Happy New Year!

This first week is already shaping up to be a busy one (beware - shameless, but fun, plugs ahead):

• bike night on Wednesday (Tampa area - come on out and meet fellow riders - it's not a club - it's just an informal regularly scheduled place and time, set up by a local forum Tampasportbikes.com, to meet up with other guys and gals that like to ride - sportbikes, dirtbikes, a few standards.  You don't even need to have a bike, plenty of people cage* it due to work schedule or they only have an off-road (track or dirt) bike or weather or because they're currently bikeless for whatever reason.  Here is the link for more information: Meet n Eat - O'Tooles - Brandon)
• dinner plans on Thursday
• dragstrip* on Friday
• Girl Riders ride on Saturday (check it out - it is a street ride open to all ladies, all bike types, and all skill levels:  Girls Ride Tampa)
• and (finally!) most likely some dirt biking on Sunday!  

Needless to say, I'm going to enjoy the quiet of today.   

I'm also going to try to work on the next installment (Part 5: What Doesn't Kill Me.....) this week and post it up before Sunday so I can try to get myself back on track here.  So, really, this is just a quick note to wish you all a Happy New Year, encourage some of my Tampa area readers to attend some local events, and let you know more posts and riding will be coming soon!  

Happy New Year - Get Dirty!

*See Side Notes - Happy New Year

Part 4 - Now That THAT's Out of the Way

So I made my first attempt at riding in Real Dirt (OK, sand), didn't fail miserably, found out my limitations, and actually had a bit of fun.  Unfortunately, since it wiped me out so quickly, I made the decision to wrap up early and head home.  Fortunately, the lengthy ride home gave me time to reflect and recoup. 

Of course, getting home means cleaning up, putting stuff away, etc.  Which means - since I'm responsible for maintaining my own bike - I get to clean my own bike.  When I first brought the bike home and my friend and I went through checking it out, giving it an initial bath, etc., he also used some spray wax (super easy spray-on-wipe-off sort of stuff) on the plastic to help make it easier to clean.  Since I didn't ride much or hard all it took was a quick rinse off with the hose.  There will be more about maintenance later; but for this initial ride, all the bike needed was a quick hosing.

Of course, we were talking while putting gear away and cleaning up and it was suggested I might want to ride around in the yard a bit if I was feeling up to it.  Well, that sure sounded like a challenge to me.....so, put my pants, boots, gloves, and helmet back on and rode around the front and back yard to get a better feel for the bike.  Nothing crazy, especially since I wasn't wearing my armor and had only a tank top on, just riding around in slow ovals and Ls pretty much....until the pit bike came out.  I have a Kawasaki KLX 110 that gets used as a pit bike, and now as a demonstration/practice bike in the yard.  My friend grabbed the pit bike out of the back garage and started running around the yard on it; first just for kicks and grins and then started having me follow him in a big L-shaped loop in the backyard and imitate what he was doing. 

The main thing we practiced was sticking my foot out to corner and powering through the corner.  We ended up going clockwise, which turned out to be the side I need to work on the most.  When we were still at Croom, we rode the little practice oval counter-clockwise and sticking my left foot out in the corners was absolutely natural - I didn't think about it the first time or any time I did it.  Just threw it out there; don't get me wrong, I was surprised when I did it and even more surprised when I had a positive outcome by doing so, but it didn't require any thought.  For some reason, though, my right foot just doesn't want to leave the peg and when it does leave the peg, doesn't want to quite touch the ground or ends up getting dragged rather than what it's supposed to.  Hmm....question for the future - what IS my foot supposed to be doing?  Pushing?  Being a pivot point?

He spent a little time following me to see what I was doing correctly and not correctly.  He also had me hop on the pit bike with him so we could go around the yard together and he could show me where/when I needed to put my foot out, how it needed to be touching the ground, where the front wheel needed to be pointing, and when to start powering through the corner with the throttle.  (I soooo wish I had a picture of that!  Imagine a 6'4" beanpole squid* (my friend) with a 5'8" half-geared up newb (me) in front of him on a KLX 110 riding around the backyard!  I'm sure we made quite a sight, lol!)  So I kept practicing on the pit bike while he then hopped on my bike and followed me around until I got tired and started getting worse rather than better.

This is me on the KLX 110 and my friend on his track bike.
Now imagine BOTH of us on the KLX!

I'm glad I hopped back on the same day and did some practicing; it made me feel a little more confident.  I'm just as glad I quit each time when I did so that I didn't get so frustrated that I wouldn't want to do anymore - I'm pretty good about knowing my limits and when not to push them.  I'm still not planning on going back out, though, until January - I feel I need to get some physical conditioning started before I attempt another run in the dirt.  I've been told by many, and I certainly believe it, that more riding will lead to better cardio and physical conditioning, but I feel that I need a much more solid baseline than I currently have!   Can't wait to get back out there, but until then....

Next step - get fit! 

* See Side Notes - Part 4

Part 3 - My First Time

Yikes!  So, here it is, time to talk about My First Time!  Well, I'm ashamed to say - I didn't last very long, lol!  Now, I knew going in that it was going to be hard and that I was going to need to get into better shape.  I didn't know I was going to half have a heart attack after 10 minutes!  Here's how my day went:

My friend and I drove up to Croom Motorcycle Area at Withlacoochee State Park in Brooksville, FL on a Sunday morning after it had rained Saturday evening - so the sandy trails would be a little firmer.  We ended up getting a bit of a later start than expected, but still got out there before lunch time.  The day was beautiful - warm but not too hot - a bit overcast/foggy. 

Once we got geared up and bikes started up we headed out on a trail my friend remembered as being slightly less sandy, slightly firmer than other trails.  The first part of the trail went up; nothing too bad but seeing as I was new to this whole dirt slippy slidey stuff I sort of wiped out into an embankment.  Nothing too bad (wasn't going fast enough to do any damage to anything) and I didn't even notice really that I had fallen over other than the fact that I was no longer moving forward and was sort of at an angle in the sand, lol.  This is where I made my first mistake - I tried pulling the bike toward me off the embankment - and exerted too much energy.  Once it was pointed out that I needed to get on the embankment and push the bike - it stood up a lot easier.

So we kept going down into a little bowl and back out (no problems there - just watched what my friend did and did the same thing myself) onto the trail.  This is when we started hitting the "whoops" - little hills and dips in the trail.  I did OK on these but started getting tired quickly and ended up wiping out again (and this is where I burnt the hole in my pants - oops).  This time, though, once I got my bike upright again my heart was racing, I was breathing really hard, and felt like I was going to vomit - between wiping out twice and picking my bike up and probably no more than 10 minutes of riding I couldn't go any farther.  I seriously had to sit on a log for 30 minutes (and have my friend get me some water) before I was no longer light headed (and no longer felt like vomiting) and could ride back to the truck. 

Wow - talk about embarrassed!  I mean, I knew it would be hard - but I didn't realize that it would be THAT intense (and that I was THAT out of shape from sitting behind a desk for the past 4-5 years with little working out).  So, wanting to understand where I went wrong, my friend and I discussed what I did and didn't do. 

The first thing is that I exerted myself way too much trying to pick up my bike the first time, which led to getting tired a little quicker than I otherwise would have (not much, but a little).  So that's one thing to work on - picking my bike up more efficiently. 

While I was recouping before heading back to the truck, my friend asked if I was remembering to breathe, as that would have an effect on how quickly I tired - so I paid attention on the ride back and discovered that, sure enough, I was forgetting to breathe.  I don't have this problem on the street so I'm not quite sure why I'm not breathing normally while on the dirt bike.  So that's a big thing for me to work on.

Taking things in stages for now, I think, is going to be key.  After I spent more time recouping at the truck we spent a few minutes riding around in a circle in the parking lot just so I could get more comfortable on the bike, putting my foot down in corners (which is oddly instinctual for me - but more on that later), and throttling to make the corner.  So, after wiping out once I had been around several times, and not having the energy and strength to pick my bike back up again, I decided to call it a day.   I think for the time being I foresee a day trip being 10-15 minutes of riding followed by 30-60 minutes of rest and then another 10-15 riding, followed by rest, etc. 

Despite being super embarrassed about not being able to ride more than 10 or so minutes without feeling like I was going to die, I thought the day was a success.  The three times I wiped out I hardly even noticed; which, surprised me, honestly.  I figured it would be pretty noticeable and I would hurt right when I wiped out.  Instead, my soreness came later in the day, but it was a good kind of overall sore - like when you have a good workout, rather than like when you bark your shin on the edge of a coffee table or something. 

There's more to the day, but I'll save that for Part 4 - Now That THAT's Out of the Way.