Kicking off life in the trails
Traveling through Belize, Guatemala and Mexico the last months of 2014, I was really looking forward to spend the days between christmas and New Year’s Eve with my family in Valle de Bravo, Mexico. Valle is a beautiful secluded village nearby a stunning lake, with a scenic old town and lively small streets with vendors offering handmade crafts, roaming dogs and polite residents minding their business.
It is on the outskirts of this town where my uncle and aunt have built their welcoming home, a small domicile with a beautiful garden, stunning views of the surrounding fields and mountains and enough space for friends and visitors alike to just drop by to take a time-out and recover from uber busy Mexico City. And it is here where I would experience my first flimsy attempt at driving a dirtbike.
Not only is my uncle a veteran at mountainbiking – he’s been competing for many years on PRO level – but a fierce enthusiast of dirtbikes. A patient and dedicated teacher he took his time to introduce me to the single cylinde that would relieve me from my swelling thirst for off road riding: The humble Honda CRF. And what can I say: It’s entry-level, it’s single cyclinde, it’s… simply hard to beat! The balance between tar and dirt screams enduro, some might even say it’s the most epic of lightweight overland travel bikes since there seem to be few bikes like it these days.
I took it for a ride over a huge acre beyond my uncle’s property and already after a couple of rounds on the machine I was getting angry at myself for not having started this whole motorcycling thing way earlier. The brutal acceleration, the rush of cutting stones and trenches, balancing the dancing rear in the mud and all that with an abrasive sound… I could hear my heart pounding, the rush of adrenalin through my veins, endorphin spilling out every cell of my body.
Just when I was getting to comfortable on it I got a little too excited in a corner and before I know I was lying on the ground, moaning mutedly over the hard encounter with ground level, the engine beside me still running and the glowing exhaust dangerously close to my left leg. I got up, looked over to my uncle on the other side of the acre – still slidely baffled from the blow – and at that moment we both had to smile. We both knew: My bond with riding had just grown a little stronger. Standing there, listening to the clicks of the machine cooling down a simple and plain thought crossed my mind. Nothing comes even close to shifting through the gears, feeling the raw power of such a machine, stronger & heavier than you but at the same time loyal and submissive. In front of me was lying a hungry beast to tame, the lustrous hero of a new found obsession of mine: the one of motorcycling. Â