Pair o' Dirt Bikes

It didn't work out last month to get out in the dirt. I tried to be patient for two weeks but the truth is that my butt has been twitchy in anticipation for weeks.

This morning Karolyn arrived bright and early. We loaded the TT-R 125 next to hers (the bigger bike) and we were off. This is the second time that Karolyn has ushered me down the two-wheeled path. In 2002 she spent the summer teaching me to ride a street bike; now we're headed down the dirt path. And, she deserves a tiara for coming with me today despite injuring a ligament in her calf right after loading her bike. The injury kept her bike the rail and forced her to have to gimp around.

"Metcalf" is a motorcycle county park, the only dedicated off-road vehicle park in the Santa Clara county park system. This park has trails with a wide range of difficulty starting with the "Novice Oval". While the map of the trails doesn't the show the designations, I'm guessing that "Gruesome Gary Trail" is a black diamond (expert) run. Was Gary gruesome before or after riding the trail? The novice oval is actually two ovals that share an "end", the inner oval has very little elevation, the outer oval has a nice little climb. I say "little" with 20-20 hindsight. From the parking lot that hill looked very intimidating.

Starting something new is such a humbling experience, especially if you are performance-oriented and wear your ego on your sleeve. Fundamentals like appropriate protective clothing, how to start and stop the bike, body position on the bike - are all unknown to me. I have a couple of friends who cross-dress. Watching an adult man learn to walk in high heels, sit and stand properly wearing skirt and most obviously, select and wear age-appropriate make-up and clothes has reminded me that there's no point agonizing over being awkward. My friend is brave enough to go out there and raise eyebrows with his arched eyebrows, learn all these new behaviors and acquire sensitivities that I've been practicing for years. Surely I can find Beginner's Mind.

Does the shirt tuck in or not? Does one wear the upper body armor on the outside or inside of the shirt? What about the kidney belt? Against the skin or not? These decisions are partially made on personal preference, and partially on style. My friend has learned over time that he needed several shades of lipstick and eyeshadow to match the variety of colors in his outfits; one lipstick color might work with one dress, but might be the completely wrong tone with another dress. And shoes, you cannot just go out and buy a new pair of shoes to wear with a new dress and expect to go dancing in them the same day - you will get blisters!

I knew my new boots were stiff, but it didn't occur to me that they would be so stiff that I might not be able to shift gears. To the rescue came Charles, one of Karolyn's friends, who was at Metcalf for a morning ride before taking his wife out for Mother's Day brunch. He adjusted my shifter, and told me to get one for a CRF-150. I eyed his well-stocked fanny-pack tool kit. Hmm. Given a choice between a new pair of earrings and a set of T-handle socket wrenches, you know what I would choose.

Once dressed, kick-starting the bike was next step. Another of Karolyn's friends, Julia (she goes by "Jules") had arrived - we have the same bike but hers has an electric starter. I've taken the GS's electric starter for granted. As Julia has been riding since she was six she paid her kick-start dues many years ago. I know that someday, I will think no more about kick-starting the bike than I do about pulling out the choke. But right now, I'm still trying to balance on one leg in a boot that is too stiff, while trying to whip down the kick-starter without getting it caught up in my pants. If Karolyn hadn't come over to disentangle my pant leg from the kick-starter l would have had to lay the bike down.

I rode the inside novice oval a couple of times, seated, trying to get into second gear. As soon as I found it, the outer oval with its nice hill beckoned, so I stood up on the pegs and rode up the hill as best I could. No, I'm not going to post the pictures that Karolyn took of me with my butt sticking out. The picture below from GlobeRiders shows proper posture.

Learning to ride standing up properly will take some practice, just like learning to walk in high heels. The more experienced cross-dressing friend brags that he can walk in 4-inch heels. I can't do that, I'd fall and break an ankle. But he practices. Often. The other cross-dressing friend says that sleeves are one of the problems with finding women's blouses that fit him. He has a strong upper body and well-muscled arms. The arm holes and sleeves of a classically tailored woman's shirt are simply too narrow for him. He has spent hours shopping and now knows to look for raglan cut arms, and loosely fitting sleeves.

Julia

Once my body positioning on the bike was, well, let's just say better than before, Julia told me it was time to practice braking. "You mean stop the bike? With the rear brake? Where is the rear brake on this bike?" I had to find it with my eyes, then find it with my foot. Could I sit down before applying the brake? Oh good. I rode back up the hill, kept the speed up coming down the hill, found the big stone (my "sit down now" marker) and applied the brake. And stalled. Oh yeah, that's what the clutch is for. Back up the hill.

I managed to fit in about five practice stops before my brain gave out. The bike's rear wheel slid around nicely in a semi-circle on the third stop - it wasn't planned, but it felt great, and now I know what a slide-around stop feels like. If that had happened on the street, I would have panicked but here in the dirt, it felt right.

You know it is time to stop riding when your glasses keep fogging up and you can't kick start your own bike because your legs are cramping. Karolyn whipped the starter down for me and I rode back to the truck thanking the gods that I hadn't fallen off the bike in past two hours. When everything is new, two hours seemed plenty long. What a great day!

* * *

I've installed the new shifter and will test it with the boot during the week. The task at hand now is to find a single-rail motorcycle trailer that I can pull with my Honda Civic. I'll know I'm hooked for good when I buy the annual pass for Metcalf.

* * *

The trailer hitch will be installed on my Honda Civic on Tuesday. The single rail trailer is ordered - it will fit both the GS and the dirt bike. Next weekend I'll be riding the bunny trails in Hollister. The week after that I'll be going out with a 15-year old young lady who has been riding since she was four. Her father is a motorcycle suspension specialist and a talented rider himself. I hear tell that she is as sweet and kind as she is competant and competitive, so there should be some good stories coming up soon. The week after that I take the GS up to Thunderhill for the River City Beemers track day - first time back on the track in a few years.

A bar that serves a steak 'n' eggs special breakfast to people who want food with their Bloody Mary was not the place I expected to meet a sweet-faced young fellow named Saul, but he keeps company with a scruffy bunch of dirtbike riders who were hungry after a morning ride. Saul managed to escape one of life's obstacles/gifts, an unusual name. He was almost named Zabulon, but not quite. Zabulon was one of the twelve sons of Jacob and ancestor of the early Israeli tribe of the same name. Most of the people I ride with do not come to the party with both parents being riders. Saul's family includes a distance-rider mom, a road-racing dad, and a road-racing godmother. In my life experience men named Saul are always wise and always older as if they sprang from the womb that way. I've never met a Saul who was still being bottle fed. The next time I see him he'll probably be riding circles around me on a pocket bike.

* * *

The trip to the Hollister trails will have to wait until next week until we go with Hallie. Some teachers you pay by the hour. When one is 15 and a girl with unruly hair, trading a day of dirt bike coaching for a consultation with a hair dresser who can teach you how to manage your hair is a good deal all around.

Karolyn's truck bed was loaded with Joanne's KTM and pulling a trailer with the two Yamahas (pictured above). Joanne and I are about the same age, or that is what I would guess after she handed me her reading glasses at the bar when I couldn't hold the menu far enough from my eyes to focus on it. The three of us headed back to Metcalf. Julia arrived soon after with her Yamaha 125 in back of her truck. I just love seeing women and girls on dirt bikes. The littlest girl I saw today may have been five or six, her daddy was on a large enduro, she was on a tiny dirt bike, that is to say, littler than mine! After a couple of rounds in the novice oval, the two of them took off for other trails, her shoulder-length black hair fluttering under her little helmet.

Charles was also at Metcalf and he suggested that I give trail #2 a try. Okay, sure. I warmed up on the novice oval and off we went, Charles, Joanne, me, with Karolyn riding sweep. Two weeks ago I listened while Karolyn and Julia talked about the steep downhill and the series of "whoops" at the beginning of the trail. "Whoops" are like moguls in downhill skiing, they are mounds that you ride over - don't forget you are standing up, not sitting down, absorbing the undulation with your knees. Although the downhill angle wasn't as bad as expected it was out of my comfort range. My foot searched for the rear brake but couldn't find it; I knew better than to touch the front brake, so I just backed off the throttle and accepted that today I would be testing my body armor. After the downhill came the incline of "whoops". The "whoops", or "whoop dee doos" as Karolyn calls them are a curious phenomenon - I have no clue what I'm supposed to do on this type of irregular surface - I couldn't go off to one side of the trail or the other to avoid them, I just skittered over the tops and hoped I wouldn't fall off the bike.

Trail #2 brings you into a beautiful valley but I couldn't afford the luxury of enjoying the scenery - I was just trying to keep up with the group and keep on the bike. Charles and Joanne left Karolyn and me to ride the Trail #2 loop while they went off to ride trail #3. The trail #2 loop has a couple small dirt mounds that act like ski lifts. If you ride over them carrying a reasonable amount of speed you can easily catch some air, that is, both wheels will leave the ground and for a moment you are sailing in the air, not very high, but airborne nevertheless. Once I figured out that more speed meant more airtime, I began experimenting and quickly figured out that body position in preparation for landing is really quite important; if you leave your upper body too far forward on the landing, you will lose your balance and go over the handlebars. The only time I was scared on this ride was that experiment with being airborne. Just like in Aikido and Ballet, learning to manage that 25-pound round weight on your neck takes practice. I really do not want to break my neck.

Watching other riders handle the heavily banked turns, I tried to imitate what they were doing, but there's more going on than just sitting down and steering with your leg sticking out - there's a big counter-steering component too. At some point the body positioning and the various techniques will become intuitive, but right now I feel like a dork.

After taking a rest in the parking lot, our group was joined by Antonio, another member of Karolyn's mob, and off we went again. I had been encouraged to use speed to add more stability. Rounding a turn on a small hill I got on the gas at a poorly chosen point in the turn. The bike's rear swung out and I went flying off to the right side of the trail. The investment in good protection was worth the money - my fall was no big deal (at least until the next day). The bike faired less well, it went off to the left presenting an unexpected obstacle to Charles who was in back of me. Not skipping a beat, he ran over my bike. Better him than someone I don't know. Poor bike, but I'm glad it wasn't me that got run over! I should say that I didn't see this happen, I was told about it later. My recollection is that by the time I was on my feet and trying to drag my bike out of the trail path, Charles had appeared out of nowhere and was helping me right my bike amd move it to a place where I could kick start it and resume riding.

My TT-R is so forgiving - it didn't seem to mind being run over - just a few more scrapes on the plastic body parts; it behaved beautifully for the rest of the morning. I still can't shift yet - my boots are still stiff and there is too much going on so I ran the bike in second gear worrying that I was hurting the engine. Everyone says the bike doesn't mind. When the engine stalls because I'm starving it in lieu of using the rear brake (my foot can't find the pedal) going down hill, the engine obligingly catches using the downhill momentum. It is so simple. Everything is fine. Amazing.

This kind of riding is a real challenge to my body's core strenth, to my ability to concentrate and be aware, and to my ability to balance, which has always been poor. Truly dirt-biking is a wonderful way to cultivate oneself. These challenges seem innumerable right now and yet I can hardly wait to go out again next weekend.

* * *

It is 24 hours after falling off the bike. I've been wearing an icepack on the left side of my neck most of the day. I think a bit of whiplash happened on my tumble. And, I gave the front wheel of the bike to Karolyn who will take it to a friend for examination - it sure looks like the front rotor got bent. Ah, the joys of dirt biking.