limited....nonetheless at 148 lbs. I managed to squeak 225 one rep max. When I start training again here soon, I still have the goal of hitting 300....twice my body weight, but that would be some 2 years after I start serious training again....I think I can put up that poundage!

Some of us do our best work laying down!
RON

Good Goals McHaggis

I started power training at 25 and my best Bench ever was a 300 single at 178 and a 395 single squat and deadlift at 29 yrs old.

My wife was runner up national champion at 102 with a best bench of 145 and 300 squat and deadlift. I really became plagued with injuries at the time starting with a torn bicep and the list goes on. My wife retired after being injured in tryouts for the American Gladiators (she tore both of her quads) only a week before the qualifying round for the nationals the next year. She was projecting American Records but that's the way it goes as you get older I am 43 now and I still lift but very light and only as a means to stay tone and help in the control of my type 1 diabetes as I heal slower than ever now Also it helps me with my stamina as a performing musician

Good luck with that double body weight lift. I hope you do it!!

Mikel