Parental Follies

After dinner tonight, the kids wanted to ride their bikes a bit. We don’t have a very good setup for bike riding at our home, though. Our driveway is fairly narrow and all gravel. I suppose the gravel part is OK once you’ve learned to ride, but training wheels and gravel don’t work. Also, there’s the small matter of about 4 chords of waiting-to-be-chopped firewood sitting in the middle of our driveway at the moment, which makes for even less room for riding.

Our lawn isn’t exactly great for riding either. Fairly narrow with the logical turn around spots on hills. Plus, it’s kind of bumpy. Of course, if the lawn was really nice, we probably wouldn’t want them riding on it.

But they tried to make the most of it. The boy, particularly, is good enough to be able to tool around a bit back there. The lass is still learning how to ride. I told her to just keep her feet out to the side and try to balance on the bike as it went down the hill. So she practiced at that for a bit.

At one point, they asked if I could ride their bikes. Not in the “Will you do it?” sense, but in the “is it possible?” sense. When I told them I could ride either of their bikes, I offered to demonstrate by riding the lass’ bike down the little hill.

They thought that would be grand.

So I got myself setup on the lass’ bike (standing on the petals) and started down the hill. Just after I hit the bottom, I must have hit a bump. That and the fact that I exceed the reasonable weight limits of the bike resulted in the handle bars tilting way forward on me. I tried to correct the situation, but must have pulled on the hand brake on her bike. With all of my weight already forward as a result of the handle bars, I went flying head first off the bike.

While the landing wasn’t particularly pretty, it also wasn’t particularly harmful. Due to the size of the bike, I was only a couple of feet off the ground at most to start with. I did more damage to the few tufts of grass we’ve got in the yard than anything else. Naturally, I got up and dusted myself off and acted like the professional idiot that I am.

The kids were quiet for a moment, then the boy asked “Is that why we wear helmets, Dad?”

“Yes, that’s why you wear helmets,” I answered.