by DJ Davis » Tue Aug 02, 2022 4:00 pm
...and in honor of Tex, I'd like to share a story from my childhood:
As a kid growing up in Beaumont, TX in the 60s, I kept myself busy with miscellaneous kid stuff, but I seemed to have a hankerin' to know as much about all there was to be learnt in this world and I was always coming up with weird ideas and concepts which led me to believe I was destined to the life of a mad scientist! I also had a fascination with SPEED and came up with (what seemed to be at the time) a great idea! How this came about needs a short back story.
Now that I'm older, I realize that our family was at best lower middle class in income. As such, I'm pretty sure we didn't have health insurance. I have my suspicions that's why Mom never let me have a bicycle - she was afraid I'd fall off of it and break my arm or worse. So, I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was seven and that was done in secret on a friend's bike. When I was about nine years old, one of my Dad's coworkers gave him a bike to pass on to me. Either we had gotten to the point financially where we could afford health insurance or maybe I'd proved to Mom that I wouldn't kill myself before I reached my teens.
Let me tell you, this bike was a monster, as far as I was concerned. It was an Evans brand, which I thought was interesting, as that's my middle name (a family name tradition-thing). This was one of those 26" rimmed, full-fendered, mock gas-tank on the frame, "paperboy" bikes that a kid my age wouldn't be caught dead on! Stingrays with butterfly handlebars, banana seats, and sissy bars were "IT!" But, it was free and it was a bike, so I decided to make some, shall we say, "modifications."
Dad was "handy around th' house," and had a good selection of tools in the garage, so I commenced to going "Orange County Chopper" on this thing even though I lived in Jefferson County, Orange County was just east of us...close enough. Off came the mock gas-tank, I shortened the fenders, traded something for an old banana seat from a friend, and found a pair of slightly rusted butterfly handle bars in a trash pile across the street from me. At my age, spray paint was expensive, so the only thing I could afford paint-wise was a battered old can of discontinued paint in "Battleship gray." Hey! Who could pass up a paint with such a cool name!
So, after all was said and done, this "paperboy" bike morphed into something resembling a large Stingray bike. Being a bit of a joker, I decided to christen it "Mantaray" and painted the name on the chain guard in the same style as was on Stingrays. Not bad for a nine year old and about $5! But, when I finally got to riding this single-speed demon, I discovered it had the perfect gearing and was FAST! I left ALL other bikes in my dust and could give a 10-speed English racer a run for its money.
OK...OK...I know...when are we going to get to the GOOD part of this yarn...? Well, first, thanks for sticking around for this long, but this is the INTERESTING part of this bit of my past. I mentioned that bit about wanting to learn about stuff and speed. Watching TV one day I saw rail cars drag racing and was mesmerized by the billowing drag chutes at the end of their runs. Remember I said my bike was fast...? I decided it needed a drag chute. I was too young for "Here...hold my beer," so let's go with "Hey, y'all...watch this!"
I was able to talk my Mom out of an old bedsheet, begged Dad for some of his nylon trotline cord that I thought was the appropriate thickness for the task, repurposed a cigar box for the drag chute's deployment system, and went to work. I determined that a six foot circle of bedsheet would be about right to slow this beast of a bike down after its lightening-fast run down whatever raceway I would attempt. Using those math skills that a former teacher claimed would save my life one day, I painstakingly marked and punched holes around the edge of the chute's canopy. Next were the risers, cut carefully to matching lengths, ends seared to prevent unraveling, and tied to the holes in the canopy edge. Finally the riser ends were gathered, knotted together, and fastened to an eye bolt inside the cigar box affixed to the rear bars of the banana seat. The chute was meticulously "packed," positioned in the cigar box deployment system, the lid closed, and release latch trigger run to the handlebars at the front of the bike. Note: the cigar box was mounted that when the release latch was triggered, the lid would fall open from the top making a "ledge" for the drag chute to gently unfold and "blossom into that billowing white cloud of safety" that I had envisioned.
Then it was time to test the fruits of my endeavors. Of course I HAD to have a witness to this event, but the only person available at the time was my Mom. She dutifully positioned herself at the front door as I taxied around and made my way to the "starting line" a ways down the block. Without further ado, I took off pedaling at a furious pace. I was in pretty good shape at that time and had been unofficially clocked at just under 35 mph on a straight run, so I knew how far I needed to pedal to get to "just under the sound barrier." That point conveniently being right in front of my house.
As I roared down the sidewalk, house windows rattling as I passed, I reached peak engine output, throttled back, and pulled the release string for the drag chute. The deployment door dropped down as planned, and the drag chute rolled out...and fell into the rear sprocket, where it instantly started wrapping around the wheel's axle, which seized the wheel more efficiently than my coaster brake, and brought me to a tire-squealing halt in front of my driveway. Mom, to her credit, made no critique of the failed test trial, but simply turned, went back inside, and got back to more important things.
Lifting the rear wheel off the ground, I rolled the fully safed speed demon back to the shop and began the task of removing several yards of nylon cord and bedsheet scraps now stained with axle grease. As I worked, I wondered what had gone wrong with the drag chute deployment system and thanked the heavens that the friction had not caused a catastrophic fire during the failed attempt at bravado. How foolish of me to forego a fire suppression system at such speeds!
Later that night as I lay in bed, I went over the drag chute system part by part, trying to determine what had caused the humiliating failure. Playing "videos" of drag racers blistering down the 1/4 mile tracks in my head I realized I had omitted a crucial component of a drag chute system - the drogue chute. But a retry was not in the stars...the "suppliers" for chute material and risers had refused to sponsor another go. Hmmm...I wonder if I can still pedal that fast....
Last edited by
DJ Davis on Tue Jun 06, 2023 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DJ
They say "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I've noted that if it doesn't kill you, it waits patiently for another opportunity.