The Fall of the Mountain King

Cherry

By Turlough

Fri, 29 Sep 2023
  • 1094 reads
12 comments
 

 

Faster than faeries

Faster than rockets

So fast that my eyeballs

Hit the backs of their sockets

 

Flying down York Road

On my new Raleigh Chopper

Stability went AWOL

And I came a cropper

 

Two knees and two elbows

And most of my chin

Almost entirely

Denuded of skin

 

Looking back at that day

I was only fourteen

With a hole full of mad dreams

Where my brain should have been

 

I was rubbish at football

Couldn’t sing, act or dance

So my big hope of stardom

Lay in the Tour de France

 

I would buy a real bike

With the winning proceeds

But to be King of the Mountains

I had to practise in Leeds

 

As for flying down hills

On that lethal blue Chopper

I’d have done just as well

With my sister’s Space Hopper

 

So if you have a great plan

Think it through in your head

Don’t end up like me

Feeling partially dead

 

Image:

Every image I use is from a photograph I have taken myself. 

On this occasion – I didn’t have my camera with me at the time of this great tragedy so I don’t have any photographs of me bleeding profusely or lying in the road impaled upon a pair of handlebars, but here’s a picture of a sculpture of a cat on a bicycle in Brussels.

Certificate U
Poem
Poetry in Commotion
Humour
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

The memory goes with a flow!

Was that before the day of helmets as well? I remember my husband having to rescue my son and his friend (it was the friend who had had the calamity) off the Downs where they were 'having fun' off-road, and taking the lad to causalty I think. All was well, but they turned to using helmets I think after that! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Oh, long before helmets. It was 1972 so I don't think even motor cyclists were compelled to where helmets back then. My father patched up my wounds and repaired my bike. I was lucky that I didn't suffer brain damage... or maybe I did. My mother patched up the holes in my jeans which concerned her more then the holes in my limbs. These days those jeans would have looked quite trendy.

Turlough

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

Some good rhythm and rhyme captured in this painful memory Turlough. Bet it never put you off riding again though.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Thanks for your words.

It didn't put me off Jenny but ever since the incident I've been taking things much more steadily on the downhill stretches and I've ridden better bikes.

Turlough

Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on

Lethal chopper indeed! Do you know they're worth a fortune nowadays? (the original ones)

 

Submitted by Turlough on

I'm sure those old Raleigh Choppers are worth a lot of money but you wouldn't get me on one of them. They stopped making them in 1970s, apparently, because of their instability at speed. So I wasn't the only victim / fool. I sold mine for hardly anything not long after that awful day. 

Thanks for the cherries. I knew something good would come from that bike eventually.

Turlough

Submitted by Di_Hard on

I love the last two lines :0) When much younger than 14, my son use to hurtle about on the car-free sea front and terrify me how fast he was going; it would have been great to have been able to read your poem - both to him as a warning, and for me to know I was worrying needlessly!

 

Submitted by Turlough on

From my own experience Di, I would say you had every reason to worry. I've had cycling accidents on several occasions, one of which resulted in broken ribs, but the steep downhill on a badly designed but cool looking bike looking bike was definitely the most painful. So perhaps if you just tell your son to avoid anything that's cool or steep he'll be grand. 

Perhaps they should print the words of my poem on new bicycles, just as they print health warnings on packets of cigarettes.

Turlough

Submitted by celticman on

I rember Choppers. I'd have been about 11. And the even shiter optiion. Chipper. 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Named after Irish fish and chip shops, I expect.

Turlough

Submitted by Nolan on

I bought a new bicycle years after school and a helmet, compulsory these days. So when I was rounding  a very familiar curve at a good speed there was sand and gravel on the road I slid and hitting the corner of a brick wall with my head.

My firemen friends said I was just testing the helmet.

Nolan &

 

Submitted by Turlough on

I've had a sand and gravel incident too. It was just up the street from where I was living at the time. As I lay on the road groaning and bleeding our neighbour's little girl came up to me on her little pink bike with stabilisers and her dolly in the basket at the front and asked me if I was alright. You don't get that in the Tour de France.

I hope the head, the helmet and the wall survived your calamity.

 

Turlough