Mini Biker – Like a bat out of Heck

copyright 2004 Dale Hansen - no reproduction without permission


My father owned a gas and service station. One day he won a prize for outstanding service to his company. I don’t remember if he sold more gas or fixed more cars than anyone else, but for some such accomplishment, his company awarded him the greatest prize any 11 year old son could imagine: a mini bike.

The box it came in was HUGE! I could have been buried in that box, and if I could have been buried with the mini bike, I would have gone happy. I would go out in the garage and stare at the box for hours on end, drooling over the drawing on the side depicting the promise within.

It was two wheels and a motor, a hard thrumming, get-your-motor-running, freedom machine. I had visions of the open road, wind in my face, bugs in my teeth, easy rider-highway flying.

I wasn’t allowed to open it and rescue my valiant steed, imprisoned as it was in the cardboard dungeon, so I contented myself with cleaning the outside of the box and talking to it in low tones no one else could hear.

What’s said between a man and his faithful companion is no one else’s business, after all.

I didn’t know I was to share secrets with the box for over a year.

Dad brought it home some time in June and deliberated for a couple of months as to whether or not he wanted to keep it or sell it. I didn’t actually have a vote in the matter, so I took a lobbying position. I begged him every day for a year to put it together for me.

“Begged” may be a bit misleading. I cried, screamed, pouted, flattered, sucked up, cleaned up, threw the occasional temper tantrum and even turned blue holding my breath. In short, I earned that mini bike.

By the time he decided to keep it in late October, it was too late to ride. This was Minnesota and the first snow flurries were already building up. I offered to ride in the snow. I would have ridden over snow, ice, peanut butter and jelly, or over most of the kids I went to school with.

My father and brother moved the box down into the basement, ostensibly to protect it from the searing cold and penetrating slush, but I still think that dad was upset over slipping on the frozen drool that had puddle around it. It was an involuntary action, I couldn’t help it.

Then too, Mother was pretty upset when she came out one chilly morning and found me sleeping on top of the box.

I still visited it, even in the basement. However, as it was the BASEMENT, I only went to see it when accompanied by an adult, or anyone else I could get to go with me.

I felt bad about abandoning my boxed friend to the dark confines of the BASEMENT, but as it was crated up anyway, it would never know. Beside, BASEMENT monsters only attacked kids who were down there alone, so if I stayed away, it was really only to protect my new friend.

I kept telling myself about that. Every time I looked at the door to the BASEMENT, I told myself that.

The snows eventually melted and the slush ran out, but still the great box sat idle in it’s musty darkness. With the advent of spring and a lack of “You can’t ride it in the snow anyway!” response, I redoubled my subtle hints that I might appreciate the bike, should someone be so inclined to allow me.

I got the bike. Dad assembled it in the BASEMENT – as safe and area to keep something hidden from me as any – and presented it to me for my birthday. My birthday is in August, so it was a long and miserable summer.

I finally had my friend! I had my life’s blood, the answer to all of my prayers and dreams! It was freedom, it was unbridled power at my command, it was iron and steel muscle! It had a pull cord starter, just like our lawn mower.

It was also a little shorter than I thought it would be. It really didn’t look too much like it’s picture.

Still, it was the love of my life.

How it gleamed! It was red and chrome and had a gas tank and everything! I sat on it, I started it up, I looked over at my dad with a great big smile on my face. Then I looked at my mother.

My mother was of the opinion that having a motorcycle – of ANY size, was exactly the same thing as walking around with a loaded gun to your temple. It was only a matter of time before you were going to kill yourself with it. The expression on her face was an “I told you so” gestating. She was building it up. I knew the first injury related to that mini bike was the last.

There was only one way to safely avoid all injuries: I wouldn’t tell her about them.

The two months of summer I had left, I rode every day, all day. When school resumed (two days after my birthday – why wasn’t I born in May?), I got on it every day as soon as I got home and rode nonstop until it was dark. I tried to duct tape a flashlight to the handlebars, but there limits to how far mother’s opinion could be squelched.

I explored every nook and cranny of our yard (huge yard – ¾ of an acre, all grass), every inch of the woods behind out house that I could get to, and our neighborhood.

Where we lived was referred to as a “horseshoe”. The main road, Rural Route 4, meandered by our area on it’s way into the backwoods.  Just past the junction of our road (two junctions really, of the same road that looped around like a horseshoe) Rural Rout 4 became dirt. We lived on the edge of civilization, but I wasn’t allowed to ride on the “main” road.

There was enough trouble to get into with out it.

We had a ditch that ran the length of our yard, right where the yard met the top of the horseshoe. If you took this ditch at just the right angle, you could actually fly up the other side and experience the pure joy of your wheels leaving the ground. If your approach was a little off, you experienced your front wheel grounding out on the rise and then the rear of the bike taking over and climbing the rise first, no matter if you were on it or not.

Either way was fun.

Our house was built on a mound that was a great deal higher than the rest of the yard. The mound rolled steeply down to the grass below. It could be disconcerting to ride down a hill like that, with your rear end higher than your front. It was fun, but disconcerting.

It was more fun to jump.

I could sail a good six feet in the air off of that mound. The line of trees ten feet from the bottom just made things a little more challenging. So did the clothesline.

Still, I was a master at the art of hill jumping. Keep the front wheel up, land on the rear, keep the wheels in a straight line, you would land like a glider gently touching the earth.

The one day I let the wheel turn while I was still in the air was the day I learned what “sudden stop” really meant.

I was in the air, having built up speed before the jump. I jerked up on the handle bars to get that little extra air. It was my greatest leap ever! I had to have been ten feet in the air, maybe more! The back tire touched down with the grace of a swan touching a quiet lake, the front tire touched down with the finality of a brick landing on a bare foot.

I understand that the bike actually bounded back up and spun a few times. I can’t say that I was in a position to notice. My glasses had found a safer area to be, some distance away from me, and I was too busy digging a trench with my face to really notice what happened to the mini bike.

I could hear the motor still going, so somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought it must be alright if it was still running.

Of course, the girl who lived next door to me was running too. She thought I was dead. I found it difficult to argue against that diagnosis.

The bike wasn’t damaged. I don’t know how, considering the fall it took, and considering the cuts, scrapes, and bruises I had, but miraculously, the bike was OK. It even looked good after I pulled five pounds of grass out of the engine.

OK, I could tell my mom that I got these marks from… playing in the woods,,,, I was being chased by hornets and fell, - and didn’t get a single sting…..playing football – with myself….. getting dragged behind a bus…. I feverishly thought of every excuse I could, while this girl was chattering away about my mortality. I had something far greater to worry about than dying: I had a mother who would take away my bike!

I made up my mind to say that I fell. Period. A simple answer, no details.

But there was a witness. I resorted to the time honored and sacred pact between all children: “If you don’t tell on me, I won’t tell on you”. It was a lame ploy, really, as she was one of those girls that never did anything wrong. Ever. There was absolutely nothing I could think of to use to blackmail this preteen Mother Teresa. Then, to my extreme dismay, she let me know the point was moot.

Apparently, after witnessing my one and a half, three point gainer off of the motorcycle and into the dirt, she announced to her mother that I had killed myself and then she ran out of the house screaming like an angry ambulance.

Probably wasn’t going to do too much good, trying to swear her to secrecy now.

I rode around that day as long as I could, knowing it was to be the last day on the bike. That night, Mother bought the excuse that I fell, no- just fell, no - not on the bike, no – no - not on the bike, no - just fell, standing still, no - most definitely NOT on the bike.

I spent two weeks waiting for the hammer to fall. When, by a chance meeting in the grocery store, my mother was told about my athletic prowess on two wheels, I was sharply questioned. I pointed out that the girl next door, regardless of how perfect she may be, was convinced that Ford would pardon Nixon. The girl obviously had a very skewed perception of reality.

I don’t think mother actually bought that, not completely, anyway, and it was rather uncomfortable around our house three weeks later when Ford pardoned Nixon.