When discussing motorcycles today, a friend mentioned having gone to a hill climb many years ago. Memories came flooding back in regard to a hillclimb we (family and friends) attended about, say, 40-plus years ago.
On a whim, we decided to take a little field trip to East Palestine, Ohio, to the motorcycle hill climb — something we really did not regularly do (as we were usually at the flat track races ourselves). We arrived to find a huge crowd milling about at the bottom of the hill. Bikers and biker-gang folks abounded. No big deal as we were bike people, too. However, as the afternoon wore on and the beer was flowing, a number of the crowdmembers began to race bikes through the crowd…while streaking and occasionally throwing bottles (not our usual experience with bikers). Since we had kids with us (two 10-year olds and a 5-year old), we decided to move up the hill to avoid the debauchery at the bottom.
Soon we discovered that those big old Harleys could lurch suddenly to the side of the hill (into the onlookers) when they could no longer continue the journey up the path. Hence, there were large guys (aptly named “hookers”) wielding large hooks which they used to snag the cycles and prevent them from rolling down the hill onto the fans who lined the path. Hmmmm…..not such a safe place, we decided, and continued to climb to the top of the hill, the pinnacle to which the hill-climbers aspired.
Here we felt safe. No riotous shenanigans. A crowd of twenty people and a huge tree limb blocking us from the tippy-top of the hill. A bike would have to get through all that to reach us! And, to be on the safe side, we put the ten-year-olds about three branches up in a tree, way out of harm’s way. Yes!! We had a plan.
So…the third bike to crest the hill flew up in the air (rider had bailed) off to the right and backward in our direction. It is amazing how fast twenty people can scatter. And a tree limb is no match for a bike that sails right over it! The kids in the tree were smart enough to hold onto a branch above them and lift their bottoms and legs from the branch they were sitting on as the cycle cleared that lower branch by mere inches as it flew and then bounced off the hill. My friend had scooped up the five-year-old, and the three of us made tracks down an ambulance-access road and escaped harm. And it all happened in a heartbeat.
We learned that the safest place to be a a motorcycle hillclimb is on the hillclimb bike. Whew!!