Got a call from my "nephew" yesterday, he wanted to go riding. Yay!
Last time we rode was at a camp out last year, he was 13 years old, about 5' tall and on his YZ85. He wasn't much into loop rides but more of keeping it close to camp sort of thing, out 'n back stuff. His pop don't ride much due to work so...he's been hitching rides with his buddies to the track and stuff. I didn't know so...
Since the hi-trails and access to same are either a giant mess or closed from slides and snow I was all over it.
He told me I'm in for a surprise as he's now on his dad's old 1993 WR250 Yamaha. That bike is pretty fast, I've ridden a lot. It's a good, wicked fast mount for off-road and XC. He want's to know more about XC, want's me to teach him stuff, train him and he wants to start racing desert. Holy cow, info overload!
I was pretty surprised!
Got to his place, he's now 14, 5'5" tall, gear in hand and ready to go. He's all "I'm way faster than the last time we rode, old man..." smirking away. I'm like "OK, sonny, let's see what ya got". I had the Orphan in tow ('07 TC250) as the tank is bigger, it's fully armored and it needed some seat time. So I loaded up his bike, we hit the road, made our spot, sun is out, dirt is fluffy and perfect from the rain. Epic once in 10yr desert conditions. He's pumped, I'm pumped. No one is out.
The freakin' desert is all ours. And....
His bike wont run. Great. Pull down the carb, full of green goo. Neato. 45 mins later I got it running, tuned up, ready to rip.
We take off and we are slaloming between head high bushes, the traction is off the hook and we are clicking up through the gears, drifting, hoiking mingers, just totally getting into the ether with these totally epic conditions.
I give a glance back and he's glued to my tail. I gas it, grab another gear and start trying to loose him by really carving tight lines, doubling back, going down two gears then trying to get back on his tail. He's stuck to me good and we are just whipping it through the bushes like giant Jack Rabbits.
This is going to be a good ride.
After a bunch of goofing off and cross-country riding I find this little single tack I like to ride. It's on the back side of a small mountain and it rolls along the alluvial fingers with dips, drops, surprise post-crest turns, tight G-outs, more drops and lots of rock. You
can get some speed on this thing but it has plenty of "gotcha's" that will result in a seriously broken body, bike or both if you get too much into a rhythm.
I warn him, he's OK with it and we check out. It goes on for 10 miles or so and I stopped 3 times to look back and he was never more than 20 seconds behind me- he said just to stay out of the roost!
We finished this, came back in on it, did some climbs and one big rocky climb that's a brute in dry weather. He sat down the whole way up, cleaned it too. After we got down I had him take the lead on the way back. More cow trailing, slaloming between bushes on the pan with radiator shrouds filling up with creosote (mmmm the smell of it cooking on the pipe
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), and roosting each other with primo desert pan-fluff.
I was having trouble keeping up in the faster stuff and had to wait for a line change or some tricky stuff to get by the lad. He was keeping me honest, big time.
When we got back to the truck he told me "my goal was to [pass the old man]". We used to joke about that when he was really young.
Well, he did. Mission accomplished.
I used to ride this kid on the tank of the very same bike he was thrashing me with when he was still in diapers.
Full circle and, I could not be prouder.
Got me a new riding buddy and, he's family. I'm gonna spoil him rotten. He's gonna be the next Ricky Dietrich, mark these words.
Here's the one stop we made for a pic on his cell phone, up on Ol' Rocky Top. Damn near the tallest thing around there too.