{"id":78,"date":"2017-03-08T14:54:09","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T14:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/?p=78"},"modified":"2024-06-30T11:55:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-30T17:55:23","slug":"dirt-bike-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"Dirt bike &#8216;training&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone talks about dirt bike training and how good it is for road biking and in general. A couple of weeks back, I finally got dirt bike wheels for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/pictures\/picture.php?\/10330\/category\/404\">WR250X<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.warp9racing.com\">Warp9 Racing<\/a>. The wheels came in startlingly quickly, and since I&#8217;m already geared way low (12\/45 &#8212; or -1\/+3) converting was a snap &#8212; or at least I didn&#8217;t need a new chain, just to drop the wheel in and crank it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Steve over at Moto-Authority got me set up with Dunlop D606s, rim-locks and tubes and the bike was ready for some desert riding. Woods are still out, since there&#8217;s no spark arrestor on the Graves exhaust that that bike has and I&#8217;m not spending $450 just yet on the FMF that is apparently the solution.\u00a0 That said, it was off to the desert where Scott Cloninger offered to show me around:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/pictures\/_data\/i\/galleries\/motorcycling\/trips\/20170304-WestMesa\/2017-03-0414.17.57-me.jpg\" width=\"792\" height=\"594\" \/><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The bike still functions on the highway, though the front definitely wanders and tracks the cracks, and it&#8217;s pretty tall with those knobbies on (and the 21&#8243; front doesn&#8217;t help either). We headed out from Scott&#8217;s house straight into the Arroyo and then off onto dirt. I proceeded to tip-toe around following Scott. Then losing Scott, and hoping he&#8217;d come back.<\/p>\n<p>The bike did great; the rider less so. I fell less than I expected, but the fact that I was in street gear (and street boots!) made me nervous. Too many folks I know have broken their ankles recently, so my caution was rewarded with smaller falls. We made it out to looking over the Rio Puerco Valley &#8212; amazing views.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/pictures\/_data\/i\/galleries\/motorcycling\/trips\/20170304-WestMesa\/2017-03-0414.44.52-me.jpg\" width=\"792\" height=\"263\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A little more cruising around and then back. About 30 miles, including sand, hills, and deeper sand. Going to be an interesting learning curve and I was sore as hell the next day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone talks about dirt bike training and how good it is for road biking and in general. A couple of weeks back, I finally got dirt bike wheels for the WR250X from Warp9 Racing. The wheels came in startlingly quickly,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/79"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.expatbrit.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}