In the mid 70's Evil Knievel tried to jump snake river canyon, Fonzi from Happy Days jumped his motorcycle over a bunch of cars or trucks, I don't remember the exact details.
Anyway, this was inspiring for kids in the middle of nowhere with more time on their hands than things to do.
So we made ramps at the end of a dead end street.
There was a starting point, about 100 yards from the ramp, the game was to go as fast as possible on your bicycle, hit the ramp, and try to fly the farthest possible. The landing points were marked to see who was the winner. I don't know if it was my bike, or willpower to impress, but I always managed to win this competition.
After a couple weeks of these 1 foot high ramps, one of my friends hauls out a 4x8 sheet of 1/4 inch plywood, and a sawhorse.
The new ramp is installed.
"so, who goes first?" there were a few grumbles and not me's and finally I said I'd give it a shot.
I headed down the road to the starting point, my friends gathered around at the end of the ramp, and I was off, racing the bike as fast as I could and hit the ramp...
For the purpose of this experiment, the 1/4 inch plywood could have either been the best choice of material or the worst, I suppose it depends on what sort of outcome you are trying to achieve.
Anyway, when I hit the ramp the plywood bowed, when I got near the end it sprang back up and I was launched into the air. I remember looking down at my friends who's heads were a good 10 feet below me and thinking 'this can't be good'. So in midair I got off the bike and pushed it away so that I could land without it. Heck I was falling from only 15 feet, we jumped off barn roofs for fun.
Stobis, a kid 2 years younger than us thought what I did was real cool, so he wanted to go next. He stayed on the bike and, well, the result wasn't pretty. The ramp came down, never to be used again.
