When I was young and stupid (I am now old), our small town (a real small town, not these 8,000 people "small towns" that you hear about)was so unsophisticated that no one ever saw anything wrong with riding bikes on the sidewalk. I believe that the general consensus was that it kept the kids out from under cars and we were, at an early age, impressed with the understanding that should you be finding yourself on the same block as someone on foot, you hopped off the bike and walked it past them.
In seventh grade, at about that time that most kids' brains melt and run out of their ears, I was tooling back home from downtown, my faithful dog racing along beside me. Suddenly (see point about brain-melt mentioned above) I was overtaken by the question of what would happen if I was to violently turn my handlebars from side to side.
In a flash, the question was answered, and I wound up pretty much combined with my bike in the front yard of a house. As I lay there, cut and bruised, wondering why these things always seemed to happen to me for no reason, my faithful dog decided that the best course of action was to grab the leg of my jeans and attempt to extricate me from my predicament, growling violently all the while.
At this point, the elderly lady whose yard I was occupying came to the door, and in her feeble voice asked, "Are you all right?"
Thinking that the truth would do no one any good, I assured her that not only was I all right, but tried to do so in a manner that would convey the impression that this was something that I had planned out to the smallest detail long before the actual execution of the plan.
After separating myself from the bike, it was apparent that after it had carried me for most of the day, it was now my turn to carry it, so I limped off toward home with all of the dignity that I could muster - my bike under my arm and my faithful dog still attached to my pant leg, shaking her head from side to side and growling.
