Zander Roseborough Ms. Lehmann English 1-3 12 February 2019 Dirt bike riding One beautiful summer day, Zander was at home watching YouTube. While he was relaxing, his buddy texted him and asked if he wanted to go riding. It was a little late, so Zander wasn’t sure, but he decided to go anyway. They start riding, heading to the little track by Jadon’s grandma’s house. They don’t usually like riding there because it’s a rather small track, so it gets boring fast. They rode for about an hour. Zander usually had to be home at a certain time, and that time was coming up fast. Jadon and Zander were too bored to keep riding, so they went into Jadon’s grandma’s house to watch YouTube videos about dirt bikes. “What should we watch?” Jadon asked. “I don’t really care. Let’s just watch dirt bike fails,” Zander replied. “No way,” Jadon answered. “I don’t like seeing people crash. It makes me sick.” “Okay, well I don’t care then.” “Oh, I’ve got it. Let’s watch videos about how to wheelie standing up,” Jadon said. After watching videos for at least ten minutes, Jadon jumped up and said, “Let’s go try this.” Zander’s face dropped. He looked like he had just seen a ghost. Not wanting to, Zander got up and said, “Sure. That will be fun.” They went out to get started. When they first started, it was really hard because they had to put their whole body in it to compress the suspension. Once they hit the gas, it threw the front end in the air. They kept riding wheelies. After an hour of trying, Zander was finally kind of getting it down. At that point, Zander was riding it for a good 5 seconds. It doesn't sound like much, but it kind of is. While Zander was riding wheelies, he really had to use his legs to squeeze the bike between so he wouldn’t fall off. When Zander was doing that, it was cutting up his leg a little right at his knees. Zander was getting hurt pretty good. “Well, it’s 7:00 o’clock. I better head home,” Zander said. “Oh, dang,” Jadon replied. “And we were just getting good.” “I know,” Zander answered. “Well, my mom isn’t home. I will text my dad and see if I can keep riding.” “Sweet,” Jadon said. “Text me later if you can come out.” “Ok,” Zander said. “See you in a minute.” Zander rode home as fast as he could. When he got home, he parked his dirt bike and ran inside to text his dad. After talking to his dad for a couple of minutes, his dad finally agreed to let him stay. Zander sat in his house for a couple of minutes watching tv, but then he ran outside and texted Jadon. They got out there, talked for a couple of minutes, then went back to doing wheelies. Zander rode wheelies standing up for about ten minutes, but then his knees started to irritate him. He started riding wheelies sitting. It was much easier and fun because he wasn’t using his legs so much. His wheelies where getting ready good. He was riding them a long way and high as well. Zander started feeling good. Then, on one of his wheelies, he must have blacked out because he hit the gas and suddenly his front tire was really high in the air. All of a sudden, he was sliding across the ground on his back. Zander tried to stop himself from sliding, so he threw his leg on the ground, but all that did was flip him. Now he was sliding across the ground at probably 20 miles per hour and flipping. It was a dirt road they were riding on, but it might as well have been pavement, it was so packed. After Zander finally stopped, he jumped up, took off his helmet, and chucked it on the ground. His heart must have been beating 300 miles an hour. He looked up, and his bike was down the rode a little way. His buddy, Jadon, never saw it happen, but rode up next to him and asked him what happened. After telling the story, Zander had Jadon look at his back. It wasn’t good. There was a big patch on his back where it was bleeding and other spots scratched up. It wasn’t a pretty picture. Zander jumped on his bike and rode home. After a month of crappy sleep, and a lot of complaining, Zander was finally healed. Zander learned a great lesson. He may not have seen it at first, but it was good. Zander always thought that he needed to ride wheelies to be a good rider and show off and look cool, but he doesn’t. Wheelies are fun, but he dosen’t need to do them.