Saturday

This Saturday I went with my older brother and my dad to an OHV area not far from Grand Lake. We got on the road at about 10:15 am with two DRZ400s and a KLR650 loaded into the back of my brother's truck. When we arrived at the staging area for the ATV trails we were going to ride on we found that one of the DRZs had got an oil leak sometime after we had loaded it into the truck, but thankfully we were able to repair it well enough for the DRZ to be used. We started out on the trail at about 1 pm. My brother was on his KLR; my dad and I were on the much lighter DRZs which was good, because we had much less off road experience. Along the first trail I dropped the DRZ I was riding several times which isn't too surprising considering that I have, by far, the least experience out of the three of us. A short way along the second trail I pointed out that the DRZ I was on was starting to overheat. When we took a closer look we found that the oil leak had started to ooze again; Most likely because of the time I dropped it after jumping (mostly unintentionally) off a natural ramp and subsequently: the trail. Deciding that between the hour of challenging riding, the overheating engine, the scrape on my left knee, and the bruises on the upper half of my right leg I should head back to the truck on the forest road and wait for my brother and my dad to finish the second trail without me. Once they got back and we had started heading home around 6:30 they told me about some of what they rode along after I had left. Judging by what they described, I would say that I made the right decision when I turned back. They described one point in particular where falling would have been really bad in a way that I doubt I could have avoided falling. Speaking of falling over, neither one of them fell over on the first trail (I fell 6 or 7 times by comparison), but they each dropped their motorcycle twice on the second trail. Despite the difficulty/injuries I had fun, did alright overall, and would like to ride some more trails.

Side notes: DRZ400s are extremely fun to ride; my older brother rides single track trails almost every weekend; my dad has been riding motorcycles for approximately 40 years; this was my third (and most challenging) experience with trail riding on a motorcycle, second time riding a DRZ400, and first time off-roading on a vehicle with specifications like those of the DRZ400.