I started Pedal Power Bike Taxi in Tempe, Arizona as an idea, slowly studying the physics and movement necessary to create top-notch custom designs for our fleet.
Spending late nights at my friend's CAD station, calculating measurements, and drafting ideas until we figured out the best way to create two and three-seater's for our fleet....it wasn't easy, nor was trying to make it home one night after printing a finished model for the cabs.
I left at 11pm to catch the last bus at 11:15 back home, so i didn't have to ride back........I started out of the apartment riding confident, knowing I had just opened the door for my ticket out of the hell that Arizona pedal-cabbies have made the Valley of the Sun. Having ridden for other cab companies for two years, making money, but getting robbed by the owners, paying exorbitant lease rates to overly arrogant and cut-throat hustlers, and fighting off the over 80 cabs for the chance to pull home the fabled "HD"....the hundred dollar tip !
As I left the gated entrance, I was accelerating on my bike around a col-d-sac, prepared to navigate the set of traffic cones that maintenance uses to keep cars out of the visitor lot and off to the bus stop......but the traffic cones weren't the only obstacle they put up that night to keep cars out......they had just strung a chain across, and I didn't hit the brakes 'till I was a foot from the chain going full bore out of the parking lot.
Needless to say, I hit the chain so hard, that I was rotated over the bars while the bike was still clipped attached to my feet........I was able to get an arm out to try to brace my fall, but my head came down so hard, kinda like a whip would crack, and my head was turned as I hit......lights out.......and then my heels hit the back of my head in the ultra-classic, endo/scorpion move.....lights back on.......as my bike must have made at least two full rotations in the air before I heard it come down hard about 15 ft. away!
As I moaned to create some resonance inside my head (some form of natural meditation the body goes through to relax the brain and send in chemicals to counter the trauma), I was blinded by a car pulling into the complex.........it was so bright after I opened my eyes I thought I died and had been beamed up to the mothership !! I got up and rode to the bus and tried not to pass out. It was over...my newly finished cab design that I was using to manufacture our fleet was now just a file in my computer.....
.........and for the next two years I would struggle to survive without insurance, medical attention or proper care under a doctor........I later moved to Burlington to retire with a new business no one ever had even dreamed of creating!
SEVEN DAYS even called ME to set up a photo shoot and an interview two days before they were going to print!!!
We were made-men after that....and my phone has been ringing off the hook since then 'till 3:30am!!!!!
Just wait to see what prototypes we are going to roll out on the town next!
