Freedom!

"Learning to ride a bike that was at least a year too big was a rite of passage to freedom and from gravity, and mine was almost brand new. The entire neighbourhood was in various states of construction, so there were plenty of excavations and mounds of soil to conquer after I'd mastered the single-tracks in the strips of veld under the power lines. We raced. We jumped. We skidded and crashed. We put smiles on our faces and into our shoes, lacerated clothes and skin, and occasionally ended up in plaster."