The Ride Report

I’m strictly a street rider at this point in my motorcycling career. My first taste on a motorcycle was off-road in a farmer’s beet field, but since that day back in about 1975 the only non-pavement riding I’ve done is on gravel stretches of roads being repaved. Homey don’t do dirt.

My daughter, on the other hand, is tabula rasa motorcycle-wise. She hasn’t ridden at all so she’s open to everything, and lately she’s been agitating for an ATV. Much to her chagrin I keep saying no, saying that $500,000 is too expensive. Her ATV, plus the one I’d have to get for myself to ride with her, plus the dirt bike I’d have to get because that’s what I’d really want to ride, plus the dirt bike I’d have to get her so she could ride with me on my dirt bike, plus the dirt bike we’d have to get for my wife to try to get her to ride with us, plus the trailer I’d have to buy to haul them all, plus the new Ford F450 Super Duty Diesel truck I’d have to buy to tow it, plus the toy hauler I’d have to buy to tow the toys and give my wife the amenities of home because Mrs. Homey don’t do camping, plus the motor home I’d have to buy because my wife would hate living out of a toy hauler almost as much as she hates camping and requires the luxury only a Fleetwood Revolution LE motor home can provide… You can see how it all adds up. That initial three or four thousand dollar investment snowballs pretty fast; it would cost at least half a million dollars, easy. So I’ve been saying “no,” but…

But now I’ve been bitten by the Adventure Riding bug. My biggest motorcycling dream/goal/desire at this point is to get into the dirt and play. Reading Neal Peart’s Ghost Rider was the bait that lured me into getting interested in dual sport riding, the documentary Dust To Glory got me to nibble on it, and the Adventure Rider website set the hook. Now I’m dying to get a BMW — a R1150GS, or R1200GS, or maybe the new F800GS (oooooh!) — and head down south of the border for a Baja tour. Unfortunately, finances aren’t cooperating at this point, so all I can do is read about it right now. Which leads me to this…

A group of guys over at Adventure Rider put together an amateur team last year and rode in the Baja 1000, then they posted a collaborative report on it — one of the best damn ride reports I’ve ever read. If you want a taste of what I’m talking about, what I’m dying to do, go read their story. It’s really great reading.