Playing in the Dirt

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.com

I haven’t done much dirt-biking, a deficiency I intend to rectify this summer, but I’ve had a couple opportunities. The first one was compliments of my friend John. You can think of him as the pusher. “Try this, you’ll really like it,” he seems to say. Then you’re hooked. To maintain your habit, you can kiss your bank balance good-bye.

I haven’t gotten hooked but I have the craving. This could be dangerous.

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.

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’t just their own family. The campground area was packed with families and dirt bikes of all sizes, from pappa’s big bike, to momma’s mid-size bike, right down to baby’s little two-wheeler carrying young’uns 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?

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.comI 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’t even let me buy a bike with my own money.

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’t the point. That said, a bit of speed is the point when you’re going up and there’s a hump in the trail. “Whoops” as they’re called. You come up on that whoop and gun it and you’ll catch some air and that, I’m here to tell you, is fun. Catch several whoops in a row and you’re having serious fun. Did I mention that this can be addicting?

One big difference between riding in the dirt and riding on the street is that on the dirt you’re pretty much guaranteed to dump the bike from time to time. On the street that’s one of the biggest things you seek to avoid ever doing, but on the dirt it’s just part of the game. You don’t usually get hurt and neither does the bike.

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, “Ken did pretty good. He even caught some air a few times.”

Not long afterward John sold the bikes and his trailer so I’ve never been back to the Rampart Range, and that was my only time to ride with them. Last summer I actually got to do a half-day dirt-bike training session, which ended with a ride up a fire road outside of Keystone, CO.

That whetted my appetite as I started realizing how many, many unpaved roads there are through the Colorado mountains that I’ve never been on. This summer now I’ve already got two rides planned on dirt bikes and hope to set up a bunch more. Somebody better put a lock on my checkbook.