Your Two-Wheel Love Story.

I always love hearing how people got into dirt biking. Sometimes it begins in childhood, other times it's a midlife crisis, divorce or even a new partner who rides that leads you down this road. Almost always, though, it's a great story about falling in love with two wheels. For me it had been over 10 years since I twisted a throttle when I found my way back to the sport. Messing around on a bike was routine for me in my formative years. It was a loop of crashing and calling my mom to take me for stitches, understanding zero about the mechanics of a bike and riding with no protective equipment. All pretty typical stuff back then. I remember riding bikes with my childhood bestie to a water reservoir and going for a swim in the heat of the summer. And the time I was riding a friend's clapped out bike, crashed on pavement and stabbed a hole through my foot. Those early brap shenanigans turned out to be some of the core memories I cherish today. I didn't realize how much I needed motorcycles back in my life until the summer of 2020.

Going from a predominantly human powered adventurer to a hard enduro rider was definitely an interesting transition to say the least. It came with many questions like, "is everything okay?" from friends and family. I had been a climber, trail runner, hiker and backcountry skier religiously for most of my life. I also worked as a Park Ranger and did several years on my local Search and Rescue team where I witnessed every possible thing that can go wrong in the mountains. Responding to rescues changed my perception of my sports in a big way. It's created a heightened risk vs reward mentality. At that point in my life, I had lost several friends to the mountains and had been on calls that would stick with me for life. Of course this is just a part of mountain culture, but after nearly a decade of it, I needed a change. I realized that it was time to try something different, a sport that would fuel and heal my soul simultaneously. And so, I got back in the saddle.

Enter: Dirt Biking.

The smell, power, and flow of a two-stroke engine. It's like a perfect powder run - it gives me the fuzzy arm bumps just thinking about it. When I finally got back to riding, I started with a 2009 KTM 105 xc (aka the lil ripper). It may have been small but it packed a huge punch. It was super lightweight, maneuverable and loved to pop surprise wheelies. Being able to pick my bike up and move it in those early stages of riding was a huge bonus. I tried my best to keep up with the bigger bikes and my confidence grew quickly on that machine. Getting back on the bike as an adult was an eye opening experience. Not only did the crashes hurt more, I was being challenged mentally and physically in a big way. I got the proper safety gear and did my research to find parts and apply tweaks to my machine to make it work for me.