Personal Narrative

Always Wear Boots

If you've ever rode a dirt bike you know that there's a lot of things that can go wrong. That's why they make special gear for you to wear so that you're pretty much safe from a lot of it. One of the most important pieces of gear ( besides your helmet of course) is boots. The boots protect your feet and part of your leg from all the stuff that gets kicked up, hitting the foot-pegs, kickstarting, ect. If you've ever rode a bike without boots you can definitely tell it helps a lot. Well back in the day, I wore every piece of gear I could because I've seen the stuff that has happened to people that don't. Every time I went out though, I'd get a little more used to the bike and a little lazier about putting my stuff on. It started out slow, I'd just not wear my knee_guards or my chest protector, then I got worse about it and only put on my helmet and gloves. I knew at some point I'd probably get hurt from not wearing them but the more used to the bike I got the less I'd wreck or lay it over. After so long I just didn't care because the rare lay-overs and small wrecks never seemed to do any damage. So, being my lazy self, I;d go out and start to do crazier and crazier stuff without all my stuff that I knew I should be wearing. One day I decided to go out, without my boots of course. I knew something was going to happen because when I kickstarted the bike it put a hole all the way through my shoe and cut up my foot. I still decided to go out though, but that feeling that something was going to happen was in the back of my head the whole time I was out and about. While I was out, nothing bad seemed to happen at first, so I went out to my trail I made up the road. I followed it for a while but I decided to take a different way and went down a waterline in the side of a cliff into a wash. I got down into the wash and realized there was absolutely no way back up, but for one reason or another, I went up the wash instead of trying to find a way out. I followed it for a while and found a cool, little jump, so I hit that for a while and found a couple more of them, so I was out for quite a while. When I  finally stopped I realized how long I had been out, it was like three hours, so I figured I better get home. I rode back down the wash forgetting that there was no way out back that way. When I got back to the spot I went into the wash I remembered I couldn't get back out that way and I panicked. I started back up the wash but it splits off into a couple different paths so I wasn't sure if it'd get me back. I got onto the other side of the wash just to try to get up high enough to find a way out, I followed the high spot for a while but every so often it'd cut me off. At this point I was gone for probably four hours and was running out of day light, so I started hurrying and made a lot of mistakes. When I finally started getting out of the main part of the wash I wheelied over, which broke the rear fender and I got scrapped up pretty good, if I would have worn my gear I probably would have been fine, anyway I was out of the main wash now but now there were a bunch of smaller washes I had to get through. All these washes have a sort of cliff on one side and a slopped side on the other, so getting through them is pretty difficult but somehow I managed to get through them all. I was finally getting back into a part that I knew and I knew I was fairly close to the road, but I completely forgot about the big wash between me and the road. I had to follow that for a mile or so until I found a spot that looked fairly easy to get out from, but for some reason somebody poured cement down it, which I couldn't see because it was covered with dirt. So, oblivious to the cement, I started up the hill. It was so soft though that I had to gun the bike, and when I finally saw the cement it was too late. With all the power of the bike I'm amazed it didn't turn out worse, but that back tire hit the cement spinning and sent the front end skyward. I tried as best I could to keep the bike on the ground but my efforts were in vain because it went up and landed straight on my foot with the foot-peg (when a two hundred fifty plus pound bike lands on your foot you know it). I knew at that point that if I would have just put on my boots I would have been fine but no, I had to be lazy that day. After the first initial shock the pain set in. I knew it was broken but I had to get home, so I dragged the bike the rest of the way up the hill. Of course I broke my right foot, the one you use to kickstart with. There was no other way, so I had to try to kickstart it and it was flooded so it took a few tries, which in turn made my foot worse off then it was before. Eventually, though, I got it started and made it back to the house. When I got my foot checked out they told me it was broken for sure and if I would of just put on my boots I would've walked away with maybe a bruise...