Here is a secret! It's an area where dirt bikes are ridden! It's not mentioned or talked about much in Dirt Bike or Dirt Rider magazine! The location is not in California, Baja Mexico, Ohio, Nevada, Washington, Minnesota, etc; The location is? Montana!

Eastern Montana, to be exact.

Allow me to introduce you to Montana. Imagine, for a moment, the images that come to mind when one ponders 'Montana'. I think you may already have a few. Lofty, purplish mountains tower against vibrant blue skies. Crystal clear streams, that teem with fish, babble cheerily towards splendid waterfalls. Vast and peaceful landscapes, dotted with the occasional ranch, roll beneath the mountains as far as the eye can see. Refuges for many forms of wild life appear extraordinarily abundant. Ahh, yes! This is Montana! (As depicted by the Montana Department of Tourism and Travel)

Quite frankly, these depictions are not too far from the truth. However, those slick Montana DT&T campaign folks have left out some interesting elements of Montana. These include: the no daytime highway speed limits, the Unabomber guy, the "Freeman" (who, incidentally, are not that free at the moment) and the "other half" of Montana.

Eastern Montana.

Geographically speaking, Eastern Montana is a region east of Western Montana and west of Western North Dakota. Got it? Great! Politically speaking, Eastern Montana is grudgingly acknowledged to be a part of Montana by some political 'think tanks' in Western Montana. Unfortunately, the petcocks of intelligence of these 'think tanks' are hopelessly stuck - between the RES and OFF position. Better yet, Western North Dakota only acknowledges Eastern Montana on Sunday nights - because North Dakota bars are closed and Montana bars are not! After the bars close, Western North Dakota does not recognizes Eastern Montana because of The Norwegain North Dakotan Myths. One strongly held myth is that the world really does suddenly drop off into oblivion west of Beach, ND. (Yes? Beach, ND. Get your Rand McNalley Road Atlas out!)

Eastern Montana is not purely "Montana", and is certainly not North Dakota! It is a place, sort of.

So what is the big secret? Eastern Montana is, surprisingly enough, home to an outlandish host of dirt bike and trail riding adventures for the hard core dirt bike addict. What is the dirt bike experience like in Eastern Montana?

 

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OFF-ROAD.COM visitors, this is probably the first non-technical treatise about living the dirt bike experience in Eastern Montana! Enjoy my thoughts!

The dirt bike experience in Eastern Montana is:

 

• driving 92 miles (one way) to go ride at a buddies ranch only to find out upon arrival, that your bike will not run for love, money, or outright hatred. The day is then spent trying to keep up with your buddy (who is riding his brand spanking new KTM 550) on his "loaner bike"- a late 60's Honda Trail 90, that was spray painted purple on a rainy day.

   

• having fun riding your buddies purple "loaner bike" for most of the day, because his new KTM 550 blew a water pump seal!

   

• having the friendly local 'Honda Shop' owner ask you (when you are trying to buy parts, usually a top-end kit, for your '84 CR 250) if a CR 250 was "one of those 3-wheeler jobbies" he sold eons ago.

   

• telling other people about the neat Twin Air filter, Pro-Taper's, and quick fill fuel tank you just put on your bike. Later, you discover the people you were talking to thought that you put two air cleaner 'thingies' on the bike, taped them on with a new, special Scotch tape, and installed a tiny gas tank on your bike.

   

• going riding on a very pleasant, sunny April morning. The trees are budding and birds are singing cheerily. You drive to your favorite riding spot in 20 minutes. During that 20 minutes, the weather suddenly faceplants. Now the weather is similar to a typical January morning. The birds quit singing to find a warm place to hide, the trees gave up on budding for the moment, and the very pleasant April morning sun retired and replaced itself with a gray, angry sky that is dumping gobs of cold, wind blown snow.

   

• riding your dirt bike for hours in one direction to try out your new hand held, hi-tech, zoot capri GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) compass! After finding yourself right smack dab in the middle of nowhere, you smugly whip out the GPS compass, only to find that the batteries are shot.

   

• beautiful sunsets blazing into an evening sky over your favorite riding area.

   

• beautiful sunrises glowing over your favorite riding area.

   

• riding like a crazed banshee with your other riding buddies after work, with one rider decent enough to quit riding early to go to the parking area and fire-up the barbecue coals!

   

• eating cold bologna sandwiches and drinking warm beer after the ride because the gracious riding buddy "forgot" the barbecue coals and "forgot" to fill the cooler with ice.

   

• mud that is so sticky it actually completely clogs the space between the wheels and fenders.

   

• riding on clay soil terrain that is so dry that the traction is nearly non-existent!

   

• no helicopters air patrolling BLM land.

   

• no BLM rangers.

   

• no environmental groups. Editors note.. YES!!!

   

• riding with a new buddy that fouls a plug. After taking out his fouled plug and offering him a new NGK plug you have in your fanny pack, you discover the only plug he has ever known (and used) are Champions, purchased at K-mart.

   

• living in a town where the local Yamaha - Suzuki - Kawasaki - Polaris - Arctic Cat dealership is still called the 'Honda Shop'.

   

• suffering through extraordinarily long Montana winters that start in early November, and manage to hang on until late April.

   

• riding about 75 m.p.h. on an old and abandoned BLM road, then cresting a ridge, only to find that the road has a huge washout at the bottom, with a huge stray cow standing on the other side of it.

   

• writing about riding in Eastern Montana, and wishing you could go ride right now. Which I think I well do now. But first, I must go to the 'Honda Shop' and get some 2-stroke oil. And maybe a Champion spark plug!

   

Would you like to know more about Eastern Montana? E-mail Kirk Overby at kirk@off-road.com