I was livid.

Brian McClain — a 17-year-old who was bicycling with me as well as his best friend Ryan Egan — deliberately did a “slingshot” past a logging truck going down Kingsbury Grade out of Stateline, Nevada.

A “slingshot” is when you are caught in the slipstream or the draft of a big vehicle such as a truck and you are able to pick up speed with relative ease and literally sling yourself past it. On a ride a few months earlier I wasn’t paying attention and got caught in the slipstream of a Greyhound bus that had shifted down on Highway 267 between Truckee and Kings Beach after cresting Brockway Summit on the other side of Lake Tahoe. When it became clear I couldn’t stop my bicycle from slamming into the back of the bus at 45 mph I did a blind slingshot in the calculated belief I’d have a better chance of surviving.

To make a long story short I was able to cut back in front of the bus with perhaps five car lengths to spare as a cement truck rounded a blind curve. When I finally came to a stop four minutes later, I was shaking so hard and my heart was pounding so fast I honestly thought I was going to collapse.

When I caught up with Brian I was yelling so hard I could have trigger an avalanche. He went from having this silly grin on his face to a look of shock. It was the first time I had ever raised my voice at him. He mumbled something about seeing a bicyclist slingshot on a popular bicycle racing movie from the 1980s — American Flyer — and how he always wanted to try it. He couldn’t understand the big deal because I had done it.

I went nuts. As I read him the riot act, I made it clear there was no way on earth I ever wanted to do that again and that it was a forced decision. He still had a blank look on his face. When I started to calm down and told him that if he ever did a stunt like that again I would never take him on a cycling trip with me to the Sierra, Death Valley or anywhere he started to tear up. I told him I got why he did it but he needed to think beyond his impulses.

I’m not going to lie. Brian did some bonehead things on rides that were yet to come but nothing approached the recklessness of that day.

Brian today is a chemistry professor at the College of Western Idaho.

Brian came to mind reading some of the social media postings about two tragedies this past week. The death of Sierra High freshman Austin Peterson on a railroad trestle across the San Joaquin River and the Manteca High brothers Trevor and Cody Stonum seriously injured in an accident on Industrial Park Drive where police believe excessive speed was the major contributing factor.

I can’t begin to understand the pain their parents, family, and friends are going through.

I do get that young people — strike that — a lot of people think they are invincible.

I can list plenty of things besides what happened on Brockway Summit 30 years ago that give me pause today thinking how lucky I am to be alive.

I know. You make your own luck.

But there is more to life than just playing it so safe you don’t live it.

After 16-year-old Matthew Zaragoza Van Gelderen died after suffering a brain concussion in an East Union High football game in 2005 there was the predictable call from some quarters to abolish high school football.

Yes, there are dangers involved in playing sports. And, yes, all reasonable precautions are taken. But guess what? You can’t eliminate all risk. That’s life. And you can’t wrap kids in bubble wrap. That’s not living.

There is a happy medium. But like all of life’s lessons there are times that kids will find there are limits and excessive risks on their own much to the sorrow of loved ones.

Austin shouldn’t have been on that bridge. Trevor and Cody shouldn’t have been speeding. Brian shouldn’t have “slingshot” around the logging truck. And I should have been paying closer attention.

Those who are suffering from the loss of loved ones in situations where sound judgment was lacking need not be hammered on that point. They get it more than anyone who is lecturing them anonymously on social media could ever get.

It must be scary to be a parent. You want to eliminate all risk but you can’t. Then there is the danger of smothering your child so much they never learn to be independent and live life.

You do the best you can do and then hope for the best.

It is unfortunate that complete strangers know Austin, Trevor, and Cody only by single incidents in their young lives that happened in a matter of seconds. By all accounts they are all good kids. 

They had no fear of living life, and that’s good.

It is unfortunate and heart breaking as to what happened. It is also the way of the world from the beginning of time. Knowing that doesn’t lessen the pain but it should temper our reaction.

We need to understand tragedies will happen no matter how we try to “teen” proof the world.

Our collective lives are less bright with the loss of Austin but then again if you listen to his friends their lives were all the richer for the time he was here on earth.

This column is the opinion of executive editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Bulletin or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA.  He can be contacted at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com or 209.249.3519.