The Cheetah Bike

Just imagine if the pads were not lost. This Bike>Mona Lisa.

When I was learning to ride a bike I used my dad's 26” tall monster. To get on it I had to stand on the porch of our mobile home and push off to get enough momentum to keep my balance. I didn't the leg length from crotch to peddle so I had to shift from one side of the bike to the other to push the peddles using my knee to hold onto the center bar. When I was coasting downhill or had enough speed I would jump up on the seat and enjoy the ride until I had to go back to work hop peddling.
Dismounting consisted of slowing down as much as I could and then jumping free. 

When I was about six my mom entered a drawing at a local grocery store for a BMX bike with cheetah patterned pads. She won the bike and gave it to me in what is still one of the best days of my life. The bike was still a little big for me but a lot smaller then my dad's. The cheetah styling was what made it really go, and go fast. If you were not aware of it before I rolled up on my cheetah bike I would tell you, maybe twice, that the cheetah is the fastest land animal and by association. . . 

I think we all know what I had, go-faster stripes on top of go-faster stripes dipped in nitro and rolled in cool. I would have loved any bike but this was my passion. 

One day at the park it was stolen. I was ruined, in a panic I looked everywhere hoping I misplaced it but the fact was it was gone. I was heartbroken and crying, walking home when I passed the house of a kid who a known thief. There on the side of the house was my cheetah bike. The kid and his dad were about 20 feet away in the back yard. even though I am a coward by nature I ran over to my bike, turned it back towards the road and took off. The kid's dad yelled at me to come back and that he was going to call the cops but I put on the speed and was gone. I was terrified of having the cops called on me but I was certain that a kid named Billy didn't have a cheetah bike exactly like mine with a vanity plate that said Nate. I rode home and pulled back the siding on the back of our trailer and stashed the bike under there so if the cops or that kid's dad did come looking for it they could never find it. 

The cops never came.