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I had put in a ‘reservation’ with my wife about a month ago to go for an all day ride scheduled for yesterday (Saturday). Unfortunately, we have some urgent needs to tend to at work which will likely require after hours during the week. Being the good spouse that I am, I go in early so that I can leave on time to help with the little ones for the dinner and bath routine. Since its likely that I will not be around this coming week for the evening hand-off, I figured I would cut my wife some slack and stay around this weekend as much as possible.

I did say as much as possible, but not in lock-down. So…in substitution for being gone on an all-day street ride, I opted for a morning off-road excursion on the dirt bike. As I ride more and more in AZ, I m liking the tighter technical stuff more than the WFO trails. I definitely got my fill of what I like to call “goat trails” (that would be “deer runs” if I were back in Michigan).

I have been riding in the same chink of land pretty consistently since the beginning of 2002 and though I had seen it all - so much so that I was considering moving on. Our own (all too infrequent !) contributor Chuck and I went out to the same area as he mentioned he and some friend have started to cut a new trail back there.

Wow. Lots of first gear with the occasional blip into second. My 426 is not the greatest bike for that kind of riding with its current setup. Its almost time for a chain and sprockets and I’ll have to consider shorter gearing. Yeah, it kills top speed but I rarely need it. I do keep my old gearing just in case I know I’ll need a change for a ride or two. That thing also gets heavy over time. I’ve never really noticed it in the faster stuff, but I did this time.

I would have to say that more than 50% of the trails we hit, I have never been on. Some were tough…really tough where I started to get pissed off from operator error mistakes. Some were great. I need to go back and get some practice on that real tight stuff. Its amazing how over-analyzing an error compounds itself while you’re riding (I am sure that is true for the street too). I actually had to take a break and get off the thing to clear my head and chill out for a minute or two as I was making stupid mistakes needing (normally) unnecessary saves.

After that break, the head was clear, the speed was up, and the smile was back. I don’t know how many miles we went, but it was a lot of fun and a helluva workout. I was beat afterwards, but it was a good feeling, the one where you know you earned it.

I have to say that if I am to continue this kind of riding, which is likely, I am going to have to bite the bullet and drop some ca$h. I am seriously considering a Rekluse Z-start Auto-clutch. My particular bike (the YZf version) is bitchy with the clutch and does not have electric start. Some call it lazy and some call it cheating. I call it making use of the labor-saving tools that are available. The problem is that these are $400.

Heh - I’ll just tell my wife “you can put a price on happiness”. That’ll go over well.