Chasing the rabbit. That's what it feels like riding through ruts and whipping the tail of an almost motocross style motorcycle around sharp bends on a treelined, muddy and often wet fire road. Rabbits run fast and change direction quickly, as though there's only one speed: a frenetic, haphazard, and chaotic pace. It felt that way at times anyway.
Look up the form of racing called Hare Scramble. Typically a race course where a rider will navigate through obstacles such as creek beds, logs, hills, mud, rocks and ruts. The only obstacle on that list not tallied by me are logs. I draw the line. No logs. Maybe one day. But that'll take some practice.
The idea behind picking up a used dirtbike was to prolong the season after it's too cold or wet or both for riding on the street. A 2004 Suzuki DR 650. It's not a motocross bike by any means but with long travel suspension, a torquey motor and beefy wheels and other parts to withstand being laid down or dropped, it can handle a lot of rough terrain.
And the other reason to buy a dirtbike? Because it's a blast!
So yeah, I dropped the bike. It threw me off. The DR wanted out of a rut I was in and I thought we would keep going straight. Down I went with a mud splattering thud.
No real harm done, a bruised hip, sore knee and shoulder. Nothing to write home about, anyway. Get back on. Shake it off.
We offloaded the bikes, put the beer in the fridge, and crossed our fingers it wasn't going to be too cold or heaven forbid, snowy the next day when we planned to set off first, into the hills, then the far better trails right alongside the lakeshore itself.
There was some gnarly stuff on our second trip to the West side of Koocanusa Reservoir, just north of the Montana border. Ice covered ruts. Just able to crawl along and stay upright. A lesson learned. Stay out of higher elevations when it's cold because it will be even colder.
The scenery on the bank of Koocanusa Reservoir is epic. And the trails were fantastic; dry, twisty, hilly, and mostly fire roads. There were small portions of single track but happily avoided if possible, considering the size of the bike and my return to dirtbikes and need for more practice.
Bring on the spring riding season!!
