Trev & Dad Ride At Straddleline

Since Trevin’s 1st ride went so well… and one of Trevin’s friends had gone dirt bike riding with his Dad at the Straddleline ORV park South of Olympia, we decided to give Straddleline a try.

We looked up the website for Straddleline before going…  http://www.straddlelineraceway.com/

They have a campground at the park so if you want to make a weekend of it you can get your camping and dirt bike fix all at the same time. There are fees for each rider and fees for camping if you choose to stay.

We just went for a day trip.  I took a day off work so there wouldn’t be as many other riders on the trails and it would be easier to help Trev if he dumped his bike.

We live in Kenmore, WA so the drive to Straddleline took about 1 hour and 45 minutes.   Not something that we could do at a moment’s notice.  I sure wish there were places like this to ride that were closer to use in Kenmore.

When we got there we unloaded the bikes from the bike trailer and got our helmets and chest protectors on.  We warmed up the bikes and hit the kids riding area that is at the end of the park nearest the highway.

The kids riding area is a wide open dirt area that encircles a wooded area with trails criss-crossing through the middle. There were a few other kids riding in this area that day, but it wasn’t too crowded.

Check out the video of Trevin’s second day of riding ever.  He had a blast… we’ll we both did.

We also checked out the MX Race track and stands at the park and the intermediate riders track.  I took a couple laps around the intermediate track myself. 

The Straddleline ORV Park connects to the Capitol Forest ORV trail system as well.  The Capitol Forest trail system provides hundreds of miles of trails to ride for all ages and abilities.

I’m sure we’ll go back to Straddleline one day and plan to camp and spend the weekend.

Trevin’s 1st Dirt Bike Ride

Trevin’s 1st Dirt Bike Ride Was A Success!

Trevin didn’t get to try riding his Honda 50 dirt bike until June.  He had heard the stories about Brenden’s first try and his famous crash into the truck ( see 1st post ) so I think in some respects he was a little afraid to try and yet on the other hand he probably wanted to show Brenden that he could do it.  Something that twin boys will never outgrow.

For this trip we went camping in our motorhome and took the bikes with us. This time the whole family went and it was only the last day that we had planned on being in dirtbike country.  It was Monday evening of the Memorial Day weekend. I had taken an extra day off work so we wouldn’t have to fight the holiday traffic back across the the I-90 mountain pass.  We camped by a river near the Taneum Creek ORV riding area.  The campground was empty when we got there but it was getting too dark to get the bikes out so we built a fire and did the smores thing with the kids for the evening.

Trevin got his first shot at riding his dirt bike the next morning.  The sun was up early and we could hardly wait long enough to have breakfast first.  I had just picked up an older Honda XR80 so it would be easier to putt around following the kids and being able to jump off and help them at a moment’s notice.  I’m only 5’7″ and trying to get on and off my XR250L in a hurry is a pain.  So we started the dirt bikes to let them warm up and then got our safety gear on.  My wife Kat got out the video camera in hopes that she would be shooting video of a great time riding as opposed to another accident… running into our motorhome or even worse…running into the river!

Finally, it was time for Trev to do it.  We went through all the controls again to make sure he knew what to do to speed up and more importantly … to slow down. 

He was set, and with Brenden’s crash experience to learn from I was confident that Trevin was going to do OK.  So with the video running, he shifted the bike into 1st gear and slowly increased the throttle.  This time, when the bike took off he was prepared for the throttle to be pulled back too.  He had no problems and while a bit wobbly he rode around that campgroud and along some small trails for more than an hour.  We had him stopping and starting every couple minutes so it would become second nature for him to stop when he needed to.  He rode around the campground and some side trails for hours that day and did really well, although he had a few minor spills. 

Brenden had been sick that weekend and didn’t want to try his bike again. Maybe he was still a  bit spooked from his first try, but he had been sick and was still at about 70% so it might have been good that he didn’t try again that day.  Maybe he’ll be up for it the next time we go. Brenden did go on some rides with me on the XR80 and I gave the girls rides too.  Now the girls are both dying to ride the XR 50′s … but I think they’ll have to wait at least another year… maybe 2?

Check out the video Kat took of Trevin’s first day of riding.

 

 I’d love to hear about some of your learning experiences and family dirt bike adventures!

Brenden’s 1st Ride

Brendens 1st Dirt Bike Ride Was A challenge.

Last winter, our twin boys turned 8 in November.  With a little smooth talking I convinced my wife that it was not too early to get little dirt bikes for the boys to ride in the Spring.

( As noted in the about me page, my wife and I have two sets of twins, boys that are now 8 and girls that are 6.  Up until just recently, we have pretty much been just doing the raising kids thing and not being able to play on the big kids toys… boats and dirt bikes.)

I purchased two Honda 50 dirt bikes and bought helmets and gloves etc… for them. One was a XR50 – a 2003 model and the other was a CRF50 – 2005 model.  Other than the graphics on the bikes, you couldn’t tell them apart.

So my dream of many years was about to really happen.  Go riding with my kids up in the mountains on the Eastern side of Washington State.  But first I figured that since we live in the Seattle area, we should go somewhere closer for their first try on the bikes.

Since Trevin was going to be going somewhere with family friends one weekend in February and the sun was out and quite warm for that time of year, I decided to take Brenden out for his first dirt bike ride.  I figured that this would be better anyway… having two begginers trying to ride, for the 1st time and at the SAME time, might get too crazy and I wouldn’t be able to keep track of them. 

We drove South to the ORV trails at Tahuya near Shelton, WA.  I knew of  a large dirt parking area where bikers could park their rigs and unload their bikes and quads to ride the ORV trail system.  Since it was February and I took a day off of work to go on a weekday, I figured that this parking area would be fairly empty and Brenden would have a wide open space to attempt his first ride without having to navigate through narrow trails or around other bikers.

When we arrived, the parking area had only two other vehicles parked there.  We unloaded the bikes and got Brenden’s protective gear on.  He already knew where all the controls were on the bike as he had sat on the bike many times before pushing the brake levers and pretending to shift gears and use the throttle.

A nice open area for the first attempt at dirt bike riding.

With the little bike warming up, I went through all the questions again. ”How do you speed up?”  .. ” OK.. now how do you put on the breaks?”…    Of course he knew right where everything was.

Now he was ready for his first try ever.  I told him just to speed up a little and ride out into the middle of the large dirt parking area and then put on the breaks and come to a complete stop… just to practice starting and stopping.  He applied the throttle and the bike started forward.  As the bike started forward it made his body pull backward, which made him apply more throttle…  I think you can see where this is going.  He now had the bike at full throttle, in first gear, heading straight for one of the only other vehicles parked in the huge open space.  And seconds later crashed directly into the rear quarter panel of a small pickup truck.  When he hit the truck he still had the throttle full on and was going much faster than I thought a Honda 50 could go in first gear.

The poor little guy flew off of the bike and into the truck.  Luckily his helmet worked quite well.  He came out of the accident with only a sore knee… not a scratch otherwise.  The truck, however, didn’t fair as well.  There was a good sized dent in the quarter panel, and since the truck was painted white… the impact and scuffing marks made by the bike’s impact showed up pretty well.

The owner of the truck was not there at the time, he was still out riding on the trials.  When the man rode up to the truck on his bike, I told Brenden that we’d have to go over and tell the man that we damaged his truck and we’d have to pay for it to be repaired.  Brended wasn’t too thrilled about having to tell the man what had happened, but we went over and explained.

The actual distance and path taken on his way to collide with the white truck.

The man said, “what dent?”   So I showed him where the dent was in the back of the truck and he immediately said, “Oh that’s not a dent… I paid $1,000 for this truck, it’s my work truck.  No harm done.”

Here's the damage to the right rear quarter-panel of the truck.

Wow… what a nice man.  He looked at Brenden and said his kids had done similar things when they were learning and told him not to worry about it.

Brenden did not attempt to ride the bike again.  We rode around some trails together on my XR250, which he loves to do and had a picknick lunch together… so the day was still a lot of fun, spending some quality one-on-one time with eachother.

He seems to be OK... was hungry for lunch. Just like always.