Frazz by Jef Mallett for January 16, 2015

I get tired just looking at Frazz..He’s always runnin’ bikin’ swimmin’ man, it wears me out!..

Mine says, “You’ve got to stop flying over the handlebars.”

Me, my brother and the next doors were all playing follow the leader around our yard on our bikes. I was in the lead and we were really moving when I hit a metal pipe that was sticking out of the ground by about 4 inches. Me and the bike went up in the air and did a flip. I landed on my back with the bike on top and my brother rode on top.He stopped, looked down at me and said “Well stupid, are you hurt?” I was fine, just had the air knocked out but, on retrospect, it could have been really bad if I had landed on top of that pipe. I was 7 and he was 10.

The only time I ever went over the handlebars was when the front wheel fell off going over a speedbump. Hello pavement, hello concussion. Since then, I have been much more careful checking new bikes for proper tightening of all nuts.

Now I’ve hit pavement (or gravel, double ouch) plenty of other times, but those always involved going over sideways usually cornering too fast on something slicker or looser than it looked.

As a kid I once hit a curb. The handle bars broke off, the rest of the bike stayed at the curb…I ended up about five feet away still holding the handle bars with my face in the grass…Didn’t get hurt at all, we all just laughed.

Isn’t going over the handlebars a requirement for childhood?

Yeah, that’s right. I busted my ace….

As I often say:

“Ow—there’s a table [or whatever] there …”