It feels like an appropriate time to put this one up. It’s from a 1992 issue of Bicycles Today. We find our thinly-disguised hero, Michael “Squid” Allen, dealing with an injury over the winter of 1986-1987 and learning a bit about himself in the process. It’s a sequel to Squid is Squirrelly. I don’t know whether it’s cheering or depressing that I’m still getting hurt on motocross tracks twenty-seven years later. As with other posts in the “BMX Basics” series, I’ve resisted the temptation to edit my nineteen-year-old self — jb
“Oh, man, my left leg hurts so bad I think I’m going to die. No way I’m gonna win this time. I’m just happy to make the main.” Behind Squid, two riders are engaged in conversation.
“Yeah, talk about taking it easy. In my second moto, I slipped my pedal and chewed my left shin.”
“I saw that.”
“You saw that?”
“Yeah! You were cranking along, and POW! you slipped a pedal and hit your shin. Yeah, you were behind me in that moto. I remember looking back and seeing you hit your shin and thinking ‘That must really bite, slamming your shin like that’.”
“I wasn’t in your moto.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. What, you think I don’t know which moto I was in? I was in 55, you were in 57.”
“Sorry. Must have been somebody else.”
“Must have been.” A grin comes to Squid’s face as he realizes what these two guys are doing. They’re playing “I’m Too Hurt
to Ride Hard,” a really fun game played during staging in which you try to convince everybody in your moto (or, in this case, main) that you’re too messed up to even be a factor in the race. Once you’ve got them nice and complacent, you blast outta the gate and kill everybody.