When I was younger, I loved to ride my bike. Not that I don’t anymore, but something occured a handful of summers ago that made me a bit paranoid for a significant amount of time. A few years ago, my parents decided to take my brother and I to Mckenzie River Trail, a beautiful biking and hiking area near the Three Sister Mountains. We packed up, left town, and arrived at the perfect campsite, at the edge of the water in a lush forest, with very few other campers. Not only was this the perfect place to have an adventure, but also the perfect, and I say that with the utmost sarcasm, place to get injured. Now I’ve had several experiences involving bikes that were memorable. My mother’s bike fell out of our truck on the highway once, (nobody was injured, luckily). I crashed straight into my neighbor’s car when I went down a curved hill, leaving a noticeable me shaped dent. But nothing could have ever compared, or possibly ever will, the the injury, and traumatizing experience I endured that wonderful day.

Allow me to first paint you a picture of me at the time. I was a Wild Kratts fanatic, with relatively curly hair, far redder than it is now, and a beautiful bike with pink, silver and purple streamers along with magenta racing stripe down the side. My helmet, which I will admit prevented me from severe brain damage at the cost of its own demise was a brown, skateboarders helmet that had previously belonged to my father in his youth. The helmet had the image of a snake looking into a hand mirror it held with its tail. Cartoon hearts floated up above it’s head, and I’ll admit it was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever owned.

Now that you have an idea of what I looked like, I will return to the story. On the second of the three days we planned to stay there, my family decided to go on a ride on the nearby trail. It had been featured on a television show called Grant’s Getaways. The show explained fun places to visit around Oregon for a enriching nature experience, and at the time, my parents absolutely loved those kinds of things. This particular place had once housed an active volcano, and igneous rock piled around the base, gleaming like freshly cleaned knives. Now, It was an incredibly hot day, the sun pounding down like the sun had decided to use Earth as a punching bag.

We rode the trail for about an eighth of a mile, and I somehow found myself in the lead. I wanted to stop and wait for my family, as I was a bit farther ahead than I liked, so I tried to put my foot down to stop. The path was rather narrow, and as I had recently had a growth spurt, my father had adjusted the seat to accommodate this. Perhaps he had done it a bit to far, or I simply wasn’t paying attention and lost my balance, but my foot couldn’t reach the ground easily. I had to lean down, which meant I was resting the weight of my bike on my leg. Now, I doubt you’ll be surprised by what happened next, but, if you haven’t a clue, I’ll have you know I lost my balance and fell. See, the path dropped off into a steep, rock covered hill on one side, probably going 40 feet down, and a nice grassy field on the other. Which one do you think I fell down? I sure wish it had been the latter.

For the moment where I was tipping, it felt like I was in slow motion. I screamed, and fell off the side of the path, my bike tumbling with me. It was like I was a rag doll. My body rolled without stopping down the hill side, rocks clawing at my flesh. Honestly, it felt like they had some sort of vendetta against me for painting and collecting their fallen comrades. At one point, I heard a loud crack, which I assume was my helmet, and the grinding of metal, which I assume was my bike. I couldn’t stop, and was probably in too much shock too even if I could’ve, so I rolled to the bottom, before sprawling out in a little heap with my bike on top of me at the bottom. I lay there, numb to the world for a moment, my heart racing too fast to register any pain. I heard my dad yell, and drop his bike running down the help me. My mom and brother waiting at the top. He ran down, pulled the bike off me, and brought me to my feet. I was still in quit a daze, but I distinctly remember asking whether or not my bike was alright (It wasn’t), with little to no regard to my own physical condition.

I climbed back to the top, and reached up to pull off my helmet. There was a searing pain in my wrist. My mother pulled my helmet of my head, which had a long crack stretching down the middle, and began assessing my injuries. I had a few scrapes on my face and knees, and my shirt was torn. They kept telling me how lucky I was to have so few injuries, and that I could have died. In hindsight, this should’ve frightened me, but I was in to much pain in my wrist to notice.

My family walked back to the car, passing several kind hikers who offered me ibuprofen and first aid. I don’t remember, but my mom said I was bleeding quite profusely. and I sat shaking in my father’s truck as he went back to retrieve my bike and helmet. He returned with only my bike. My bike itself looked pretty bad. A streamer had been yanked off, my tire bent and something involving my brakes had been served. “Where’s my helmet?” I inquired, upon seeing it was missing from the load. My dad told me it had been gone when he had retrieved my bike, probably taken by one of the hikers that had passed by. Was this true? I don’t know, but I was devastated. I loved that helmet. We drove back to our campsite, where I whimpered and whined for the rest of the evening. My parents offered on multiple occasions to leave to camp early, to take me to the hospital. Why had I resisted this? The rest of the night and the next day I suffered. I didn’t sleep, and was of little help when time came to pack up and leave.

I had a sprained wrist, and couldn’t play volleyball the rest of the summer. I got a new helmet, but nothing could replace the awesome designed one I had lost. My bike was fixed, and now belongs to my little brother, who got rid of the remaining streamer, and covered the pink racing stripe in black electrical tape. Luckily, I am now fully recovered, and not dead, as you can see. Did I learn anything from this? Sort of. First, It isn’t a good idea to listen to everything you hear on TV. It’s important to see if things are kid friendly or not. Secondly, helmets save heads from being cracked open. But most importantly, always let people know, or go with people when you go on adventures in nature. If my family hadn’t been there, would I have just laid there in shock at the bottom of the hill, in too much pain to properly attend to myself? Probably. And that is the story of my disaster on wheels, the biking trip I took with my family at Mckenzie River Trail.