And The Winner Is…

…the dirt bike.

I went out this morning with my riding buddy Chuck. Chuck and I ride together both on the street and the dirt. He’s on a newer CRF450X (the one with the magid red electric start button…grrrr) and until recently rode an Aprilia Mille ‘R’ on the street. Heh – I like to think he has good taste.

Both Chuck and I like the single-track technical stuff and boy did I get my fill today.

Disclaimer: I really have not been riding a lot in the dirt lately (probably 5-6 times this year) and do not have my dirt bike legs.

We started off on a very tight ‘goat trail’ that Chuck and his buddies have recently cut. It reminded me of the enduros I rode back in mid-Michigan, where the officials walked through the woods tagging trees, with what seemed like no regard to if a motorcycle could actually get through there!

Arizona does not have dirt, we have granite with sand sprinkled on top for color, and rocks…lots of rocks. Even though I’m 5’10″, I don’t weigh a lot and my YZ426f is a little tall for me in the really tight stuff because I really don’t sag the suspension enough. Yeah some of that could be adjusted out, but I try to leave the bike in the happy medium settings. It also gets heavy over time.

We hit every kind of obstacle possible: rocks, downed trees, mud-bog, swamp deep sand, rocks, ruts, washes, steep inclines and declines, and even managed to chase a coyote for a bit. It was actually a little more technical than I was thinking and I had to make an anti-stall adjustment – I turned up the idle. At times we were going slow enough that I started to see steam come out of the radiators. I double checked, and it was not my panting breath.

I actually had to take a break for a couple minutes. I was making simple mistakes then compounding those mistakes by overanalyzing the “why” part. This caused more mistakes and created the need for unnecessary ‘saves’. Its also time for new knobbies as I simply have no grip any more.

When we stopped, I was talking to Chuck and remembered two things:

1. A bad day on the dirt bike is still better than a good day at work (and I love my job!).

2. I had to go way back to words of wisdom from my dad who told me “when in doubt, gas it”>

#1 is easy and its true. #2 is a little more difficult to overcome for me. Maybe in Michigan with its nice soft sand, dirt, and grass to land on when you have a get-off, this is true. Here in AZ crashing hurts. Period.

Bottom line is it still works. As we worked our way back to the truck, my head was clear and my speed back up to normal. It indeed was better than work!

Overall, it was a great morning. It’s been a long time since I have gotten frustrated on a bike. A well-timed break and a little self-lecture to ‘relax’ fixed my head.

I sit here tonight, having one main thought going through my head: Wow, I’m going to be sore tomorrow morning as I stiffen up with each passing hour.

Getting old sucks.