The Announcement

A month ago, I promised a big announcement. I’ve been hold off until I could get some good pictures, but it seems I can wait no more. After years of dreaming and calculating and praying, I finally did it. I got me a motorcycle.

The Back Story

In all these years, I’ve told myself no. After praying about it and figuring out the money, it just wasn’t right. I even used this as part of a lesson I taught to the youth group about temptation and sin. Frankly, God told me, “No.”

But now, in 2010, we’ve met our goals of A) paying off unsecured debt, B) buying a house, and C) getting the major high-cost jobs on the house done (paying with cash and not credit). And after all that, we still had enough in savings to write a check for Thumper. (You should know by now that I name all my vehicles. Duh!)

I wavered a few times between getting a “cruiser” or a “dual sport.” A cruiser is what you picture in you mind when I say “Harley.” A dual sport is essentially a street legal dirt bike. It’s not nearly as comfortable as a crusier (especially for a passenger), but it can do double duty of getting me to work AND playing in the mud. This is exactly why I own a mountain bike and an SUV. I like to have the option to get dirty.

The Blame

Besides the financial aspect, the real tipping point was a visit to my old buddy Galyn. (If you do a search for his name on this blog, you’ll see I blame him for most of my misadventures.) When I was a kid, my family and Galyn’s family used to go on trips together to ride dirt bikes in the mountains. We have some great shared memories from trips to Tres Ritos, NM, riding some gnarly mountain trails. That was a very very long time ago, but Galyn’s family still goes at least once a year. My family transitioned to horses and if you know me, you know how I feel about that.

Galyn moved out into the sticks a while back, to a housing development that is barely half way built out. He, his wife, and three of their five boys (Yes, he would have his own basketball team if they weren’t all short like him.) go out and ride their motorcycles over the undeveloped area. I finally got to go for a visit, and Galyn put me on his bike to ride around with the boys. The effect was less of a motorcycle fever, and more of a psychotic obsession. I was crushed by a wave of fantastic memories. The matter was settled: Dual sport or nothing.

The very next day, during Sunday school, one of my 8th grade boys (Alex) announced he had bought a dirt bike. I couldn’t contain myself. I launched into a story about the bike trips of my youth, getting my own XR200 for my 12th birthday, and my desire to get back into the sport. After this Alex started sending me links to bikes for sale. One of the first ones he sent was exactly what I was looking for and at a great price. I wrung my hands a bit at the expense, but with lot’s of positive pressure from Tammy and friends, I bit.

The Bike!

Thumper is a Honda XR650L. “XR” means 4-stroke dirt bike. “650” means ~650 cc engine (which is *huge* for the dirt). And “L” means street legal. The engine is three times the size of anything my family ever owned before. It’s heavy and shockingly powerful. In riding to work, I never get above 3rd gear (out of 5). According to the manual, I should shift into 5th gear around 80mph. 80!! God help me if I ever get going that fast on a dirt bike! Yes, it has turn signals, but it’s not a street bike. It feels really ungainly at high speeds.

The down side to buying a dirt bike in DFW in July is that it’s really really hot outside. We just finished a 20+ day stretch of 100+ degree days. When it’s that hot out, riding a bike is just not fun. I did a few rides to work when the weather was less than deadly, but I’ve been really aching for chance to get out on the dirt. There are a few places around the fringes of DFW where you can pay to ride on private land. This week, the heat finally broke and yesterday, in the low 90’s, I jumped on the chance to get dirty.

You knew this was coming, right?

I rode up to Trophy Club Park, near where I work. One perk of a dual sport is no need to haul your bike. Ride to the trail, get dirty, ride home. It was really shaky at first. Let’s face it, it’s been 20 years since I’ve ridden technical trails. (Holy cow! How is that possible?!) But after tooling around on some flat, twisty trails, I started “feelin’ it.” I found a little oval track with jumps in the middle and got a tiny bit of hang time. It felt good. No, it felt amazing.

Then, I started back out onto the longer trails and found a small motorcross track. Ooooh. That looks like fun! I stopped to have a look around before daring to try it. A very large, Cajun fellow rode up on a bike that was much too small for him and he started up a conversation. He said he was trying out a bike he bought for his son, that he was not “cocky” enough to do any of the big jumps, but was enjoying the track. He said he would be more comfortable riding with someone else, just in case. Frankly, so would I. So I mounted up and we did a few laps.

I did a couple of small jumps, but stayed well away from the big monsters. There was a section of whoop-dee-doos. (Click here if you don’t know what whoops are. That’s not me!) I used to really love the whoops when I was a kid, so naturally, I charged on in. But these whoops where a lot bigger than I expected and that big, heavy bike was just more than I could handle. I tried really hard to save it, but to no avail. I dumped Thumper just after the last whoop and hit the ground pretty hard.

After a quick inventory, I decided I was not injured (Hurt, yes. Injured, no.) and the bike was fine. I busted a mirror, but that’s not a big deal. I gave myself a few minutes for the adrenaline to wear off and my head to quit spinning. Then I decided I should head on home. By the time I got to the house, I was aching pretty bad. I had a few scrapes and some deep bruises, the worst on my right knee, but nothing serious. Tammy noticed a dark stain on my jeans. I assumed it was grease, but no. I had bled through my jeans from a small puncture in my right shin. Once cleaned, it turned out to be really small, but deep. This morning, I relented and went to CareNow to check it out.

The doctor said it was deep enough that it will take a while to heal, but small enough that a single stitch would close it. Aw, man. Really?! That just seems pointless and given my aversion (read: “full-on phobia”) of needles, I started negotiating. If it was three or more stitches, I would understand. But one?! Can’t you just tape it up? Yes. A dab of skin glue, a couple of high-tech band-aids and done. Much better! Yes, I’m a wuss. Don’t bother. Tammy has made that abundantly clear.

So, anyway. That’s the big news and the long story and the gritty details. Sorry for stealing a half hour of your life. Just rest assured, I’m fine. No bones sticking out. Lesson learned.