MILLICAN —

The urge to go faster was almost overwhelming.

But I knew I needed to take baby steps during my first attempt at riding a dirt bike. Luckily, Jason Raines started me out with the absolute basics, not even letting me start the motorcycle’s engine until I had an understanding of the bike’s controls, my balance and how to turn.

Raines, the Yamaha demo program director, had me well-trained, and after a couple of hours, I was comfortable motoring around the trails and dirt roads of the East Fort Rock OHV Trail System.

After I figured out the controls — clutch, throttle, brakes — I was able to let loose on the trails, fulfilling that urge to go faster while still feeling safe and confident on the bike.

It was a feeling of freedom with which thousands of Central Oregon motorcycle riders are familiar, ripping around the hundreds of miles of trails on the high desert terrain east of Bend.

The demo program, sponsored by Pro Caliber of Bend, was held in conjunction with the Lobos China Hat races this past weekend. Hundreds of dirt bike riders came to camp, ride and socialize in the remote desert south of Millican, about 30 miles southeast of Bend.

I took the opportunity to ride a dirt bike for the first time, and Raines was patient enough to help me along. The sport is not exactly an easy one to just jump into, so having a bike to demo and a qualified instructor was a good way to start.

“The problem is, it’s an expensive sport,” Raines said. “You’ve got to buy a bunch of protective equipment. The bikes are really expensive. We’ll have families come out and say they want to try to ride. But first they want to see if they can even do it. We’ll suit them up in the gear and give them the basics. There’s some people who just can’t do it. They don’t have the coordination for it.”

Raines got me started me on a Yamaha TTR 125L, a relatively smaller bike that he said would be fairly easy to control.

After he instructed me on how to ease out on the clutch, I found myself riding slowly along the trails and practicing long, sweeping turns through the sand and sagebrush.

“Clutch, throttle, brakes, balance,” Raines said. “If you’ve got those fundamentals, you can just build on them. Once you get the basics, you can just keep pushing yourself and elevating your ability. Getting the right instruction first can help a lot to save you from having problems and crashing, just like skiing or snowboarding.”

Once I felt comfortable on the TTR 125L, Raines put me on a Yamaha WR 250F, a bigger bike that suited my 6-foot-2-inch frame much better. But, I must admit, the bigger bike was a bit intimidating.

Still, I stuck to the fundamentals I had just learned from Raines and was soon riding around the trails and cruising over some mild rollers.

Raines had warned me of the dangerous “whiskey throttle,” which happens when riders panic and instead of braking or slowing they unintentionally twist harder on the throttle and speed up.

“You’re panicked, so your whole body just tenses up, and you always grab throttle for whatever reason,” Raines said. “In a car, when you panic, you hit the brakes.”

I was afflicted with a bit of the whiskey throttle in some turns, but nothing too serious. One problem occurred, though, when I was making a slow left turn on the WR 250F, the bigger bike, and slammed on the front brakes too hard on the right handlebar. The tires lost traction and I went down onto the gravel road, and so did the bike.

Popping right back onto my feet, I escaped the embarrassing spill unscathed. Raines was giving me a thumbs-up, and I’m not sure if it was a sarcastic one or if it was him saluting me on my first crash.

Dirt bikes range in price from about $3,000 to $8,000. They are a big financial and time commitment, but they are worth it to many motor enthusiasts in Central Oregon who make trail riding a family affair.

Terry Kosbau, 54 and of La Pine, attended the demo event and said he enjoys riding with his son.

“I love the woods,” Kosbau said. “It’s always beautiful out here, and the variety of terrain is great. And this is a vast, large area to ride in. It’s just awesome. My son and I ride all the time, and spend the day connecting. You can go at your own pace. You can challenge yourself but always stay in control. I usually ride about 35 miles out, and 35 miles back, and don’t hit the same trail twice. The area is awesome.”

Miki Keller, a longtime dirt bike rider and motocross racer from Bend, said that riders come from all over the Northwest to ride the trails at East Fort Rock or the Millican Plateau OHV trail systems east of Bend.

“During the winter, we’re one of the places where it’s dry and you can ride,” she said. “And it’s never that crowded here.”

Though their sport is motorized, dirt bike riders all claim that riding trails and racing motocross can make for a pretty intense workout. Many dirt bikers also ride mountain bikes.

“There’s a lot of crossover,” said Pat Berry, sales representative for Pro Caliber in Bend. “The motocross guys are as fit as any type of racer out there from any other sport.”

Indeed, after my two-hour session learning how to ride a dirt bike, I felt surprisingly tired. But after learning the basics and getting comfortable on such a powerful machine, I am ready to get back out on the endless trails of the Central Oregon high desert.

— Reporter: 541-383-0318,

mmorical@bendbulletin.com.