DUNE BUGGY VS. BICYCLE Published Sept. 28, 2007 By Maj. Brent "Byzo" Bywater 40th Airlift Squadron, Dyess AFB, Texas Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas -- Just in case it needed saying, in a race or collision between a dune buggy and a bicycle, the dune buggy pretty much always wins. To illustrate ... Huffing and puffing, I was pedaling my bike up the hill in front of the base exchange at Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, when a friend pulled up next to me in his street legal dune buggy. We were jawing back and forth, giving each other some good-natured ribbing. In the meantime, our vehicles crept closer and closer to one another. Unbeknownst to me, the dune buggy's rear tire and axle are much bigger and stick out further than the front of the vehicle. So as my friend pulled away, his rear tire clipped mine. I flew over the handlebars as my bike flipped. That's a flight that this C-130 pilot never wants to take again. My bike somehow landed in front of his rear tire, which ran over it. The pressure from the dune buggy pushed the frame of the bike down on my ankle, breaking it. Meanwhile, in an attempt to catch myself from the fall, I extended my left arm and landed on my hand. In doing so, the impact from the fall broke my left elbow. And to think, before this incident, I'd never broken a bone in my life. All of this tore up my flight suit pretty good, as I lay there bloodied and broken. On a positive note, even though my head bounced off the asphalt a couple of times, I didn't sustain a serious head injury because I was wearing a helmet. Since my ankle wasn't a severe break, I only had to be in a cast and on crutches for eight weeks. Then I had two months of physical therapy. My elbow, on the other hand, required three surgeries and nine months of physical therapy to regain full functionality.