Dirt Bike Demons

After nearly ruining Christmas morning by getting up early and sneaking throughout the house and prematurely finding the dirt bike, the girls managed a lot of excitement anyway.

My plan was to have them find the gear first, then go down stairs and find the bike.

I wanted to keep the bike in the house to make sure it was good and warm to easily start if/when the girls wanted to try it Christmas morning.

Abigail was obviously excited, but Lauren had a healthy dose of skepticism.

Needless to say it was only Abigail willing to give it a try that day, and try she did. She went all over the front yard and nearly crashed into everything (the creek, the neighbors fence, the roller coaster, etc), but each time she did, she got right back on and kept going.

The day after was warmer and considering the obstacles we had to deal with in the yard, we decided to head to the airport and ride the open dirt field there. I threw the 100 in “just in case.”

Unfortunately the wide open dirt field was a total mud bog.

After some scoping around, we found a smooth line along the side that she could do some laps on. After letting the bike warm up, she hopped on to take off. Unfortunately she made it only about 20 ft before it died and we were totally unable to get it started again. Fail.

I had a couple of theories as to why it wouldn’t start again, so once we got it home I tore some things down. The gas tank had premix in it for one. It doesn’t need premix. It has an oiler, so as it was it was double oiling and that’s not good for starting. I took off the tank and dumped it. In the photo above you might notice a red wire at the back. That’s an after market emergency kill switch someone had installed to help their kid safely ride or something. Every time I tried to kick start the bike, I’d invariably kick the emergency switch and kill what I’d just tried to start. The switch had to go. With those two things taken care of, it started just fine every time i tried.

Another warm(ish) day and we were back. The main focus for the day was throttle control – throttle on, throttle off until you get used to how it works.

I set up some cones at either end of the field to help her keep things in line.

Then warmed up the bike.  Made sure it was good and warm.

Then it died.

I kick started, kicked started, cleaned the plug, kick started, kick started, and it finally ran.

She was off. Back and forth she’d run between the cones working on her level of comfort with the throttle.

She rode for about 45 minutes before getting too cold. Overall much improvement over the first day in our yard where she was crashing into everything.

Then it was time to head home and get everything washed.

– b