Alright, what the hell. I'm not proud. So not proud that I actually have two quick tales.

When I was 11, I had the Canadian version of a Stingray with the big ape hangers and had gone to my old neighbourhood to visit friends after having not seen them since I moved six months earlier. On the way home, I was flying down a steep gravel road when the ding-ding-ding warning bells and barriers came down on either side of the railway tracks at the bottom of the hill. I slammed on my brakes, but we all know how easy ape-hangers are to handle at top speed and they went one way, then the other, then back and...well...the bike and I tumbled and slid to the bottom of the hill. When I stood up, my clothes were in tatters and I had a million scrapes and abrasions. I had to walk about five miles home, so stiff from the cuts and blood, I must have looked like a zombie. To this day I bear scars of where gravel became embedded under the skin on my right knee.

When I was 17, I lived on my own and my apartment was the party place of choice for my friends with no worries about parents butting in if we were smoking a doob or drinking. Well, someone brought a bottle each of rye and rum, but we didn't have mix. Since I had money and a bike, I offered to zip out to the convenience store in the pouring rain to go get coke. On the way back, the rain was relentless and comin in slanted, stinging my eyes. I could only glance up every so often and keep my head down most of the time, because it was impossible to look straight ahead. Once, when I looked up, there was a parked car directly in front of me. I attempted to veer out of the way, but the bike turned and my body didn't. I sailed over the trunk, roof and hood while the bike skidded on the ground around the drivers side. After slamming my chin into the hood ornament (yep, still have the scar), I slid off the side of the hood where my foot went through the spokes, firmly trapping my ankle to the front wheel. As luck would have it, a cop was right across the road and witnessed the whole thing (they were never ever around when I needed them before) and he wrote me up a ticket ("it's a traffic accident, you know") and took me to the hospital to get stitches. I got home three or four hours later and both the bottle of rum and rye were empty and my blurry-eyed friends looked up at me and slurred 'hey man, where were you with the mix?'