The long ride

By: Danny H

The feeling of the wind hitting my face and the way my palms grip on the handlebars. This is my passion, which is biking. It's basically where you ride with the front wheel up and use the brakes to not fall backwards. I love it because it's a hobby that takes me out of the house and keeps my mind clear. 

I’ve also met so many new people from biking and some of them turned into some of my closest friends. I’ve met some random people and we became friends and they ended up living in my neighborhood or living just down the street from me.  Being outside riding bikes with your friends is just something really fun that I enjoy doing. I enjoy doing it because it's just quality time with your friends and can never be missed out on. Everytime we go out, its always a good time together. 

My passion started when me and my friend saw a couple of kids going down the street with their wheels up. I didn’t really know what it was exactly at the time but it looked cool. After we saw that, me and my friend started practicing together, watching youtube videos on how to do them. 

When you start, you’re obviously not going to be the best. When you keep practicing day by day and see your progress getting better and better, you just want to keep going. I also like practicing with my friends because they give me new tricks to try so I can challenge myself more. 

A favorite memory of mine when biking was when we had road rage with a driver and they were driving on the SJSU campus. They were mad that we were riding on the street and we were arguing back and forth with them for awhile until they tried to hit us so we went onto the campus of SJSU and they followed us. Driving on the sidewalk and nearly hitting other random people. This was my favorite memory because it gave us an adrenaline rush like we’ve never experienced before. It was super unexpected so the second they started driving on the sidewalk we were trying to get away as soon as possible.

 I like biking with my friends around Downtown San Jose but one place I specifically like going with them is this open street that we always practice on. It's on 16th street and San Salvador.  It's just a long strip of smooth road that we always practice and chill there.  

To me biking is really just a hobby, I don't take it too seriously when it comes to being a professional or something. It's really something to do just to have fun with my friends and to keep me out of the house. I stopped biking around June because I injured myself for a month and after I kinda lost the passion. I still go out with my friends every now and then but mainly I try to focus on school and other important things and have not been able to have any time.