Trail Virgin No More!
When you haven’t ridden your ATV on a trail, you’re labeled a “Trail Virgin”. The label probably wasn’t that appropriate for me, because I have rode on many trails, just not any that were “official”. Out by my grandparents house in Pennsylvania, the population density is very low, and all the land is basically in the woods. Everyone knows my grandparents, and doesn’t mind if you ride on their land.
I got into riding ATV’s a long time ago. My grandfather had a little ATV for my cousin. We both barely fit on it, and it had no working brakes, but we had fun on it anyway. We kept riding around the property line, getting progressively faster each time. To slow down, I would just downshift. Well, as you can imagine, we got going to fast on one of the trips down a big hill. The entire field is basically empty, except for 1 stump right by the path exiting the field. Of course that is what we hit. I just remember my cousin being launched over my back. I was standing up before he hit the ground. He was pretty young at the time, so he just bounced. Luckily, we were both alright.
I ended up getting the machine started again, although it didn’t look like it used to. The front tires were no longer parallel. They now pointed opposite directions. I still managed to drive it back to the house.
After that incident, I quickly got a respect for the speed and power of the machines. I had previously rode dirt bikes, and it’s a completely different experience. My grandparents eventually got different ATV’s throughout the years. My grandfather eventually purchased the ATV that I now own.
When I picked it up, we stayed at their house for a little over a week. Melissa and I took it out quite a few times, and she drove it very well. I let her take it out on her own just to drive around the field, and that’s when she decided to go a little too fast, and drive into a wire fence. She had 2 high tension wires on one side of the machine, and 2 on the other. The post was pushed into a 30 degree angle. Luckily, she just got a few bruises, and the machine faired about as well as she did. We managed to fix the broken parts, which were simply cosmetic. That same day, I bought a tube bumper for the front. If I had purchased it earlier, I don’t think any damage would have been caused to the ATV. We got the fence, the ATV, and Melissa all patched up, and Melissa learned a good lesson just as I had.
This is a really great sport to get into, but you have to know what you’re doing, and you always have to pay attention.