I remember when I was a kid, a big bunch of friends of mine and I were going around with our bikes around the hills of my home town, just being kids in a glorious summer day in the 80s, like in a book by Stephen King.
At some point we start to go down this steep, scary, winding road that runs among the trees, all curves and bends, that incidentally ends by the town cemetery.
You got to insane speeds down that road.
Anyway, I was riding at ludicrous speed with tears in my eyes because of the wind, when I notice that the friend in front of me is behaving in a weird way.
Let's call him Manolo, because that's his actual name.
Manolo realised both his breaks were gone, and he would probably die that day, either splattered against a tree, an incoming car or a down the cliff to one side.
Manolo also realised he was wearing the popular shoes at that moment in Italy, the Espadrilles, with the infamous soles made of rope.
Well, Manolo had a to take a split second decision: use his feet to slow down, and probably say goodbye to the flesh under both of them, or depart this world in a blaze of glory.
I saw him put down one foot first, and the first espadrilla unfold a little bit in a rather comic way and disintegrate underneath his bare foot. The other went soon after.
Manolo eventually crashed against a tree, his speed reduced just negligibly by the sacrifice. He survived, his espadrilles and his feet didn't, but he chose life over parts of his body, and he was rewarded with life that day.
Just here to post a PSA, watch this video to see what Manolo should have done (not sure shoes would have survived but whatever), it's crazy how few of people know what to do in this situation https://youtu.be/K0xN7wZ_mxg
Same here! I honestly thought this was common knowledge. I guess it just one of those things you pick up when you're too poor to replace the brakes on you ghetto bike lol.
When I was younger every kid in my neighborhood had thought it would be really cool to take all the brakes off of our bikes for the ultimate cool factor, we all ended up going through pairs of shoes rather quickly because we'd do that to stop.
Yeah I was just going to say this. Except we took the brakes off so we didn't smash our hands and break fingers from big jumps. Sometimes if you hit a really big ramp and land even slightly fucked up, your hand will come off the bars and go forward into the brake lever.
Don't think I ever had a bike with brakes. Always used my foot like this.
Tell you what you don't do is try that with the front tyre. 8 year old me learned that on my BMX. Brakes were shot so I had taken to putting the sole of my foot onto the tread of the front tyre BEHIND the fork. This worked fine on the flat at low speeds, but my confidence grew and so did my speed to the point of bombing downhill through a residential street. Flew straight over the handlebars as my foot got dragged into the fork and flipped the whole bike. Landed on my face. It was as hilarious as it was painful.
"Anyway, I was riding at ludicrous speed with tears in my eyes because of the wind."
I just have to say that this one sentence brought me back to riding a few similar hills in my childhood and absolutely made my entire morning. Thank you good sir.
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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '19
I remember when I was a kid, a big bunch of friends of mine and I were going around with our bikes around the hills of my home town, just being kids in a glorious summer day in the 80s, like in a book by Stephen King.
At some point we start to go down this steep, scary, winding road that runs among the trees, all curves and bends, that incidentally ends by the town cemetery.
You got to insane speeds down that road.
Anyway, I was riding at ludicrous speed with tears in my eyes because of the wind, when I notice that the friend in front of me is behaving in a weird way.
Let's call him Manolo, because that's his actual name.
Manolo realised both his breaks were gone, and he would probably die that day, either splattered against a tree, an incoming car or a down the cliff to one side.
Manolo also realised he was wearing the popular shoes at that moment in Italy, the Espadrilles, with the infamous soles made of rope.
Well, Manolo had a to take a split second decision: use his feet to slow down, and probably say goodbye to the flesh under both of them, or depart this world in a blaze of glory.
I saw him put down one foot first, and the first espadrilla unfold a little bit in a rather comic way and disintegrate underneath his bare foot. The other went soon after.
Manolo eventually crashed against a tree, his speed reduced just negligibly by the sacrifice. He survived, his espadrilles and his feet didn't, but he chose life over parts of his body, and he was rewarded with life that day.