gassyphil
02-09-2010, 02:07 PM
First off, I would like to say thank you to Rider Down for your generous gifts. My family members are all proudly wearing their Rider Down T-shirts, we put the stickers on all of our vehicles and your monetary gift helped make this month’s bills easier to handle.
Here’s my story: I have been riding motorcycles since I was about 5 years old; I am 45 now. I knew from the first moment that I rode my first motorcycle that this was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. My first motorcycle that I owned was a 1971 Honda SL70 that I acquired in 4th grade by saving aluminum cans. I got this bike from a friend who had destroyed the motor and my Father and I rebuilt it ourselves. This was my first bike that had a clutch and my father wouldn’t teach me how to ride it, so I spent many hours just sitting on it and practicing pulling the clutch until I mustered up the courage to start it up and ride it. After that they had a hard time getting me off it.
When I was about 27 or 28 years old I had a Honda CR500 and was out on a group ride and broke my foot. I had my boss and family members telling me to sell my bike and give up riding; that I had a family to support, which I did, so I bought a jet boat and a mountain bike, figuring less chance for injury and with those toys I would still be able to get my “need for speed.” Also, I always enjoyed waterskiing, having grown up by a lake.
I had been promising both my sons for awhile that someday I would go out and buy us some dirt bikes and we would start riding again, but I had always been hesitant to do it because of my injury in my 20s. Well, in 2004 we were showing my woodworking at a home and garden show and both sons came up to me and said can we enter a contest to win a pair of Polaris quads, so we entered, and about a year later I got a phone call from a man who said I had won the pair of quads! I had forgotten that we even signed up for this and figured it was one of my buddy’s just messing with me, so I basically was telling the man he was full of crap, and he kept insisting that I had in fact won them. After this, I was hooked again. A friend of mine had a 1985 Honda XR350 that was pretty clean and had just been serviced by the Honda dealer and wanted to know if I wanted to buy it; the price was right so I bought it. Our family now enjoys riding and camping in the desert. I bought a Honda CR125 for my oldest, a Kawasaki KX65 for my youngest, I now have a Honda XR650L and my wife rides her Polaris Phoenix 200 quad.
I joined an internet forum group called Thumpertalk and have met a lot of nice people that I ride with. On June 25, 2009, I had a ride planned with one of the members of Thumpertalk; we were going to ride some of the single track out in Holcomb Valley near my house. We took off around 9am and were traveling down one of the forest service roads, not going very fast. About 4 miles in, I came around a corner and my rear end started coming around on a off camber turn; I hit a rut that high sided me and I knew in a instant that something was very wrong. I drug myself to the side of the road and waited for my riding partner to figure out that I was no longer behind him; he came back a few moments later. He asked me if I wanted to wait for him to go back and get his truck and I, just thinking that I had torn something in my knee, told him to just get my bike up and pointed in the right direction and that I would ride back to the house. Looking back, in hindsight, I should have waited for him to get the truck. That ride back to my house was the most excruciatingly painful ride I have ever been on. When we got back to the house my friend knocked on our office window to let my wife know that I had been injured. She was in total disbelief. (We were supposed to leave on vacation the next day!) It took him, her and my oldest son to get me off my bike because I couldn’t bend my leg at ALL! My friend took me to the local ER. They took x-rays and found that I had broken my tibia plateau in 7 places! They could not help me and said that I would have to go to a different hospital for surgery.
After two more visits to different emergency rooms and six days of misery, I finally had surgery on July 1st. They put in a plate and 9 screws to put it all back together. My orthopedic surgeon told me that I had really screwed myself up. This fracture is rated from 1 to 6 (6 being compound-through the skin), and mine was rated at a 5! He said that within 3-4 months I would be back to work, however he wouldn’t even let me start weight bearing until 4 months after the surgery and even at that point I was only allowed 50% weight bearing. (What a time to have something like this happen, when the economy is in the tank.) As of right now, I am doing physical therapy and still can’t work much more than 2hrs a day without having a lot of pain. My physical therapist said injuries like this take can 10-12 months or more before I will be able to use my leg normally. This has taken a real toll on my family and I. We have been struggling to pay the bills every month and have been behind on everything. We are now in risk of foreclosure, as we missed about 5-6 months of mortgage payments. This winter has been the coldest and snowiest in the 9 years that we have lived here, causing our electric and gas bills to go through the roof. We ran out of firewood last month because I usually cut my own firewood during the summer. Not only that, I broke my snow blower last winter and was planning on fixing it last summer, however that never happened, so I have to remove what snow I can with the good old shovel and help from my son when he is not working. (One storm we got last month dumped 5 feet of snow on us and it took us 3 days just to shovel up to the street!) I have never had to rely on others to help me do things as much as I have had to this last year. This injury has forced me to look for a new job (something more sedentary) and unfortunately I haven’t had any luck in that area. This economy is just making it that much more difficult to find a decent job. I never realized that we should be carrying more insurance than what we had. I was self-employed and had no personal disability insurance. My doctor said I didn’t qualify for SSI, so my income came to a screeching halt after the injury. We are trying to survive on my wife’s part-time income and I hope we don’t lose our home because of this injury. Prayers would be appreciated. You really find out who your true friends are in times like these and I believe I’ve found some true friends in the people at Rider Down. When my family and I get “back on our feet,” I look forward to contributing to others who have injured themselves and “need help up.” I hope the time when I can contribute is sooner rather than later.
Thanks again for your generous contribution!
Phil Young
Here’s my story: I have been riding motorcycles since I was about 5 years old; I am 45 now. I knew from the first moment that I rode my first motorcycle that this was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. My first motorcycle that I owned was a 1971 Honda SL70 that I acquired in 4th grade by saving aluminum cans. I got this bike from a friend who had destroyed the motor and my Father and I rebuilt it ourselves. This was my first bike that had a clutch and my father wouldn’t teach me how to ride it, so I spent many hours just sitting on it and practicing pulling the clutch until I mustered up the courage to start it up and ride it. After that they had a hard time getting me off it.
When I was about 27 or 28 years old I had a Honda CR500 and was out on a group ride and broke my foot. I had my boss and family members telling me to sell my bike and give up riding; that I had a family to support, which I did, so I bought a jet boat and a mountain bike, figuring less chance for injury and with those toys I would still be able to get my “need for speed.” Also, I always enjoyed waterskiing, having grown up by a lake.
I had been promising both my sons for awhile that someday I would go out and buy us some dirt bikes and we would start riding again, but I had always been hesitant to do it because of my injury in my 20s. Well, in 2004 we were showing my woodworking at a home and garden show and both sons came up to me and said can we enter a contest to win a pair of Polaris quads, so we entered, and about a year later I got a phone call from a man who said I had won the pair of quads! I had forgotten that we even signed up for this and figured it was one of my buddy’s just messing with me, so I basically was telling the man he was full of crap, and he kept insisting that I had in fact won them. After this, I was hooked again. A friend of mine had a 1985 Honda XR350 that was pretty clean and had just been serviced by the Honda dealer and wanted to know if I wanted to buy it; the price was right so I bought it. Our family now enjoys riding and camping in the desert. I bought a Honda CR125 for my oldest, a Kawasaki KX65 for my youngest, I now have a Honda XR650L and my wife rides her Polaris Phoenix 200 quad.
I joined an internet forum group called Thumpertalk and have met a lot of nice people that I ride with. On June 25, 2009, I had a ride planned with one of the members of Thumpertalk; we were going to ride some of the single track out in Holcomb Valley near my house. We took off around 9am and were traveling down one of the forest service roads, not going very fast. About 4 miles in, I came around a corner and my rear end started coming around on a off camber turn; I hit a rut that high sided me and I knew in a instant that something was very wrong. I drug myself to the side of the road and waited for my riding partner to figure out that I was no longer behind him; he came back a few moments later. He asked me if I wanted to wait for him to go back and get his truck and I, just thinking that I had torn something in my knee, told him to just get my bike up and pointed in the right direction and that I would ride back to the house. Looking back, in hindsight, I should have waited for him to get the truck. That ride back to my house was the most excruciatingly painful ride I have ever been on. When we got back to the house my friend knocked on our office window to let my wife know that I had been injured. She was in total disbelief. (We were supposed to leave on vacation the next day!) It took him, her and my oldest son to get me off my bike because I couldn’t bend my leg at ALL! My friend took me to the local ER. They took x-rays and found that I had broken my tibia plateau in 7 places! They could not help me and said that I would have to go to a different hospital for surgery.
After two more visits to different emergency rooms and six days of misery, I finally had surgery on July 1st. They put in a plate and 9 screws to put it all back together. My orthopedic surgeon told me that I had really screwed myself up. This fracture is rated from 1 to 6 (6 being compound-through the skin), and mine was rated at a 5! He said that within 3-4 months I would be back to work, however he wouldn’t even let me start weight bearing until 4 months after the surgery and even at that point I was only allowed 50% weight bearing. (What a time to have something like this happen, when the economy is in the tank.) As of right now, I am doing physical therapy and still can’t work much more than 2hrs a day without having a lot of pain. My physical therapist said injuries like this take can 10-12 months or more before I will be able to use my leg normally. This has taken a real toll on my family and I. We have been struggling to pay the bills every month and have been behind on everything. We are now in risk of foreclosure, as we missed about 5-6 months of mortgage payments. This winter has been the coldest and snowiest in the 9 years that we have lived here, causing our electric and gas bills to go through the roof. We ran out of firewood last month because I usually cut my own firewood during the summer. Not only that, I broke my snow blower last winter and was planning on fixing it last summer, however that never happened, so I have to remove what snow I can with the good old shovel and help from my son when he is not working. (One storm we got last month dumped 5 feet of snow on us and it took us 3 days just to shovel up to the street!) I have never had to rely on others to help me do things as much as I have had to this last year. This injury has forced me to look for a new job (something more sedentary) and unfortunately I haven’t had any luck in that area. This economy is just making it that much more difficult to find a decent job. I never realized that we should be carrying more insurance than what we had. I was self-employed and had no personal disability insurance. My doctor said I didn’t qualify for SSI, so my income came to a screeching halt after the injury. We are trying to survive on my wife’s part-time income and I hope we don’t lose our home because of this injury. Prayers would be appreciated. You really find out who your true friends are in times like these and I believe I’ve found some true friends in the people at Rider Down. When my family and I get “back on our feet,” I look forward to contributing to others who have injured themselves and “need help up.” I hope the time when I can contribute is sooner rather than later.
Thanks again for your generous contribution!
Phil Young