Being in to things that challenge and sometimes scare me a little, I was quite excited as a 36 year old child to receive an adult sized Space Hopper as part of my birthday present from Nik. Not that I can remember ever owning one of these as child, I certainly can remember riding a few of them as a child and how much fun something so simple can be.
What I had forgotten is that they are no Porche or Caterham when it comes to handling and responsiveness. This memory lapse would prove to be my downfall and I expect it will incur more bumps, bashes, bruises and crashes, and my eventual eviction by Nik.
I quickly pump the Space Hopper up, well I had to work out how to maintain the reliability of a clearly pig headed pump, or was the pumps resistance to work a warning.
After about 30 minutes, it stood in front of me 80cm's in height, the highly tuned and explosive Space Hopper. It was time to saddle up, tentatively I climbed aboard and took my first few bounces, these ended abruptly with the clang of my head against a radiator and much laughter from Nik and Jon, Jon who only heard it, but had seen the comical site of a 36 year old man, bouncing around on a kids retro toy.
As the day progressed, I got braver and like most kids, more experimental with my new toy. Increasing the bounce, only lead to an extremely powerful upwards collision with a my left arm and a door handle, and a slumped position against the wall still sat a top the SH. However the pain, only induced silence.
You can't keep a good man or fool down.
A little later with regained vigor and a usable left arm, it was time to try to bounce across the gap at the top of the stairs between the two landing. With Nik fielding at the bottom of the stairs (I suspect she would have just run, wisely). I lined up the gap, I got a couple of bouncing in, caught the edge of the lift off step. The SH fired me direct at speed and completely airborne over the opposite landing and into the study landing on my feet narrowly missing the closed window. I decided to not try going down the stairs after this exercise.
The fool is still up and the SH is primed, I suspect that I may be writing on here again about this and associated injuries. But for now I can safely say that a Space Hoppers as an adult are more dangerous then I recall as a child.
The site of a supposed adult bouncing around the house with a grin like a loon on his face on a kids retro toy such as a Space Hopper is nothing else than............a bit special! I might post pic, I might not.
Yours in bouncing.
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