I am an absolute beginner on a track, an am trying to learn (very painful).
I have ridden dirt bikes all my life, but never more than cruising the woods, fields, pastures, etc. I have always wished for the skills to be able to ride motocross at just a "B" level, but have never dedicated the time or gonads to improve.
After getting a new RM250 for Christmas, I decided I was giong to work at it until I, by gosh, made it happen. There is a practice track very close to my house that is available to ride, and the weather was warm enough today to start my "lessons".
By 1:30, I was on a track for the first time in my life!:)
I took it easy for a while while I was getting a feel for things, and slowly began to try to increase my lap speeds.
I remember reading some posts here that said it was much safer to learn jumping skills on table tops because they are more "forgiving" to mistakes. With this in mind, I practiced until I was doing pretty good on two of the table tops that this track had. The third table top had a single right before it, and everyone was using the single as the take off for the table top. The two jumps were so close, that this was the only way to attack the jump. For this reason, I had been bypassing this particular jump all day. I just did not feel that I was ready for it.
Well into the afternoon, it was approaching time to load up and go, so I went out one last time before we left. On my first lap I decided to give a double a try. I mean, with a "whole day" of practice, I figured that I just had to be ready to fly. I came off a corner and hit the take off ramp, and lo and behold, I actually made it. I will admit that I made it just barely, and my front tire came down first at the exact peak of the second jump! Just 1" shorter, and I would have eaten a lot of dirt.
It was a little scary, but I thought hey, I made it!!! This is way cool! I went through the whoops (I can actually do them pretty fair too) and around another turn,and saw the oncoming single/table top combination. Well, my confidence was peaking (not a good sign) and I figured that "if a 9 year old on a KX60 can clear it.....". I accelerated and hit the face of the single with all intentions of being able to actually load my bike on the trailer without the aid of my 11 year old son and a wheel chair!:(
What happened next is still a little fuzzy, but the papers say that they have recieved several reports from people in the surrounding area that believe NASA is experimenting with a new, bright yellow space shuttle. As soon as my rear tire left the ground, I knew that something was amis, and my future was very sketchy, at best:ugg:.
I went straight up, with my front tire aimed at the sun. I had PLENTY of distance because I landed right on the back side of the table top, but with my rear tire and tip of my rear fender touching down at about the same time. I remember thinking, as I was experiencing the heat of re-entry, "I am about to crash, and I can't do a thing about it". I hit the ground with my boots still grasping for the pegs, and my hands had a death grip on the bars.
The coroner's report states that my butt took most of the impact. Then the bike came over backwards and introduced itself to my chest. Both victim and Suzuki slid for a while on the hard packed clay, until the 'zook decided to get up and leave this loser to die.
Luckly, there were enough parts left to salvage (from the loser, I mean), and the RM turned spacecraft, was unhurt, sans a few scratches. I got up, finished the lap, and then painfully loaded up and headed to the closest pain management clinic.
This concludes the first "get Bill ready to ride a moto" report.:uh:
I have ridden dirt bikes all my life, but never more than cruising the woods, fields, pastures, etc. I have always wished for the skills to be able to ride motocross at just a "B" level, but have never dedicated the time or gonads to improve.
After getting a new RM250 for Christmas, I decided I was giong to work at it until I, by gosh, made it happen. There is a practice track very close to my house that is available to ride, and the weather was warm enough today to start my "lessons".
By 1:30, I was on a track for the first time in my life!:)
I took it easy for a while while I was getting a feel for things, and slowly began to try to increase my lap speeds.
I remember reading some posts here that said it was much safer to learn jumping skills on table tops because they are more "forgiving" to mistakes. With this in mind, I practiced until I was doing pretty good on two of the table tops that this track had. The third table top had a single right before it, and everyone was using the single as the take off for the table top. The two jumps were so close, that this was the only way to attack the jump. For this reason, I had been bypassing this particular jump all day. I just did not feel that I was ready for it.
Well into the afternoon, it was approaching time to load up and go, so I went out one last time before we left. On my first lap I decided to give a double a try. I mean, with a "whole day" of practice, I figured that I just had to be ready to fly. I came off a corner and hit the take off ramp, and lo and behold, I actually made it. I will admit that I made it just barely, and my front tire came down first at the exact peak of the second jump! Just 1" shorter, and I would have eaten a lot of dirt.
It was a little scary, but I thought hey, I made it!!! This is way cool! I went through the whoops (I can actually do them pretty fair too) and around another turn,and saw the oncoming single/table top combination. Well, my confidence was peaking (not a good sign) and I figured that "if a 9 year old on a KX60 can clear it.....". I accelerated and hit the face of the single with all intentions of being able to actually load my bike on the trailer without the aid of my 11 year old son and a wheel chair!:(
What happened next is still a little fuzzy, but the papers say that they have recieved several reports from people in the surrounding area that believe NASA is experimenting with a new, bright yellow space shuttle. As soon as my rear tire left the ground, I knew that something was amis, and my future was very sketchy, at best:ugg:.
I went straight up, with my front tire aimed at the sun. I had PLENTY of distance because I landed right on the back side of the table top, but with my rear tire and tip of my rear fender touching down at about the same time. I remember thinking, as I was experiencing the heat of re-entry, "I am about to crash, and I can't do a thing about it". I hit the ground with my boots still grasping for the pegs, and my hands had a death grip on the bars.
The coroner's report states that my butt took most of the impact. Then the bike came over backwards and introduced itself to my chest. Both victim and Suzuki slid for a while on the hard packed clay, until the 'zook decided to get up and leave this loser to die.
Luckly, there were enough parts left to salvage (from the loser, I mean), and the RM turned spacecraft, was unhurt, sans a few scratches. I got up, finished the lap, and then painfully loaded up and headed to the closest pain management clinic.
This concludes the first "get Bill ready to ride a moto" report.:uh:
