First time Riding a Dirt Bike… at 33

Talk about a childhood dream come true. I still remember riding “make-believe” dirt bikes with my cousin around the neighborhood like we were on hobby horses. Of course, there was always the baseball card in the spokes of my BMX bike making the most obnoxious staccato from the back of the bike. I’m not sure how I managed to let 33 years of my life go by before actually getting the chance to ride a real dirt bike. Needless to say, flying down the dirt roads through the desert landscape of Moab exceeded every expectation I ever had about riding dirt bikes.

It’s easy for me to justify never riding a real dirt bike before, because I just never grew up around motorsports. Even later in life, when friends would show up to events or camping on their motorcycles, I never had the courage to ask if I could try it because I had no idea what I was doing. Plus, I was terrified of popping the clutch, looping the bike out from under me, and less worried about myself getting hurt but more about damaging a friend bike. But this past Thanksgiving, I finally got to live out a dream of riding dirt bikes, and ultimately lead me down a new obsession. 

My wife and I got invited to join our friend’s tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving while camping down in the sandstone desert of Moab. Different groups of friends gather for everyone who doesn’t travel home to see their families for the holiday. Before the turkey was carved, my friend Paul asked if I wanted to ride his Husqvarna 701 Enduro. Hesitantly, I said yes, but admitted I had no idea how to ride one. With a crash course on where the brakes were, how to shift through the gears, and definitely how not to yank down on the throttle. So I threw on my buddy’s helmet, tossed a leg over the saddle, and pressed the electric starter on the bike. In 1st gear, I slowly let out the clutch to feel the bike inch forward. And after a brief stopping and starting, I finally got the feel of the bike under my feet and gave it some throttle to head down the dirt road from camp.

Hanging out in 1st gear, I made a few passes over the rocky slabs that intersected the sandy road that eventually connected to the main road, only stalling out the engine a couple of times while turning around. Feeling more and more comfortable, I started to make my way through the gears, into 2nd, then 3rd, before asking Paul if he was cool if I took it out on the main road. Feeling confident, and maybe a bit over confident in my mountain bike skills translating to a motorcycle, I opened up the 701cc motor and passed through the gears until the toe lever didn’t move up anymore and 6th gear had me cruising over 50 miles an hour over the desert. The wind passing through the helmet and over my chest, the power connecting me to the dirt under the tires, and the shear speed was exhilarating, to say the least. 

I followed my friend’s brother down a turnoff to another camp where he rode off and I couldn’t keep up. On my own little adventure now, I looped around the campsites that were tucked under a large sandstone slab and below the pinion pines. Navigating up the small steps and over the loose terrain, I misjudged my slow speed without engaging the clutch and stalled out again. But that would be the last time I would stall out. I exited the camp loop and back onto the loose double-track that were more like two mini-halfpipes making it sketchy to keep the tires in the middle of the track without feeling like I was going to loose control. Turning out on the road, I quickly made it through the gears and accelerated up to 60 miles an hour back to camp. The smile barely fit inside my helmet and I was immediately hooked on dirt bikes.

The following day, after the group split up to go do different activities, Paul and I headed out for a ride before dinner around the campfire. Thinking I was just heading out for a quick out-and-back to a neighboring campsite or overlook, it ended up being so much more. Following Paul, who was riding our friend’s KTM 500 EXC-F 6 Days, we bombed down the road to the next camp that overlooked the a canyon that we’d been camping at for years. Seeing that I wasn’t lagging too far behind, we headed down to a sandstone slab with steps up to a hillside. Not thinking anything of the obstacle, I followed Paul up the steps and the slabs without dropping the bike. A huge accomplishment for me tackling those features which wouldn’t be much on a mountain bike, but definitely a struggle with a bike this big. With throttle doing all the hard work, we pressed on down the road where Paul pointed out small hill peaks with oil rigs on them for us to check out. And with no planning at all on distance, vert, or grade, we just twisted the throttle and headed off.

Over the next 15 miles, I followed Paul’s track through the rocky, steep roads that I’d never explored before. These roads, tho very accessible, would rattle the bolts off all the vehicles we’ve driven down to camp through the years. The bikes soft suspension made climbing the terrain feel effortless, especially at a speed that simple would be unstable in a normal roadworthy vehicle. We climbed up the hills, rounded rocky turns to check out one campsite after another. With no idea where the road would take us, we slowly made a large loop, with the aptly named “Big Mesa”, near the Navajo Rocks being our cardinal direction to point the bikes towards to make a loop. The terrain overall, was not technical, but some baseball sized rocks made for tricky climbs and descents where I struggled not to lock up both the front and rear wheels when slamming on the brakes to navigate a turn in the road. 

I haven’t felt this feeling of childish freedom since my real first bike in the 2nd grade, a GT Rhino. The ability to just go as far as my little mind could imagine going back then. With the motos, you don’t really have to plan much, you can just point the bikes in any direction and go. You don’t have to worry about how far you go, how steep the trail or road is, or even if the trail dead ends or not. You can always just turn the bike around and ride home and it’s no extra effort and still just as fun. Quite the opposite experience from ending up down a rocky dirt road to camp in a truck that took an hour to find after crawling at 5 miles an hour due to the road’s roughness, only to find the spot taken and you have to retrace your path back to the main road. Simply put the moto makes exploring these public lands not only possible, but the best way imaginable. And with that, Paul and I ripped down the road in 6th gear back to camp having tasted a true feeling of freedom that I can only imagine be topped when I learn to fly planes one day.