The Ride of My Life (4 page)

Todd has always had a natural ability to do everything and make it look easy, and he could talk anybody into anything—even climbing into a clothes dryer. We were playing hide-and-seek, and I was looking for a good spot. Todd suggested I hide in the dryer. “Perfect!” I thought. I’d never be found in there. I climbed in and the next thing I knew I was tumbling on high. I clonked and bonked around inside until I figured out how to kick the door open. When the hatch popped and the dryer shut down, I could hear Todd in the laundry room, cracking up at his own cleverness and my gullibility. I put my feet and head out, and my brother offered to help me. He pulled on my feet and my hands and at the same time wedged my back and ass in the dryer. I was stuck. This got him laughing again, until finally he took pity on me. Todd gave a good yank on my arms and jerked me free. The top of the doorway scraped the length of my back and took off some skin. My back hurt like second-degree sunburn for the rest of the day.

Travis, he liked to kick ass. That was his thing. He had a reputation as a macho, hair-trigger, borderline lunatic. He became a local legend when a schoolyard bully began picking on some of our friends. My brother cornered the guy and fought him, only Travis won using his mind, not his fists. He kept his hands in his pockets and let the bully take as many shots as he wanted. The kid kept beating on Travis, who would comment on his weak punches with a cocky, “Is that all you got?” Eventually the bully got so freaked out by this psychotic behavior that he was scared away, and he stopped picking on people.

Travis studied Ninjitsu and he would demand that I spar with him. If I balked, he’d make me an offer I couldn’t refuse: fight or bleed. As the little apprentice, I had to take what Travis dished out during his “training” sessions. Occasionally I would emerge victorious. Once we were fighting in the living room and I got him down. He couldn’t escape my patented vice grip sleeper hold headlock; he was turning purple, trying to muster up a burst of Incredible Hulk-style rage strength. I was in total control, but I knew if I let him go I was toast. We got stuck in that position, and I began screaming, so the whole family could come in and see that I’d won the fight. I also called them for backup: I knew I’d need protection until he calmed down.

With twenty acres of territory to roam outside the realm of adult supervision, my brothers and I found many ways to entertain ourselves. Sometimes our fun was dangerous, but more danger meant a faster learning curve on new activities.

We were war freaks. We played a hybrid form of hide-and-seek combat. In addition to the previously mentioned farm animal purchases, our allowances were also funneled into a never-ending need for army surplus. Todd, Travis, and I took pride in our status as surplus store locals. We sported fatigues, army shovels, combat caps, and helmets. We drank exclusively from canteens, which we wore on our olive drab utility belts. Out in the field, the only food we’d consume was survival rations: dehydrated beans, tinned fruit, dried meat products, and potted meat. Yes, I used to eat Spam recreationally. Basically if it had a ten-year shelf life, we were down to chow it. We started out staging our wars with plastic M16 replicas, but there were too many arguments about who shot whom and discrepancies over flesh wounds versus kill shots. The Travis and Todd war tribunal voted to allow BB guns into the game.

Since I was the youngest, my brothers told me that I was too little to use the “real” weaponry. I turned into a human target. To avoid getting nailed in the forehead, groin, or shoulder blades with a well-aimed brotherly bullet, I had to adapt. Fast. I learned to scramble through the underbrush. Hiding. Running. Climbing. Burrowing. My brothers originally promised to only pump their pneumatic air rifles once, giving them a limited range. Before long, the single-pump rule was abandoned. After all, there are no rules in battle. Travis and Todd would pump their guns as many times as they could until they had a good shot at me. With copper BB’s zipping past at six hundred feet per second, I honed my evasion techniques. Still, I sort of sucked at it and was wounded in action countless times. These battles motivated me to start building fuselages out of wood and get everyone to play out air battles instead, which was safer for me.

Building airplanes also helped fuel my dreams of flying. We used plywood, two by fours, barrels, and other barnyard debris to create our planes. My cousins, brothers, and I would sit in these splintery contraptions for hours, pretending we were airborne. Eventually this wore thin. Travis and I tried building a side-by-side hang glider out of two by fours and bedsheets and called out the whole family to watch our maiden voyage. We launched off our slide and hit the ground in a hurry. I was unscathed, but Travis broke his finger.

I became increasingly obsessed with flight and could usually be found in the yard or barn area conducting gravitational experiments. After seeing Zorro on TV, I had to try jumping off the barn onto the back of a horse. The horse moved as I jumped, and I landed on the ground heels first. I had bruised feet for weeks. Another TV influence was the Sally Fields sitcom The
Flying Nun
. Deeply affected after viewing an episode, I leaped off the roof of our house holding an umbrella—which didn’t work either.

Eventually my brothers and I discovered a new attraction that involved flying: jumping bikes off the roof of the house into the pool. Todd came up with the idea, and soon Travis was copying him. Then I got in on it. At first I jumped without my bike, but the gap was at least eight or ten feet and there were some close calls. I didn’t have the bike skills to pull any tricks, but I knew how to pedal full speed, hold on, and scream. And that’s all it took. Roof to pool became our version of
Fight Club
. [The first rule is: Don’t. Talk. About. Fight Club.) During the summer this clandestine pastime became a daily ritual. As soon as our parents were gone for the day, we were on the roof. It charged me up so much. My parents uncovered our extracurricular aquatic activities and shut us down, but not before I’d felt a few brief moments of how much fun one could have with a bicycle and some air.

This was my first halfpipe. The ramp was nine feet tall with twenty-two feet of flat bottom (primitive dimensions of the early days). Travis’ bedroom was under the far deck. As soon as it stopped snowing I was out there scraping the snow off the ramp; I couldn’t go a day without riding.

Mr. T has a saying:
Those who fail to plan are planning to fail
. In theory, I like that motto. But when applied to life, I have discovered an opposite, equally powerful cosmic truth: You can’t plan shit.

Sometimes the path appears as you walk blindly down it, with no idea of what fate has in store for you.

There were always motorcycles around when we were growing up. My brother Todd was the family’s resident gifted athlete, the do-everything, fix-anything superman. By the time I was seven or eight, Todd was a full-blown motorcycle hellion. He’d roop through the horse pastures or down our long dirt driveway, roosting ruts in the sod and cranking wheelies forever. The trickle-down theory was in effect: Watching Todd make it look like cake inspired Travis and me to take up the throttle.

My first motorcycle was a Kawasaki KDX 80.1 paid for half of the bike by mowing lawns and doing extra chores around our property, and my dad sponsored me for the other half. At first I had no strategy, no style, and no clue. My riding was purely a matter of twisting the throttle and white-knuckling the grips. I’d keep it pegged wide open through the trails, building speed until I hit a solid object or lost control, going down in a cloud of rubble. Then I’d get up, kick-start, and do it again. By riding over my head I mastered the art of crashing, which is kind of the same principle as learning how to take a punch in boxing or how to fall in martial arts. It was so hard for me to learn to relax and flow through my environment like the wind; being stiff is usually at the root of any crash. I’d get especially nervous when another rider was right on my tail, trying to pass me. But Travis and I picked up a few tips from Todd, and our skills began to improve, ignited by brother-to-brother competitiveness. By the time I was ten, I knew I wanted more motocross power. I mowed more grass and upgraded to a Yamaha YZ 80, then traded that in for Honda CB 80, which was fast as hell.

The turning point in my micro-motocross days began as I spent more time with my cousin, Tom Rhude. Tom was ten years older than I was, and he was a dirt bike disciple. After a few sessions together, he gradually slipped into the Yoda role, and I was his pupil. Tom’s tutelage was exactly what I needed to take my riding to the next level. Every weekend he’d take me out with his buddies, and we’d ride some of the best spots in Oklahoma. The Draper Lake trails were about two hundred miles of track, trail, sagebrush, and sandpits where we’d go riding. We’d gas our bikes up, grab an extra tank, and then take off full speed down a dirt path into the wilds. We’d ride until we ran dry, then top off our tanks and head back. These trips opened up a new world, full of independence and adventure, the fuel that all kids crave.

Travis and I after winning trophies racing. He raced BMX on his Skyway TA, I raced MX on my YZ 80. We both got second that day.

The Edmond Bike Shop team (left to right): Chad Dutton, Jeff Worth, Steve Worth, Josh Weller, Travis, Me, and Eric Gefeller.

It was Tom who introduced me to the organized motocross-racing scene. He taught me MX assault tactics like how to start in second gear and get the holeshot, leading the pack into the critical first turn. I also learned how to wail through the berms and position myself to swoop and pass high or low out of corners, and I converted Tom’s advice into a few trophies. Near Oklahoma City we had the Interstate Motocross track, and the 59
^th
and Douglas motocross track. We occasionally made the long drive to Ponca City, Oklahoma, to try our luck at the track there. The different tracks each offered a distinctive layout over winding, serpentine sections that threaded through several acres, full of jumps and mud bogs.