The boy and I decided earlier in the week to go out to Boondoxxx again this weekend. It's not the greatest place, but it's very close by and we figured to get him some more saddle time on the relatively open terrain. (Btw, Jim would be proud of him... the other day he says, out of the clear blue, "I'm gonna be a woods rider!"
Anyway, we loaded up and got out there at about 1pm. My 14-year-old daughter, Tiffany, wanted to come along and bring her friend, Julie. I said sure.
It was quite hot today here in the DFW area. I dunno if it got up to 90, but it sure felt like it! And the heat was very draining. Worse, we had only brought a small cooler filled with Cokes and, though they were fine for cooler weather, they did nothing to rehydrate us in today's heat. It'll be Gatorade and bottled water next time!
After we got unloaded Tanner was anxious to ride so, after going over some basics again for good measure, we warmed up his bike and he was off. The place wasn't crowded at all today... maybe about 20 rigs on average, so I wasn't as concerned about traffic as the last time I turned him loose. And he did excellent! I had explained to him yesterday that he must use the clutch for starting and stopping, but that he could shift without the clutch as long as he was moving. That seemed to help him because the clutch is a little stiff for him to be
pulling in all the time.
He made a couple of solo loops on a flat track that he hadn't ridden before and was all excited about "bumps" (very low whoops) on the back side. Then I fired-up the old RM and went out with him to do a few more loops.
I'm not sure if he was in 3rd or 4th on the little DT-80, but I do know that I wasn't able to keep up with him in second on the RM! He was doing GREAT! (We finally got the air filter situation sorted out and the DT was running flawlessly).
Then I took Tiffany and her friend for rides on the RM while Tanner rested a bit. You can only see so much from the parking lot so they were kind of amazed after I showed them around.
Later, Tanner and I went down to the kid's track (the one with jumps) and he had his first spill of the day. The track is "one-way," so we had to turn pretty sharp on an off-camber section to enter. Well, Tanner was carrying a bit too much speed and the front end washed out on him. He was okay, but the rear brake pedal got pushed up a little. He could still ride though, so we forged ahead.
He did an excellent job of negotiating the track and, though he wasn't jumping, he was really getting the hang of things. The jumps on the kid's track aren't peaked at all, so they're pretty hard to jump anyway.
Tanner had one more spill later in the day as he approached the truck. My back was too him, so I didn't see it, but he said it just slid out. He probably got on the brakes too hard. But again, he was fine.
I took to the big track a couple of times and about wet myself when I decided to hit this one big table top in fourth. You see, 3rd was just too slow. Because if you're racing that area, you'd have to shift back down to 3rd before the jump... thereby killing your momentum and putting the bike on the pipe. I wanted to just sort of hit the jump smoothly in 4th, keeping the RPMs right in the middle.
But you know how you hit the base of a big jump and suddenly realize that you may be carrying a bit too much speed? It's too late to back off, of course, so you just hope for the best. Well, that's exactly what happened and I was in the air waaaaay too long for a guy my age without medical insurance! I cleared the entire top (which is pretty darn long) and landed on the downslope. Very smoothly. I couldn't have asked for a better flight, and yet there was NO way I'd be hitting that baby in 4th again! You youngsters can have that big
air stuff.
Then we got to see a quad rider get strapped to a gurney and transported away by the Collin County Emergency ambulance! I never did find out exactly what happened, but my daughter said that his leg was all scraped up and possibly broken. And the way the fellow was wincing and covering his eyes, she may be right.
One more thing... there's only one set of triples on the big track. The intial jump is really peaked, but only about 4-5 foot high. The two following jumps are lower, but still pretty formidable. The "triple" distance is a long way.... but what makes it frightening is the steep lip on the first jump. You can't just jump "far," you have to jump real "high" too. And with the heat returning to Texas, the soil conditions are currently "hardpack." ie--unforgiving.
Anyway, I had always figured that I'd work myself up to eventually trying the triple. I just double/single it now. But every time someone triples it someone nearby always says, "I used to triple it until I broke my collar bone and had pins inserted in my knee" or something to that effect. I've heard that about a dozen times now. I even heard it when they were loading the quad rider into the ambulance. So what does all this mean? I think I'll just be content to double/single at my advanced age and call it good.
We've posted 5 photos from today on alt.binaries.pictures.motorcycles if anyone's interested. My daughter and her friend were taking photos, so excuse the lack of serious
action. And thanks for listening!