{"id":8379,"date":"2017-10-09T11:53:23","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T17:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/?p=8379"},"modified":"2017-10-03T15:54:07","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T21:54:07","slug":"playing-in-the-dirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/playing-in-the-dirt\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing in the Dirt"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"motorcycle<\/a>

Get off the pavement and have fun!<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t done any dirt-biking when my friend John offered me an opportunity. You can think of him as the pusher. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Try this, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll really like it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he seems to say. Then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re hooked. To maintain your habit, you can kiss your bank balance good-bye.<\/p>\n

I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get hooked but I got the craving. My V-Strom is a result of this.<\/p>\n

John had a couple dirt bikes he and his son, Johnathon, would take up to the Rampart Range, an area in the hills outside of Denver given over to motorized fun on trails through the forest. They invited me along one day.<\/p>\n

They were meeting up with other members of their extended family and this was the first time I ever saw how dirt-biking is such a family affair. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just their own family. The campground area was packed with families and dirt bikes of all sizes, from pappa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s big bike, to momma\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mid-size bike, right down to baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s little two-wheeler carrying young\u00e2\u20ac\u2122uns who must have only learned to walk last year. And every one of them in full riding gear. Who even knew they made helmets and jackets and boots that small, not to mention motorcycles?<\/p>\n

I have to tell you, I really envied these kids. I would have given anything I had to have had parents who took me dirt-biking as a kid. Instead, I had parents who wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even let me buy a bike with my own money.<\/p>\n

So we went riding, and what a blast that was! First of all, being out in the woods and going up and down hills on these narrow trails is a kick. You never get going all that fast, but speed isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the point. That said, a bit of speed is the point when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going up and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a hump in the trail. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whoops\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re called. You come up on that whoop and gun it and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll catch some air and that, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here to tell you, is fun. Catch several whoops in a row and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re having serious fun. Did I mention that this can be addicting?<\/p>\n

One big difference between riding in the dirt and riding on the street is that on the dirt you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re pretty much guaranteed to dump the bike from time to time. On the street that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the biggest things you seek to avoid ever doing, but on the dirt it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just part of the game. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t usually get hurt and neither does the bike.<\/p>\n

Of course I dumped it more than once but I was right back up and on it and off down the trail. Talking about it at the end of the day I felt I had earned my wings when Johnathon told his dad, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ken did pretty good. He even caught some air a few times.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Not long afterward John sold the bikes and his trailer so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never been back to the Rampart Range, and that was my only time to ride with them. But I got in some more dirt riding here and there and finally about four years ago got the V-Strom, which I consider a dual-sport bike, though some folks do not. But it has the suspension and it has the tires.<\/p>\n

That day in the Rampart Range whetted my appetite as I started realizing how many, many unpaved roads there are through the Colorado mountains that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never been on. I did finally pick the lock on my checkbook.<\/p>\n

Biker Quote for Today<\/h3>\n

You know you’re a biker if your wife has ever asked you to move the bike so she could see the TV better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t done any dirt-biking when my friend John offered me an opportunity. You can think of him as the pusher. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Try this, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll really like it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he seems to say. Then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re hooked. To maintain your habit, you can kiss your bank balance good-bye. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get hooked but I got the craving. My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[876],"class_list":["post-8379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dirt-biking","tag-rampart-range"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8382,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8379\/revisions\/8382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}