Flying Between Fields

It has been an eventful and tiring week at work. Now past midnight, I am too exhausted to write the rather lengthy blog entry which I had in mind, "The Man With Faces On His Shoes," another story from my time in Las Vegas. That will come later. Instead, I will write about a memory from when I was eight years old or so, riding my bike out in the countryside where my family used to live: Rt. 7, Box 568B, Lumberton, North Carolina 28358.

There are no cars coming. Good.

I stand up on my BMX bike and push the pedals, pumping them one after another, as hard and rapidly as my legs can go.

"What's the fastest thing in the world?" I remember Brian, my friend at school, asking me one day.

"Light," I answer. "Nothing is faster than the speed of light."

"No, it's a bicycle," Brian says. "Because a bicycle is never wide open."

I smile at this memory. I think to myself, let's see if I can go faster than anything in the world.

It is a hot summer day. School is out for the year, which is why I can be outside pedaling down the middle of this country road in the early afternoon.

My plan is to get up close to my maximum speed on the asphalt, coast a little as I lean into a sharp left turn onto our long sandy driveway, then pedal again and go as fast as I can, until I come to the end of the driveway. I will push hard all the way to the finish, and then I will slam on brakes (my BMX has pedal brakes, not hand brakes, so I can easily lock the wheels).

The result is to skid several feet, turning my bike sideways to get a sensation, an angle of movement, that feels good and is rare.

I have done this several times before, and I enjoy studying the marks in the dirt afterward.

The house where we live is surrounded by corn and soybean fields. The crops whir by in my peripheral vision on either side of the road as I continue pumping my legs.

Here comes the driveway. I stop pedaling and lean hard into the turn, making sure that my left pedal is rotated high, otherwise it will scrape the pavement.

Riding on asphalt is quiet, but as soon as I hit the driveway, I listen to the sound of my tires crunching on sand and pebbles.

Keep pushing. Get up to the fastest speed I can. While a corn field is to my right, the yard is to the left, and a few pine trees line the driveway.

I pedal under them.

Suddenly, I find myself separated from my bike, flying through the air feet first. I am too startled, too confused by what is happening, to appreciate the weightless travel which I experience for just a second or two.

I land flat on my back with a hard thud. Fortunately, it does not hurt at all. It does not even knock the wind out of me.

Looking straight up at the blue sky through a few pine tree branches, I turn my head in time to see my bike, which must have been standing almost perfectly vertical on the front wheel for a second, crash to the side.

After a few more seconds on the ground, wondering what in the world just happened, I get up and dust myself off.

A crushed pine cone rests under my front wheel. This is amazing. I have run over countless pine cones with no problem. How is it that this one was able to stop my bike on a dime, traveling at my top speed, and send me flipping over the handle bars?

Reflecting on the situation for a couple more minutes brings me no closer to a solution, but I do decide that the whole thing was pretty cool, and I want to try it again.

I head back out to the road on my bike and go through it all once more. Speeding down the driveway, I run over the crushed pine cone, but nothing happens this time- only the slight bump.

I gather more pine cones and set them in a row across the drive way, to make sure that I do not miss, but still, there is no effect. My bike goes over them with no problem.

This is all very disappointing and puzzling.

Though I try for days and weeks after that experience, I am never able to replicate the two seconds of flight time between the corn fields and the soy bean fields.