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Mid-life and Motocross Lessons in humility


By TREVOR DENIS BANG! It was a cold Sunday


night in January. The sound of the rented enclosed-U-Haul trailer hitting the curb, about three minutes away from my house, woke me up and made me wonder what the hell we were doing. I must have drifted off


towards the side of the road. My buddy, Dan, and I were returning to Ottawa from a rushed road trip to Guelph, Ontario to buy a couple of Motocross bikes. For my 40th


birthday, my


loving wife had graciously given me a homemade coupon granting me permission to buy a dirt bike, and I had managed to convince Dan (who is younger in years, but older in appearance and back problems) that my birthday present would only be worthwhile if he could share some of the embarrassment with me.


We both have extensive street


bike experience, but Dan had never been on a dirt bike, and the last time I was on one was more than 20 years ago. We debated the virtues of buying a Motocross bike vs. a trail bike, and decided on the Motocross bikes. Call it a mid-life crisis, but we figured


48 BOUNDER MAGAZINE


that at our age, the time to try Motocross wasn’t going to be in five or 10 years. It had to be now. The trail bikes could come later. After months of searching


online for used bikes, we decided that the best deals were to be had near Guelph. We would rent a trailer to bring the bikes back to Ottawa. So, $6,000, 1,000 km of


driving, and a crappy Motel 6 later, we unloaded our first Motocross bikes out of the trailer into my garage. We bought memberships at


our local track (www.mx101. ca ), a trailer to tow behind my minivan, and appropriate attire off the clearance rack at a local dealer. We were at the track on the second weekend of the season in early April. It was here that we


experienced our first (of many) lessons in humility. Because it was so early in


the season, the track was packed with riders who had been itching to ride for months. The track that six months earlier had looked relatively sane to us, while watching from the sidelines, now seemed like a potential journey through hell. There were ruts,


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