Motorcycle Views

Wild Motorcycle Tales

Here's a great story from Myles Bryant. Got your own story? Send it to me.

Topsy-Turtle

I bought my first bike back in 64. I was 16. I got the old instructions all of us older bikers got when we were just learning to ride. "Down once and up four times, this is the brake, this is the clutch, twist here to make it go, and forget about the front brake, it'll get ya killed." I had many wrecks on this bike, this is the story of just one of them.

I had been riding about four or five months at this time, and thought I knew how to ride. I had already had several wrecks and had learned a lot. I had also bought a car, a 56 Chevy, that my mom had managed to wreck in the front end. A friend was to pick the car up and take it to the shop for me and was going to follow me back to town. I was on my lunch break.

We lived in the country and it was hilly and the road had lots of curves. There was one curve that I really liked. It was an "S" curve with a bridge in the middle of it. Down the hill in a right-hander, across the bridge and up the hill in a left-hander, falling away on the other side. The posted speed was 35 mph. I was running it at 75. As I crossed the bridge and topped the hill, dragging pegs in the hard left hander, there in the road was the largest turtle I had ever seen. You know I hit him. I can still see it all today. The bike straightened out and was headed for the ditch. I had come off the seat and had lost my hold on the grips and was to the left of the bike, in the air, headed for the ditch. I still remember the moment we, the bike and I, made contact with the ditch. I can still see the front tire and handle bars as they struck and twisted hard to the left. Then as I rolled in the ditch I lost sight of the bike, but not for long. As I rolled in the ditch my own bike ran over me. We were both moving kinda fast. Then I caught up to it and ran over it. Then it ran over me again. I remember the dirt in the air, thrown up by the bike, as I rolled over it one more time. No helmet, lying in the ditch, both arms over my head, curled into the smallest ball I could make. I could hear the bike right behind me, still running.

Waiting for it to make one more pass over me, all was still with anticipation. Moments passed, then I looked. It lay there, twisted, but still running. What to do? I walked to my house, about a mile back down the road. I called my boss and told him that I would not be able to come back to work, as I had wrecked my bike and had no transportation. He asked if I was all right and when I said I was, he informed me that he would send the tow truck for me and the bike. Everyone had a good laugh when I showed up at work. I was scraped up some and bleeding from many scratches, was dirty and my uniform was torn to shreds. When old Harold Fisher stopped laughing at me he said, "Go get cleaned up and put on a clean uniform."

I think I did a lot of growing up that day. Not because I had survived the wreck, but because in spite of all that had happened, I lived up to my responsibilities, my job, and started to become a man. Got that bike fixed and wrecked it many more times, but as the saying goes, "That's another story". -- Myles Bryant

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