It's Christmas morning, 1970, and you bound down the stairs to the Christmas tree already looking for your presence before you're even fully awake.

Underneath the tree, you spot a box, bigger than anything that would hold boring presents like clothing or books, and you wonder if this is it.

The big one, the new toy you've pinned all your hopes and dreams on.

Is this the magical day that you're getting your very own Big Wheel?

For many kids who grew up in the 70s and 80s, even in the early 90s, the Big Wheel was an iconic tricycle seen and heard on thousands and thousands of streets across America.

There were earlier tricycles, of course, metal contraptions with handlebars and streamers

the kind of thing kids would pedal around on in their driveways and quiet cul-de-sacs

while their mothers made dinner.

But the big wheel didn't act like a regular tricycle.

Made from molded plastic, it put its rider inches from the

pavement in a lightweight but durable vehicle, aka fucking rocket ship, that was perfect for careening

downhills, or terrifying. Its plastic wheels had basically zero traction, meaning that a clever

rider could easily launch into a drift around a tight turn

or try to execute that move and end up crashing spectacularly and eaten a lot of pavement.

Oh, there were injuries, lots of them, so many.

The big wheel could reach speeds up to 15 miles an hour or more on a downhill incline,

and while that may not sound like much, 15 miles per hour in a big

wheel, as a former rider, felt like 100 miles per hour in a car. And this was in a time when very

few almost zero kids wore helmets or padding and parental supervision often boiled down to

be home in time for dinner and then leaving you entirely to your own devices and

discretion until then. In hindsight, some have wondered, was the danger inherent to the big wheel

just incidental? Or was that sense of danger exactly what its makers were trying to provide?

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