[Today’s run: 4 miles]
When I was in elementary school my parents bought us kids a mini-bike. I’m not sure why they did that, probably because we pestered them to the point where they gave in!
We shopped for awhile. At one point I remember looking at the “Western Auto” generic mini-bikes both in catalogs and maybe in person. Eventually dad bought us a Honda QA-50. It was green, just like the one in this picture.
Our house was a congregation point for a lot of the kids in the neighborhood. And we had a circular driveway (you could make a complete circle if you also used the sidewalk). I remember standing in line with half a dozen of the neighbor kids. Each person got two laps around the circle on the mini-bike. Then they had to give it up to the next person and move to the back of the line.
I also remember crashing the thing once, ending up underneath it with hot fuel running down my leg. Nothing like some minor tragedy to spice up a guy’s childhood. I think there might be still a mark on my knee from that incident. But, no stitches, no broken bones. Put on a band-aid and get back in line.
If I remember correctly, my older brother got to be about 15 and he purchased his own “dirt-bike”, a 70cc Indian, which made our QA-50 look a bit pitiful. Also at one time the QA-50 was disassembled for some repair. So after a couple of years of distraction the QA-50 floats out of my memory.