I’m a motorcyclist. Not an ATV rider. But yesterday was the second time I’ve ridden a Honda EX400 quad. The first time was 6 years ago with a dozen guys on a bachelor-party adventure through the sand dunes of Pismo Beach, CA. That was a fun day. Although personally, I would have preferred being on a dirt bike, such would not have accommodated the number of guys in our group who had no two-wheeled experience. By the end of the day I considered it may have been safer to teach the guys to ride dirt bikes since our group sustained a 33% injury rate – all via individual incidents. Anyway, the injuries were minor and all did have fun.
Yesterday my friend, Larry, brought myself and his Suzuki QuadSport Z400 and Honda EX400 to Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area. We went bouncing along some great trails: tightly winding up and down Rattler Trail and endless hills, channeling through some roughly rutted paths, ricocheting off some high berms, slaloming through some deep sand, and generally enjoying a bunch of challenges and laughs.
Oh but I did take a good spill coming down a rutted hill. It knocked the wind out of me but good and I took home a few scrapes as well as a destroyed cell phone that didn’t take too well to being a buffer between my crashing hip and that hard-packed hill.
I still prefer two wheels, but I’m looking forward to some more quad riding – I’m going to get better at flying these 4-wheeled, adventure beasts!