In the course of human events, there comes a time when you
just have to do things without any prior reasoning. Or as
some folks would say you have to do what you have to do.
Well, yesterday was one of those days. I had just finished
moving some office furniture into my garage. To get into our
garage, you must drive up an incline of about 30 feet at a
20 degree or so angle. While I was taking a break, I was
sitting in one of the high back swivel chairs and it hit me.
What if I was to sit in the chair and roll down the drive?
Well, of course you know that I did, and it was a hoot.
About two hours go by and one of my neighbors calls over and
asks to buy one of these chairs. Now, we live at the end of
a cul-de-sac with a street separating us. The street going
to our houses is about 150 yards long and is at about a
20-degree angle again. Now, if you cant figure out what is
about to happen, you need to leave the room. As you may have
guessed, once I am on the way over to deliver the chair I
hit upon this bright idea of riding the chair down the hill.
I sit in the chair, give myself a good kick to get going,
and going? I get… At a high rate of speed. In fact
considerably faster than I would have thought possible. The
first major discovery I make is that when you put my body in
a swivel chair and propel it downhill at a rapid clip, the
heavy part (my rear) naturally swings to the downhill side.
Thus, in the first 10 feet or so of travel I found myself
looking backward, not to the front as I had first
anticipated.
This presented me with a series of options, none of which
looked really great at the time. One, I could stay in the
chair and do nothing. If I elected to choose option #1, then
I would most likely cross the intersection (busy with
construction traffic) backward in a high backed office
swivel chair at a fairly high rate of speed. Obviously I was
sans seat belt in this mode. This meant that an oncoming
concrete truck might fail to believe I was real and not try
to stop OR attempt to swerve and injure or kill us all. I
quickly discarded option #1. Option #2, was to rock the
chair over immediately and take my chances on just falling
on the asphalt at about 15 miles an hour. Since I had not
thought this action through completely before I undertook
such a hazardous sport, I was not wearing any protective
equipment. In retrospect, a helmet, kneepads, elbow pads,
and gloves should be required minimum equipment, if this
sport catches on. So, option #2 was ruled out as well. Since
time was running out very quickly and I was picking up more
speed, I opted to go for pure animal instinct and brake the
thing with my feet. This produced the following effect…
Since pressure was applied on one foot more than the other,
I started turning toward the front, and then I drug my right
foot harder than my left, causing me to pull to the right
side of the road. Now, follow me on this, when you are
moving on an asphalt surface and are about to hit terminal
velocity, moving into the grass will cause you to do
something very quickly. You will stop. Which I did. This
stopping motion propelled me out of the chair and onto the
ground. Quickly feeling around I discovered that nothing was
broken or badly injured. In fact I wasn’t even bleeding.
Other than a big strawberry hickey on my right shoulder
where I hit the ground, I wasn’t injured. Needless to say, I
thought it was funny and haven’t stopped laughing.
My wife doesn’t share my humor on this matter and thinks I
have finally lost it. She questions the sanity of a 56-year
man engaging in chair racing down the side of a mountain,
backward. Well, let me tell you something, I have had
several people express real interest in this as a future
sporting event. We envision it as a sort of downhill swivel
chair luge type of thing. When you think of it in that
manner, it opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. In
fact it may become more popular than bob sledding or the
luge. I mean, look at these races, first off, they get to
SEE where they are going. Secondly, the swivel effect gives
a whole new dimension of risk and danger to the
participants. In this form of the sport, the unknown factor
of which way you swivel while headed downhill will require
dedicated athletics to practice for many hours before
achieving any level of proficiency. In short, if this
catches on as I imagine, then I expect to see higher speeds
achieved with better wheels and stronger frames. If this
occurs, then can advertising be far behind? Imagine the
possibilities of having all of that space on the backs of
the chairs available to major companies. This could be the
start of an entire new industry and sporting event. It
really isn’t too wild to think that this could ultimately be
headed for the Olympics. Just remember that you heard it
first here. Peary Perry, the pioneer of high-backed swivel
chair downhill racing.
