Dirt Bike July

Got some good riding in over the last couple of months.

The shut down of the mountain we had been riding didn’t slow us down at all. In fact I think it gave us the right shot in the arm to take our riding to the next level on harder mountains. The places we’re riding now are vastly larger in area as well as the size of the rocks. It’s forcing us to ride better and advance our skills faster.

Take sitting vs. standing for instance. Sitting seems easy – comfortable – safe. It’s not. We’ve known for a while that standing is better. Standing gets your weight on the pegs and off the seat. Having your weight on the pegs puts it below the suspension, therefor allowing it to react more positively to the bumps, and there are plenty of bumps. Sitting makes the bike behave in all kinds of unpredictable ways. The question was how high should you stand? After this weekend, I’m standing nearly straight up and down. We first started kind of hunched and bent over with our butts floating right above the seat, but that wasn’t enough. Standing straight up down makes the bike behave in all kinds of ways I couldn’t imagine. It makes the impossible seem possible – the bumps seem smoother. Of course it comes with a price. It’s extremely tiring to stand all that time, but that will get better with time.

Overall the bike is great and the riding fantastic.

– b