Me and My Motorcycle

If you ever thought, just got, or have already been around motorcycles, tell me if this is me being dumb, or if this is a common story.

I first got into motorcycles when I was about 16 years old. I got my first legit job at subway and hated lingering around for rides. I saved up enough money and found myself a good looking 250 Honda Rebel and I was super excited. When I went to go get the bike, I automatically found out I was going about this whole "bike culture" completely blind—I didn't know what was what and what the next step was. I ended up needing some help from the elderly and wise community, I called an old Mexican man I met once that goes by the Mad Dogg, I met him at a doctor's office one single time and we exchanged numbers and when I gave the call he was hella happy to help me out.

I find out the bike's a good deal and when we saw it, the bike was connected to something and would fire right up. So, me being naive, I closed the deal, got my new bike to my mom's and come to find out it, didn't come with a battery. It was totally my fault I got it that way, Mad Dogg told me about it before I paid for it. So now I have a good looking garage decoration my parents hate, because "it doesn't work" and just takes up space. So, I reach out to another old man I actually know and lives down my street. I get a battery and put it on the bike and now the next step is learning how to ride it. Now it feels like some karate kid shit, because my old man friend is taking his sweet time on teaching me how to ride my own bike, but I couldn't complain. I didn't know what I was getting myself into—and we all know motorcycle statistics.

About 2 month later I'm riding my bike around the neighborhood and thinking I'm the shit, but I remember the wise old motorcycle guru—his name's Michael, by the way—told me straight up don't get on the main streets. Maybe that weekend, what do I do? I take my sick ass bike out to a party for the weekend! But it wasn't my initial instinct. I remembered what he told me, it didn't sound like a good idea, and I didn't wanna go to the party in the first place. About 10 minutes later, I change my mind and I feel like going to the party its only a 5 minute drive anyway and since I just mastered my fuckin bike why not!? I go I show it off, I get bad bitches, and Im also drunk. Time to go home and for the most part I can drive, honestly I can. I'm a good drunk driver. I'm on my street and I take my turn and what do I know? I'm on the floor and scraped up leg that takes up about my whole shin—I slipped because my street's fuckin dirty and I turned too quick. A car pulls over but my drunk ass didn't feel it at the time and just got back on and got home. Now, when I got home thats another story, my leg hurt and my mom was clowning on me because she new it was a bad idea and instead of giving me peroxide to clean it she gives me rubbing alcohol saying thats all we have at the house right now, so that shit sucked.

Now 2 years later I feel I need an upgrade. I see a bike for sale on the side of the road and based off emotion I buy that and come to find out, the bike's a piece of shit; it's full of problems. Time goes on, Michael the bike guru helps me with it, and some new biker homies help me with it and its running as good as its gonna get. No injuries on this one, due to the fact I couldn't ride it too often, but still no injuries.

Now 1-2 years later, I decide to get another upgrade to a bigger bike: an 1100 cc. I finally strike gold, good mileage, good year, no problems. At this time I have some biker homies, I have better understanding, so now I really think I'm the shit. Since nothing was wrong with this bike, all I ever did was work on the cosmetics. I wanted to chop it up, so I started to. In the process, I learned that a lot of the biker homies I had met grew up around motorcycles, quads and a lot of mechanics, but I didn't, so I didn't have any tools or any idea how I was going to make my dream bike a reality. With YouTube, I started some of it and it's really starting to look nice and, lemme remind you, I thought I was a bad ass due to the years on motorcycles under my belt, but that was still not enough, I soon discovered. I got loner forks, swapped my apes, for short z bars, made a sissy bar, customized the seat, so now I'm rolling just about how I always wanted.

I have the bike for overall maybe 11 months, so again me thinking I'm a bad ass I think I'm unstoppable. One hungover Saturday my friend and I decide to keep the party going but now on our bikes. We decide to ride up a beautiful mountain and on the way we see a guy selling stuff out of his truck we pull over buy a jacket and since theirs a market real close we slam some beers with the guy. Now we're even more drunk, we get more beers for the mountain, take a pit stop, drink some of those beers. Back on the bikes, we go higher up the mountain to the scenic parking lot, or whatever. Now we're hella romantic at the parking lot, sunsetting and drinking our last beer. We finish the beer and my homie says "dude today's my dad's birthday" and his family goes all out for parties, so we get hyped and decide to get our asses to that party.

Coming up pretty soon is when I learn a new life lesson. We're riding down the mountain with windy roads and somewhere along the way we start racing each other, kind of, liking playing around. This road also has dips just so you get a better image. On the very last dip, my friends ahead of me and I ain't having it, so I see the last dip which also has a turn, and on the opposite direction, I see what looks like a car coming, so my super sick instincts tell me accelerate super fast, make the cut real quick out of the dip and win the race.

That didn't happen, I didn't accelerate fast enough and hit what I thought was the car, but it ended up being 2 other bikes. We hit, my vision had a quick flash, I was still riding, I look back, the 2 other bikes are still riding and so is my homie, so I think hell yeah this means we still going to party, but I try gearing down to catch up with my homie, but I cant. My leg is completely 90 degrees. The bike ends up stopping, my homie needs to catch up and the bike starts to lean to the left and my leg's broken, so Im holding the bike upright with my broken leg waiting for some help and the 2 other bikes turn around and it turns out they're some white supremacy dues with hella tattoos and their talking shit to me. I'm in no place to start a fight. Just had to add that, because it sucks but reality is the KKK is a part of the bike culture. Eventually an ambulance shows up, I get to the hospital and next thing I know, I wake up to ketamine in my system, and feeling my broken bones rubbing against each other.

I ended up breaking my leg—which was 90 degrees—broke my ankle and my foot, my foot had a huge gash on the top, where you could see my tendons and ligaments. After I wake up from my ketamine trip, my leg's wrapped up and all I thought was I broke my leg, no big deal—I didn't know about my ankle and foot at the time, and no one told me. I was in the hospital for a week and had 4 surgeries and that's when I started asking questions and found out the severity. The doctor was saying I had a 50/50 chance of getting it amputated.

In all honesty, the accident could have been a lot worse. This is my first bone fracture and I can now currently limp, which apparently the doctor says is amazing, because he admitted to thinking in all honesty he didn't think my leg would work after all. He also said it'd take 4-5 months to start walking and I'm at about 2. Throughout this whole process, I was initially okay with what had happened, because what could I do now, right? Then, with time, the pain was horrible. I couldn't chill with my friends, I was in a wheelchair, no job, showers sucked, my girlfriend was getting annoyed and now that it's about done and hearing what my doctor had to say, I am back to being positive, but in all reality I was left thinking about the motorcycle statistics, personal attitude, and just the world (deep). I personally think motorcycle statistics are scary, because I hate to admit it but they're true. My personal attitude at the time was, I know what I'm doing and I've been hurt on a bike before, so I got it under control—which is stupid but part of learning. And my thoughts on the world is its a crazy place that'll expose you to everything you need to see to get a further understanding. Its a crazy place and I know it sounds stupid coming from some hard headed brat lucky to live in a first world country, but it'll put you in your place.

I'm curious to know how people feel about my experience; bikers, non bikers, anyone. I don't get offended easily, so lay it out I really would like to know some responses. (I had worse x ray pictures, but I got a new phone and lost the picture).