Skids

I guess you can think whatever you want about that title. Maybe you think of skids of wood or palats. Maybe you think of the band Skid Row. Or maybe you just think of skid marks (not in your shorts) but the kind of skids you can make with your back tire. I'll get back to that.

Maybe I spend too much time in my car thinking. Today was no different. We're chugging down the Interstate to Rhode Island, Tasha's asleep and I'm listening to some old, old old, Bob Marley. It was disk 1 of the four disk set Songs of Freedom, which I bought about 10 years ago, and honestly it's the best 60 bucks you'll ever spend. Disk 1 is Bob before he had dreads young. It's some pretty funky stuff. But for whatever reason it just hit me. I know why I ride. It's about Freedom. Ok, I know Bob's chants are way deep talkin' bout Revolution, war, equality and such, but when I hear Bob, it just reminds me of a time when I was a lot more carefree, it reminds me when I first fell in love with the bike. Makin skid marks when I was 7 years old!

My friend Scott Gordon and I would make a line in our babysitters driveway and we would race to the line and throttle our BMX bikes pedals backwards and try to carry as much momentum as possible in our "Skid Mark Competition". He clearly had an advantage, cause not only was he much taller , but a year older. I remember the trick was to skid as far as you could with all the momentum you had then keep on shifting the rear end in a tail whip kind of motion to generate some more momentum to get the longest skid. You could always tell where you lost momentum though, cause the skid mark would deviate towards the side and look all snaky. Some times we'd get a little carried way and rip a skid on my Babysitters neighbour's lawn. He'd get pissed off and chase us around. So I guess this is when it all started. I may say I've only been racing for a few years, but this thing started a long time ago.

I think the funniest time was after I had just got my first BMX, a Tonka. My dad put it together after my parents bought it for me at Christmas. So I'm maybe like 6 years old or so, I'm not sure, but anyways I'm so proud of this cause the bike I had the year before had training wheels, so I'm ready to rip some skids once the snow was melting. Well we go out to the driveway, I go to pull the mother of all skids and the frigin handle bars come flying off the bike I get airborn and smash my face on the gravel driveway and worst of all my rubber boots go flying, maybe just one of them. I think Scott laughed so hard he pissed his pants. So you got Scotty full of pee, me crying my butt off full of blood and face full of stones and the neighbors wondering what the heck is happening....
Shoot that was funny. That's why I love riding my BIKE. BLOOD,SWEAT, TEARS and URINATION, EVRYTHING YOU NEED FOR A GOOD TIME!

So yah that was our trip down to RI, I'm sure Tasha was dreaming about...well I'm not sure what she dreams about, probably riding the computrainer or her SRM or something.

We pre rode the course, then went to Subway for a salads and had the guy warm up our our rice. We got a few looks as we were still in our kits and tasha had brown tall leather boots over her blue Cyclery thermal kit. THe guy at the Stop and Shop actually asked us if we were bicyclists or joggers. I said I was a balerina.

DSJ