My girlfriend has been "riding" a dirt bike for maybe 2 years. I taught her to ride in the back yard on a 70s style 2 stroke dirt bike. She picked it right up as she dirves stick just fine. I got her a 92 RT 100cc Yamaha last year for $100 and put about $100 into it to get it in great shape. She loves the little bike and has refused sevral offers from people to buy it for way more than I have into it but she will not have it. So I know she wants to ride, I never forced her or pushed her to ride dirt bikes, Im just not like that. So anyway, her confidence and speed are starting to pick up to the point I took her out of the kiddie trails where I had been riding with her out into the larger riding area. Right away I saw her strenghts and weeknesses.
She is great in the hard pack and rokey trails. She is good with the clutch and shifting.
She is still too slow. Too slow she is not carring enough speed to ride over obsticles, she is bouncing off of downed trees instead of rolling over them and last but worst.
She dose not want to go down hills! She started out not wanting to go up hills either but now she will climb most of what she has to, but when she gets to the top of a peaked type hill, like even a 6 ft "wall" type hill where you go up and right back down, she stops! Usally just before the front tire crest the hill, and then she falls over and slides down :( . I keep trying to tell her if your scared, stop at the top of the hill AFTER your front tire is over the crest and the bike is level on the top of the hill. Stop and put your feet down and take a look if you want, but she will not put that front tire over. She says she is scared becuase she cant see what is on the other side of the face of the hill. There are alot of these type of 6 to 25 foot hills in the riding area and getting her around them is almost impossible. I spent alot of time with her riding the same loop with a 4 ft, 6 ft, and maybe 8 ft berm type up and down hill right next to each other. (we use them as jumps) trying to get her to work up to the bigger hill. She dose the gradual 4 ft all day as she can see over it. She did the 6 ft once and ditched the 8 footer like twice before refusing to do it. Our last ride was the best yet, she did great and we were covering some ground, testing and adding to her skills. We rode to a rivene. In all honesty it was about a 30 high maybe 50 foot wide rivene but with flat tops on both sides, the trail was straight clear hard pack. Straight down and right up the other side. I knew the bike can do it but you really have to be aggressive with it in 2nd gear as its only a 100cc bike but itll climb a tree if you wind her up in 1st! Anyway she declined to do it, I was disappointed but did not have a problem going back. Latter in the ride we came to a 12 foot wall hill. It was tricky becuase you had to come up a rocky power line hill, turn hard right, up the hill and it corkscrewed down to the left around a gate, the down side was not steep at all though and I offered to take her bike up. She said she would try it. She took to short of a run on it and just did not give it enough gas and over she went. I had to go up and kill the bike for her. She was ok and not to shaken but we took a few minutes.
What do you think I can do to get her to be more aggressive on the hills?
There are silt hills there that are about like sand, I was thinking of having her just keep hitting one of them, they are like sand so its not to bad if you fall, you just kinda slide down in the sand. She has said she did not like riding the soft coal silt though.
Any ideas?
She has said she will not ride a group ride untill she feels she is a bit faster and won't be embarresed by a 5 year old on a PW 50 for not going up a small hill. I really want to take her on group rides as I think that is a very enjoyable aspect of the sport.
She is great in the hard pack and rokey trails. She is good with the clutch and shifting.
She is still too slow. Too slow she is not carring enough speed to ride over obsticles, she is bouncing off of downed trees instead of rolling over them and last but worst.
She dose not want to go down hills! She started out not wanting to go up hills either but now she will climb most of what she has to, but when she gets to the top of a peaked type hill, like even a 6 ft "wall" type hill where you go up and right back down, she stops! Usally just before the front tire crest the hill, and then she falls over and slides down :( . I keep trying to tell her if your scared, stop at the top of the hill AFTER your front tire is over the crest and the bike is level on the top of the hill. Stop and put your feet down and take a look if you want, but she will not put that front tire over. She says she is scared becuase she cant see what is on the other side of the face of the hill. There are alot of these type of 6 to 25 foot hills in the riding area and getting her around them is almost impossible. I spent alot of time with her riding the same loop with a 4 ft, 6 ft, and maybe 8 ft berm type up and down hill right next to each other. (we use them as jumps) trying to get her to work up to the bigger hill. She dose the gradual 4 ft all day as she can see over it. She did the 6 ft once and ditched the 8 footer like twice before refusing to do it. Our last ride was the best yet, she did great and we were covering some ground, testing and adding to her skills. We rode to a rivene. In all honesty it was about a 30 high maybe 50 foot wide rivene but with flat tops on both sides, the trail was straight clear hard pack. Straight down and right up the other side. I knew the bike can do it but you really have to be aggressive with it in 2nd gear as its only a 100cc bike but itll climb a tree if you wind her up in 1st! Anyway she declined to do it, I was disappointed but did not have a problem going back. Latter in the ride we came to a 12 foot wall hill. It was tricky becuase you had to come up a rocky power line hill, turn hard right, up the hill and it corkscrewed down to the left around a gate, the down side was not steep at all though and I offered to take her bike up. She said she would try it. She took to short of a run on it and just did not give it enough gas and over she went. I had to go up and kill the bike for her. She was ok and not to shaken but we took a few minutes.
What do you think I can do to get her to be more aggressive on the hills?
There are silt hills there that are about like sand, I was thinking of having her just keep hitting one of them, they are like sand so its not to bad if you fall, you just kinda slide down in the sand. She has said she did not like riding the soft coal silt though.
Any ideas?
She has said she will not ride a group ride untill she feels she is a bit faster and won't be embarresed by a 5 year old on a PW 50 for not going up a small hill. I really want to take her on group rides as I think that is a very enjoyable aspect of the sport.
