She rides like a MOM!

     A couple years ago my husband decided he and our son Ben needed to start riding dirt bikes.  It would be a perfect way to bond as father and son without ever having to actually talk.  So he bought a 650 Honda for himself and a 200 for Ben and they started going out riding on the Minnesota State Forest Trails.  My husband had ridden motorcycles all his life, but it was a new experience for Ben.  I needn't have worried though because he took to it like Clinton to Women.  He came home bragging about the "big air" he got and I'd just shake my head and wonder why teenage boys think gas problems are something to be proud of.

     Last summer Ben needed a bigger bike so he moved up to a Suzuki 400.  That left the 200 ownerless.  Well, my husband had the great idea our 14-year-old daughter could have that bike and he'd buy another one for me.  That way we could be a dirt-biking family.  Doesn't that just send shivers down your spine?  "The Brink Bikers, living on the edge," would be our family motto.

     Well, I let him talk me into it.  I was turning 40 and perhaps I needed something wild to make me feel young.  Learning to ride a dirt bike at 40 was not just wild, it was insane.  Teenagers take balance for granted, and so did I, thinking I still had some.  I soon learned I was wrong.  Apparently, the inner ear starts to crumble or something because balance is not so easy anymore.

     The first time out I drove up the side of a dirt wall and killed the engine.  My bike somehow became stuck and the bike and I hung suspended between heaven and hell until I was rescued.  My husband laughed so hard I nearly punched him.  It was a Kodak moment and him without a camera.

     I can't begin to count the many times I've wiped out but one day last summer we were riding in the early morning, the slime on the clay trail not yet dried from the sun.  I went spinning out of control, decided to exit the seat of my bike, fell hard on my left shoulder, and had an epiphany.  I knew right then and there just what being "extreme" really meant.  My son watches those extreme sports channels late at night.  You know, the ones where someone skateboards along the edge of a skyscraper, spins in the air four times and lands on a flatbed semi-trailer truck going 80mph or something similar.  I can't do that. But I am extreme.  Extremely stupid for thinking I could ride as well as my 17-year-old son and not spend my husband's hard earned money at the chiropractor.  (By the way, my chiropractor's business is really thriving since I started riding.  She can now afford to remodel her offices.)

     I must say that although I have lain on the ground in severe pain more than once or twice, I love my bike and won't give it up until I'm at least 75.  So if anyone is riding the trails in Minnesota, watch out for the lady on the Yamaha.  She's extreme!