Imagine riding a bicycle. Now imagine that said bicycle has no handlebars linking you directly to the directional control of the front wheels. Fun? Now imagine that there are no pedals either, and by the way, no seat. Oh and now imagine that you’re not sitting on the bike, you’re standing sideways on it, on a platform a few inches off the ground.

I’m guessing that what you’re imagining right now probably looks like this:

But what you were supposed to be imagining was this:

If this was what you pictured, congratulations. You have just imagined a totally rockin’ contraption called the Dirtsurfer. You also imagined a guy in a red t-shirt - well done.

Pigeon’s brother went to a swap meet the other day looking for various smelly greasy things for the car he’s building, and came back with one of these babies (Dirtsurfer, not a dude in a red shirt) as a present. I present to you one final challenge: having imagined all of this, I now ask you to try imagining how the hell you’re supposed to control it. Assuming of course that you’ve already imagined the fine art of getting on to the damn thing.

If I thought you might know what I was talking about, I would compare the technique of riding the Dirtsurfer to that of riding a snowboard through powder: all subtlety, and relying mostly on the tilt of the back foot for direction. However, since most people look at me as though my head has turned inside out and started sprouting leaves when I mention that I happen to enjoy being in snow, I won’t bother.

Last night I had a go on it for the first time ever. The Pigeon and I went out to Mount Annan Botanical Garden at about 9PM, knowing that there are many open, grassy slopes within. Naturally it was closed, so we climbed the gate, passing the Dirtsurfer over, and looked for somewhere to try it out. Yeah that’s right, we trespassed at night. And we didn’t even pay the $7 entry fee, because we’re YOUNG and REBELLIOUS and PRONE TO TYPING IN UPPER CASE.

Mind you, it turns out that the Botanical Garden isn’t actually lit at night, making it not exactly the most appropriate place for me to learn how to ride it. Still, we’d gone that far so I spent ten minutes trying to mount it and get going without wobbling off it after a few metres, and eventually succeeded. So we went off to seek a steeper, longer slope, and found one right at the back of the park area. The thing about riding anything in an unlit area at night is that you can’t really see more than a couple of metres ahead of you, and after that everything turns into a greyish black haze. This meant that whilst I made it safely down a longish section of asphalt footpath and successfully made the transition onto some short grass, I was rather unaware of the somewhat longer grass immediately ahead of me until I was running in mid-air with my board no longer under me – the front wheel having become snagged in the grass.

It was at this point that I was suddenly glad I had followed Pigeon’s advice and chosen NOT to strap my feet into it. Honestly, who thought that was a good idea? Just picture it: You are riding this contraption down an asphalt slope, and you shift your back foot very slightly because it doesn’t quite feel right where it is. Somehow you have misjudged your balance and this small act throws the whole device into some serious wobbling motions.

Scenario (a):
Luckily, you had the common sense to not strap your feet in, so you jump off safely and don’t even have to think twice about it.

Scenario (b):
Both your feet are strapped to this perilous death-beast, your arms are stuck straight out with all your fingers splayed, tilting this way and that as you desperately try to regain your balance. You are careening out of control at high speed, probably screaming stilted phrases such as "nyargh!" and "whoa!" and "son of a –" and "Lord, I repent for all my sins" in preparation for your impending messy death. Because of the terrible wobbling caused by both your feet being strapped on to the board, you can’t even muster enough control to be able to lean back onto the brake, and then finally you lose control altogether and land really really hard on your knees, probably shattering both your patellae (patellas? Damn Latin) and scraping all the skin off your knees, then because of your high impetus you continue moving downhill with the contraption still strapped to your feet and land on your face, breaking your nose and fracturing your jaw and possibly shattering some teeth, and as you try to stop your fall with your hands you swing your left hand the wrong way and your fingers get terribly mangled by the still-spinning spokes of the wheel, and your right hand ends up with no skin left at all as you skid to an eventual stop.

Oh yeah, hands up for (b).

Other than that, I learned something new at work today.

Dinky’s tip of the day: Do not blow your nose while you’re wearing a pair of industrial earmuffs. All the sounds of your dramatic burbling are amplified and reverberate inside your head. And that’s really quite disgusting.

Dear Polyphonic Spree, how come all your songs remind me of Penny Lane? Love, Dinky.

Dinky advises that this page should not be given to small children,
as the shorter words pose a choking hazard.