[1453]

My point about RM and People involved in biking:

1. Generally don't give the weight to society's opinion as the average joe, being a pretty individualistic bunch.
2. Are participating in a fairly dangerous sport (#2 sport cause of ER visits)
3. RM'ers in particular are intelligent enough to think for themselves and make their own decisions.

So basically you have a bunch of people who aren't afraid, don't care what society thinks, and are smart enough to make their own decisions and survive.

sounds reasonable.

but what happens when the said society makes up more and more laws to restrict what is not thought to be "normal"? at a certain point most people will obey laws to a great extent and cease to participate in said legal, educational and healthy activities.

there are things I grow up doing that is facing extinction and most people on RM will not care when it's completely out-lawed. who's being smart then? cyclists can moan and bitch all they want but at the same time there are treasured traditions in America that is facing extinction-via-legislation, and I'm certain most RMs will cheer if not apathetically say "meh" and go back to web-surfing.

 

[giantrider89]

And bandaids man! F*** band aids..........once my kid is a couple years old, he isn't getting a band aid unless there's some carnage!


i'm not trying to torture 'em, it's just that band aids can be bad if used too much..........if you use one for all cuts then you're never exposed to bacteria as a kid (when ur immune system can easily fend it off) and ur immune system will forever be weak.........IMHO

 

[Westy]

On a good note I did a 6 hour MTB race last night and a local school and another youth program participated. Probably 20% of the racers were kids, they weren't your typical kid racers but they went out there and toughed out 6 hours of riding in the dark. As a whole they probably did better than most of the adult riders and usually on 35#+ rigs. I predict they will go far. It was awesome.


Now my brother moved to Texas so he could afford a house with a yard for his son to play in. Unfortunately he isn't allowed to play outside for fear of being eaten by snakes.

 

[pinkshirtphotos]

im proud to say im still a kid and love doing stupid things. today i rode my razor scooter down the steepest hill in the town because it was just paved. i still love making bombs and putting m80s up frogs bumb holes. good times. i dont think anything will top time i went to the gas station across the street from my house. its run by indians and i put a bus tube (like the ones u put in ur pool) in his hindu hut and turned on the air compressor. the thing made such a loud bang made him jump on the ground. also sometimes take balloons and fill them with blow torch gas from the auto shop i used to work at. put about 20 on a string and put a 5 foot fuse on them. you can sometimes hear them across town.

 

[CKxx]

im proud to say im still a kid and love doing stupid things

...like ride xc bikes.

 

[geargrrl]

There is hope. For all the helicopter moms who think soccer is too dangerous...

We had a trail work party today. Two boys, who live about 35 miles away were dropped off with packs, bikes and tools. They were about 14. They helped out with our project, and then went exploring the new-to-them-trails for a few hours. I imagine they called the folks to come get them when they ran out of food or it was getting dark.

gg

 

[Westy]

I think we are already seeing the results of wuss kids, it's called Emo.

 

[Da Peach]

Now my brother moved to Texas so he could afford a house with a yard for his son to play in. Unfortunately he isn't allowed to play outside for fear of being eaten by snakes.

I guess that makes you the smart brother.

 

[OGRipper]

Funny how you can start a thread and forget about it...cool stuff. It seems to me that parents these days are less willing to let their kids make mistakes and learn from them. Maybe its the easy access to information about all the horrible things in the world the parents have, or all the virtual, safe fun kids can have, I dunno, just seems that kids are pretty insulated. Thing is, the world as a whole is moving in that direction anyway, so I'm guessing kids will be fine, even if it seems there is less creativity involved in finding fun. Anyway, I'm not a parent.

As for childhood silliness, at one time or another I've participated in most of the things mentioned above. The one thing I didn't see discussed involved a model rocket engine, duct tape, and a live turtle. (It was fine. For the most part.)

 

[Westy]

Funny how you can start a thread and forget about it...cool stuff. It seems to me that parents these days are less willing to let their kids make mistakes and learn from them.

I think part of it is that a lot of kids have fewer places to do innocent yet stupid stuff that their parents don't know about. Growing up we only had a half acre yard but we were adjacent to acres upon acres of land that no one really knew who owned. We built trails, rode motorcycles, did anything we wanted out there. Now all of that is a housing development and with a litigious society even if it wasn't developed the owner wouldn't openly ignore kids doing stuff on their land.

 

[ire]

There are way more weapons, drugs and psychos out there. There was in my day too, just not to the same extent.

You've gotta be kidding me....there isn't more crap going on, the media insists on shoving it in your face 24hrs a day and that makes it seem worse

<edit> My old man was drinking and racing his car in HS, back in the early 60s.....hardly a new phenomenon

 

[H8R]

My old man was drinking and racing his car in HS, back in the early 60s.....hardly a new phenomenon

I never said drinking and racing is new.

(wtf?)


I'm talking about weapons and gun violence and the much more vast variety of drugs and other **** that is available to a teenager than was available when I was a teenager.

Not that drugs or weapons were hard to get, they weren't.

There's just more of it now.

 

[BIGHIT8989]

im only 18 but my parents never limited me. i remember when i was 6, white water rafting with my G-pa down almost all the Colorado River (skipping the really hard rapids). around the age of 8-9 i was experimenting with: Explosives, booby traps, Trench war-fare, throwing rocks at just about anything, mud wars in winter, cardboard box slides down HUGE grass hills, X-treme Sledding ( Doubles, grind rails,airial tricks... me and my cousins wer hard core)

you can really tell who's had a sheldtered protective childhood and who hasn;t

the sheltered ones don,t have much street sense or how to take care of them selves
and the exposed kids know how to enjoy life, how to go on adventures, and take properly calculated risks

 

[ire]

I never said drinking and racing is new.

(wtf?)


I'm talking about weapons and gun violence and the much more vast variety of drugs and other **** that is available to a teenager than was available when I was a teenager.

Not that drugs or weapons were hard to get, they weren't.

There's just more of it now.

Meh, I still don't agree. I was simply pointing out stupid, dangerous irresponsible behavior.

 

[H8R]

I was simply pointing out stupid, dangerous irresponsible behavior.

If you like pointing that out, you are in the right place.

 

[surfinguru]

Childhood:

• Jumping my Huffy over a long line of milk crates on concrete w/ no helmet.
• Gunk engine cleaner, a lighter, and many, many dead action figures.
• BB gun wars.
• Wrist rockets.
• Archery. (I got shot in the face once)
• Train dodging. Really.
• Very steep hills on fvcked up bikes w/ no brakes.
• Throwing watermelons off freeway overpasses.
• Bringing home made weapons to school. (maces, clubs, knives)
• 6am paper route in a Latino neighborhood filled with untethered pitbulls.
• Darts.
• Lawn darts.
• Pellet guns.
• Nunchucks (home made and store bought).
• Throwing stars.
• Caltrops.
• Bullwhips.

H8R pretty much got most of mine, however, I should add the following:

Filling plastic film canisters with gunpowder, cotton balls and a homemade wick (That was HELLA exciting - almost burned down the garage though)
Dirtclod fights
Backflips off the roof into the pool
M80's into rich kids pool
M80's in mail boxes
Jumping over my friends with my bike
Sneaking the car out at 2am (required pushing it a block down the street before starting it and coasting said block on the way back in)
Playing hide and go seek in a 2story house and hiding in the laundry shoot

and my all time favorite......

a lighter and a can of hairspray!!!

 

[OGRipper]

Hahaha, lawn darts aka Jarts!!! Awesome!

 

[H8R]

a lighter and a can of hairspray!!!

or

3M adhesive spray. (sticky and burny!)

or

Large pool of denatured alcohol in the driveway.

or

Can of engine cleaner spray (usually Gunk) next to a lighter taped open. Shoot the can with a pellet gun and WHOOSH.



Really glad that not until later in life did I discover acetylene. I would be dead.

 

[H8R]

Home made blow guns. (pipe, finishing nails and wax)

 

[H8R]

OH - just remembered....


My and a friend watched a kid make a fake cigarette out of a plastic drinking straw and dried grass.

He took one big drag and passed right the fvck out. We ran home.

 

[dirttastesgood]

i grew up on a big hill in california. we dug a crazy network of tunnels and then blew them up when we turned 10. we lugged down the hill. burned down a treehouse. spray painted a lady's dog. went ice blocking. had bottle rocket fights. raced pocket rockets through downtown. tons of bmxing, skateboarding, djing, etc. made plenty of bombs. now in my new nieghborhood here in ct the kids play 4 square, touch football, and soccer. i tried to get them to play rugby and all but one girl walked away saying they didn't want to get hit.

 

[ire]

OH - just remembered....


My and a friend watched a kid make a fake cigarette out of a plastic drinking straw and dried grass.

He took one big drag and passed right the fvck out. We ran home.

When I was a kid we made cigars out of paper, coffee and......glue, ya know, so the paper would hold together. Nice buzz :biggrin:

 

[DH Diva]

And as we wussify them, we chalk them full of Mickey D's therefor further cultivating juvenile diabetes, plant them in front of the telly, and watch them turn into living replicas of the Michelin Man. I hate tubby kids and their parents who don't boot their rear ends out the door every now and then and make them play with sticks. But god forbid the tubby lardos get a splinter!!

 

[SkaredShtles]

im only 18 but my parents never limited me. i remember when i was 6, white water rafting with my G-pa down almost all the Colorado River (skipping the really hard rapids).

You rafted from Granby, Colorado to Mexico with your grandpa at age *6*?!? I'm gonna have to call bull$hit.

 

[manimal]

as soon as noah finished his homework today, i sent him out the door to go play airsoft with his neighborhood buddies. it's pretty much a slightly safer version of bb gun wars that i used to play except they have much cooler guns.
then, when i was done cleaning out the garage, i picked him up and we went for a ride.
having grown up as a fat kid, i REFUSE to let my chillin's go through what i did. tv is ok for a little while after dinner but hardly ever is it on when the sun is out.

 

[surfinguru]

Had to post one more as I was thinking about it on the way into work this AM:

Craziest thing I probably ever did during my "youth" was throwing a firecracker in class. (7th grade) We had this history teacher that would always put a movie on while he slept in the back of the classroom. (Slacker old man....) A buddy of mine and I were scheming on how to get his goat and my friend had the brilliant idea of tossing the firecracker. So, he dared me to throw it at the projector screen, and of course, me never been one to back down from a dare, went for it.

Man, I swear to god, it's still one of the funniest moments in my life. Watching our teacher absolutely spaz/freakout was priceless. In the end though, the prissy little girl in the front row snitched me out and I got the courtesy ride to juvi via the police car. I ended up with a weeks suspension and had to do some community clean up thing I don't remember.

 

[OGRipper]

^^Hahaha, classic. This reminded me of three things: Starting a fight in bio lab that eventually resulted in everyone throwing frog entrails around the room, starting a food fight on spaghetti day that eventually took over the entire cafeteria (just like in the movies!), and blowing up a neighbor's garbage with m80's, resulting in a fairly serious fire that took out a few small trees and burned the front of a house.

 

[SkaredShtles]

And bandaids man! F*** band aids..........once my kid is a couple years old, he isn't getting a band aid unless there's some carnage!

Are you married?

i'm not trying to torture 'em, it's just that band aids can be bad if used too much..........if you use one for all cuts then you're never exposed to bacteria as a kid (when ur immune system can easily fend it off) and ur immune system will forever be weak.........IMHO

You might want to check the medical efficacy of your "theory" - maybe PM Toshi directly.

 

[Da Peach]

I just had a flash of one time when MMike and I were having a snow fight while clearing the driveway. I was a little close with my stealth snow attack as he was in full swing with a snow pusher. Gave my nose a good slice right across the nostrils... Close one!

 

[OGRipper]

Good follow up:

http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/

"We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait."