Saturday we took the kids to the Zoo. In classic Zoo Bomb style, we stuffed the bakfiets into MAX at Goose Hollow. The plan was to bomb down as the perfect cap a fun day at the zoo. I’ve bombed with the bakfiets previously and had no worries about it. It handles great and sticks to the ground like a truck. In retrospect, the last time I bombed I took the route through the neighborhood, Cody was about 10 lbs lighter and AG’s 20 lbs weren’t even born yet.

Well, the hard left before the archery area was too much for the roller brakes (there’s an oxymoron for you) and the bakfiets took a spill. It left me with a nasty case of road rash on my knee, and some annoying scraps on two toes and my elbow. Somewhat surprisingly I have no hip injury.

As for the cause, obviously I was going too fast approaching the turn, I reckon 20-25 mph. When I started braking, the roller brakes didn’t slow us down one bit. As I got closer to the turn, and having not slowed any I applied more and more pressure on the brakes with no effect until without warning the rear wheel locked up. As soon as the wheel locked, it began to drift out and there was no saving the situation. The bak laid down and skidded on its side for a good 15-20 feet and me right behind it. The kids were scared and screaming the whole time, making me feel doubly worse. In actuality they were safely strapped into a big wooden box. Ada Gene did come out of it with her first case of road rash. She had Cody on top of her and I think her arm slipped out of the box at some point, probably forced out by his extra weight. The absolute worse part was having a four year old second guessing my speed and giving riding advice the whole rest of the way home. Arguably he’s an expert, but being right only makes his back seat driving more unbearable.