Since getting my first mountain bike in 1990, I’ve seen the ill effects of what ambulance chasers have done to our sport. Closed trails, helmet laws, and a myriad of neon warning stickers covering every component on a new bike just scratch the surface of how the legal system has infiltrated mountain biking.

Don’t get me wrong; justice should be served to irresponsible brands for making unsafe products. But winning a lawsuit for millions for being hit by a car in the middle of the night and blaming it on the bike’s “faulty reflectors” is questionable. Surely, one of the reflectors had to work before the claimant— who had no lights and was wearing black clothes— became a hood ornament. The “faulty reflectors” guy became the frivolous lawsuit ire of every bike brand and enthusiast in the cycling industry until the “faulty quick release” guy came along in thedays before disc brakes and through-axles. That “faulty quick release” guy was almost me.

It all started the day I suffered one of the worst bike accidents of my life, only two blocks from my house. I was 14 years old and was riding my first mountain bike—a cherry-red 1990 Giant Rincon— down the block for a dip at the community pool on a hot, humid summer afternoon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There was a six-inch curb I had to hop over before arriving at my destination. Simple. Predictable. No big deal. Even though my chromoly Rincon was heavy as a boulder, I never had a problem bunny hopping it.

I approached the curb at cruising speed and pulled up on the handlebars to commence launch. The front end lifted exceptionally fast. In that split-second of flight, I looked down to find no wheel attached. It rolled underneath me, hit the curb, jolted into the air, and continued rolling through the grass. My landing wasn’t nearly as pleasant. The steel fork plowed into the pavement, followed by my face. If only a foot further, I would have faceplanted into manicured grass.

I laid in a scorpion repose with the Rincon on top of me, feeling the chainring digging into my back and hearing the freewheel spinning with an annoying click...click...click...click. I peeled my left cheek off the pavement and watched the front wheel bounce away. I got up and didn’t even think or care about the condition of my bike as I stood concussed and bleeding, not knowing what to do, when a woman got out of her car and ran toward me.