Milestone Ranch MX Park

It's been a few months since I first started riding again, and I've been to some pretty cool MX tracks since then. I've been to two up in Apple Valley (I don't recall the names of the tracks right now). While at one of the tracks there, a fellow MXer told us (my Dad and I) about a local track in Riverside, CA. called Milestone MX Park. This place is pretty cool, there are 2 tracks specificall for kids, a Vet track, Intermediate Track, and what I call the Pro track. The Vet track isn't a "beginner" track, there are some pretty big table tops on it, and the Intermediate track is pretty fun.


Here are some more pics of me from this past Sunday riding the Intermediate track:

Shoo dirt bike rider, shoo!

Last weekend we (my dad, myself, and a friend) went out to this place we have been riding at for the past few weeks out in Fontana, CA. off of Valley Way and Sierra Ave. This kid who lives in the neighborhood was showing my friend and I some pretty good areas that we had not known about with some decent jumps. There was this one that he showed us that I really liked because it went down this steep slope into a ravine, which went up a steep slope about the same height. I went down that thing with ample speed and gassed up the hill in third gear. This was one of those jumps where your momentum carries you into the air when you run out of slope (where the ground levels off at the top). I caught some pretty fat air on that one.

There was another jump he showed us that was pretty small but you had to pitch the bike sideways in the air because the landing area was sloped and there was a berm immediately when you land. That one was fun too.

What sucks is, we were only there an hour and half when the cops showed up and told us we couldn't ride in there. Luckily, he was a nice guy and gave us a warning, and a brochure with legal places to ride. Instead of letting our day end badly, we decided to check out a place on the brochure that one of my neighbors had told me about. We went to a place called "Stoddard and Wells".

Stoddard and Wells was in an area my dad and I had actually rode at when I was a kid, but we called it "Bell Mountain". When we got out there, we had no idea where the actual spot was where we could legally ride, so we went where we used to go years ago; this huge rock pile that resides by an air port in the area. We did a lot of riding around looking for jumps and berms to practice on and we found a few mediocre places here and there in the middle of nowhere. I had fun just trail riding, the place was really wide open and the scenery was great. 

Where we parked by the rock pile, there was a car that had drove up (we were basically alone out there) with some kids in it. They were climbing the rock pile (mind you these are huge rocks piled about two stories high), and we didn't really sweat them. Bad move, lol. We had left our igloo out with some random snacks (candy, lunchables, energy drinks, water, juice, etc.) in it, out on the trailer and went out riding. When we came back from riding together, the igloo was missing two lunchables and a half eaten beef jerky that I had been eating! WTF? What's this world coming to? And to top it off, we had a warning on the truck telling us we weren't supposed to be riding there! 

Well, we had been out for a while so we decided to go ahead and go home. When we were a few blocks away I noticed something on the windshield. We thought it was a ticket for sure. Turns out, it was another brochure telling us specifically where we could ride in that area; right off of the street "Stoddard Wells". We drove to the riding area and there was tons of people there! We're gonna check out the area tomorrow. My dad says he was looking at stuff online and there is actually some motocross tracks with jumps y todo near there, so we'll see what's up tomorrow when we go riding.

My first time riding a dirt bike...

Well, not exactly. I raced B.M.X when I was a kid, and I was pretty  good at it. I rode motocross as a hobby in my early teens as well but it's been over 15 years since I've touched a dirt bike. The last bike I really rode was a KX-80 as a kid, if you don't count me borrowing my landlords old CR-250 ten years ago, taking it to Glen Helen and casing it on the big doubles.

My dad bought a couple of bikes in the spur of the moment a few weeks back, and our old asses decided to take them out for a spin. Man, it's been so long I felt like the bike had control over me instead of the other way around. I fought for control of the bike on every berm, and every rut I encountered. If I had just applied a bit of wu-wei and just went with the flow of the turn, or let the bike ride the rut instead of trying to pull it out, I would have had an easier time my first time out.

Anyways, I posted a video of myself from the first time out, catching some baby air. It ain't much, but I'm still getting used to the bike, and learning to maintain control of the bike without forcing it. Here's the video:

I didn't even have any gear yet, as you can see from the video. I ended up twisting my leg pretty bad on a berm right when we were about to leave. Since this trip I've healed a bit, and have been out several times. I'm definitely more in touch with the bike now, and I'm getting a bit more air. Hopefully I'll get some nice video this weekend so I can share it.

What this blog is all about

This blog will chronicle my experiences with the Natural world. It will have various articles on Zen philosophy, as well as some extreme sporting elements showing my experiences with snowboarding, surfing, and motocross (there will possibly be others). I will share my interpretations of certain elements of Zen, and my experiences with extreme sports. I will use audio, video, pictures, and text on this blog. If this interests you, sit down, shut up, and hold on.

Oh, and before you ask... yes, that is me catching air on the snowboard in the header.