Big Tree 1: Rider 0

History Shows,
again and again,
How nature points out,
the folly of man.

Truer words have never been sung.  Thank you B.O.C, for the inspiration.
Well, ever trying to grasp my youth, in a euphorically "out-of-charcture" way, Saturday night I spontaneously decided to ride the clown bike home from work.  Mind you I was quite sure of myself, as I built the bloody thing and have only fallen off once, in the almost four years I have had it.  So the impending disaster was not even a brief forethought.
Setting the scene;  Our shop sits at the top of a minor hill, at the crossroads of Sunset, and North Highland.  Traveling North on Highland away from the shop you are going downhill, into a basin which then goes back up.  Our house sits on the WEST side of the street, now. Just above the bottom of the basin.  our OLD house, the one I am more accustomed to going to (even still) sits on the EAST side. I had originally pruned the overhang to avoid colliding with it when riding the nearly 9 foot tall (at the top of the handle bars) bike.  Needless to say as I have not ridden the bike in some time, I have yet to have pruned the rather LARGE tree that sits in our front yard, overhanging the sidewalk.  This would not have been a major issue had I been PAYING ATTENTION as I rapidly approached it on the down sloped sidewalk, but as fate would have it at the crucial moment a passerby honked in appreciation of the mammoth ride and I turned to wave...
Lets just say the grace of my landing was less then a 9.9.  Rather, it probably would have disqualified me from any Olympic competition, sending me home in disgrace.
My right ankle collapsed folding my foot in, and rather painfully bruised the heel on my left, leaving a rather large patch of road rash (rather, driveway rash) on my calf.  There was a brief moment of self deprecating profanity, at which point Angela came to my aid.  As well as my son Elijah, startled from inside the house to the clamorous noise, carried me back inside. (much to his giddy revelry)  Thankfully nothing broken I spent yesterday with my feet up. in ice.
My future career in the "X-Game's" is now deeply in doubt.
Thankfully none of this effected the Sundays crew in doing a great job yesterday.  Not only was the shop well cleaned and organized when I came in this morning, but they moved a lot more bikes out to new homes!  The Ladies cruiser I finished up the night before sold first thing.  As did the cute beginner BMX.  And the last re-maining scrap truck "Daily Banger" left as well!
Thanks to all the folks coming in with their re-pairs and for trusting us to do our usual "Bang-up" job (maybe I shouldn't use that term..."Bang-up").  Today has already begun in earnest, and I will be shortly be finishing the sweet, vintage Robin Hood we picked up Saturday!
Hope to see you all real soon!