Motorcycles, especially dirt bikes, offer an entire world of possibilities to have fun, get your heart rate banging, learn something new, and better yourself. But the sport is still sometimes seen as a “guy thing,” and some women might find it intimidating to swing a leg over a bike, even if it’s something they’ve long wanted to do. For the past decade, women who either ride dirt bikes or want to ride one have had an event just for them. I just got back home from Dirtastic, the epic celebration of all things dirt bike just for women. Some 200 ladies from across America showed up at a forest on a mountain in Oregon, and the best part wasn’t even the motorcycles.
There is a misconception out there that women simply aren’t interested in cars, motorcycles, planes, and other vehicles. Historically, you were most likely to find men working on cars, riding motorcycles, and flying planes. However, that doesn’t mean women weren’t or still aren’t interested in high-octane fun. Over time, women have been getting out there and have absolutely killed it on bikes, flying planes, and even going into space. I am happy to say that about a fifth of our readers are not men.
But parts of the world can still be unkind to women who want to get into motoring. Who hasn’t heard an insult about how “badly” women drive? I know women who went through the work to become commercial pilots, only to press pause on their airline dreams because of poor treatment in the industry. It’s no different with bikes. A woman who wants to learn how to ride a dirt bike might encounter judgment or ridicule for not knowing how to ride.
At the same time, if you are experienced in the art of making a dirt bike go fast, you might feel alone in a sport with generally lots of testosterone around. Where can you find other women who like getting dirty on two wheels?
Dirtastic is the place to find other ladies who know how to work a two-stroke engine, but it isn’t just an event for experienced dirt bike riders. Dirtastic’s Main Event, which is held in Oregon every year, is staffed by experienced motocross riders and instructors. Many of them have been riding for most of their lives. These inspirational women are there not just to promote the fun and thrill of dirt bikes, but also to teach women everything from the basics to the hardcore technical skills. Click here to read my story about the history of Dirtastic.
I didn’t even know Dirtastic existed until Dan from Stark Future reached out to me with an incredible pitch. I was invited to fly out to Oregon and join some 200 women at Dirtastic, and I’d get to do it with a Stark Varg EX between my legs. I had never ridden a dirt bike in my life, yet I’m not sure I replied yes to an invite faster.
(Full Disclosure: Stark Future and Dirtastic invited me out to Jacksonville, Oregon, to experience an all-women’s moto and camping event on a Stark Varg EX. Stark Future paid for my travel and accommodations.)
A Totally New Experience For Me
Going to Dirtastic was a big deal for me. My own motorcycle journey began in 2018. Back then, I reached a point in my life where I had become confident enough to really chase my dreams. My bucket list had only a couple of entries crossed off, and while I was young, time only moves in one direction for humans. I concluded there was no better time to start crossing off those items than now.
One of the biggest dreams I have in life is that I want to take command of as many vehicles as possible before I punch the clock one last time. I want to drive a semi-tractor, fly a Boeing 747, steer a container ship, drive a train, do barrel rolls in a plane, collect my favorite motorcycles, and more. I’d love to do something like Dirty Jobs, but my version would be about driving all of the planet’s awesome vehicles. Could I be good at driving a mining truck? I’d love to find out!
One of the blessings of being an auto journalist is that I’ve been able to achieve so many of these dreams. I have driven a vintage diesel-electric locomotive, did “wheelies” on a supercharged 325-horsepower Sea-Doo, jumped side-by-sides with Tanner Foust, performed loops and barrel rolls in an aerobatic plane, and even went fast in a supercar. I have also amassed a dream vehicle collection with eight of my favorite motorcycles and something like 14 cars. I’ve even owned a city bus and have bought and sold something like 60 motorcycles. I will never take this for granted and will forever be thankful for getting here.
Yet, somehow, I’ve never been on a real dirt bike until now.
I had no real idea what to expect when I stepped off the plane in Medford, Oregon. I knew that I’d be taking at least one of the Dirtastic instructional clinics. I also knew that my steed for the whole event would be a Stark Varg EX, the fastest electric off-road motorcycle in the world. But what would an all-women’s motorcycle and camping event look like? I had no idea.
Bikes And Conversation
I would be joined by the lovely Amber DaSilva of Jalopnik. We hopped into Dan’s rented GMC Sierra and climbed dirt road switchbacks above Jacksonville, where we found ourselves on land owned by the Motorcycle Riders Association non-profit group.
Contained within MRA’s lands was the Lily Prairie OHV area and the Lily Prairie Staging Area, where Dirtastic was headquartered for the weekend. MRA closes down its 1,300 acres for Dirtastic for the weekend. In other words, the population of this mountainous region of Oregon becomes 99.9 percent women for a weekend. Even better is that Lily Prairie is so far from civilization that there is no cellular service. Unless you rock a Starlink, you’re totally disconnected from the outside world for a whole weekend. As someone who supports the idea of logging out of social media and enjoying the beauty of this planet, I was excited to see every bar of coverage disappear.
Thursday was an easy day. Amber and I arrived on scene, set up our campsite, and had Dan show us how the Stark Varg EX works. I’m going to write about this motorcycle in a separate piece. Just know that it’s one of the most ridiculous motorcycles I’ve ever ridden, and it’s brutally fast.
Once Amber and I settled in, we sauntered over to the heart-shaped fire pit in the middle of the event headquarters. It was there that we started getting to know who we’d spend the weekend with. I quickly found out that Dirtastic attracted women of all stripes. There were older women, young ladies, skinny women, tall women, and really every variation you could think of. The evening firepit was a melting pot of diverse ladies, each with a unique story to tell.
Some people told me that they had only just purchased their first dirt bike a few weeks ago, and they decided to dive headfirst into it. Some said that they rode dirt bikes in the country when they were kids, gave up on it when they went to college or had kids, and now they’re back to what they loved decades ago. Some of the women there were just getting into motorcycles for the first time in their lives. Some were experienced dirt bike riders and wanted to meet other moto-obsessed women. Others were scratching off bucket list items or conquering their fears.
Experience levels ranged from people who hadn’t touched a dirt bike before coming to Dirtastic to women who could leap a dirt bike higher than Superman could fly. Yet, everyone was there for a common goal: To have an absolute blast loving, embracing, and learning about dirt bikes without judgment, without pressure, and without men. Boyfriends and husbands were able to help set up camp and unload bikes, but they otherwise had to stay out. The few men who were there were largely in the background as EMS, catering, rescue, or, in Dan’s case, representing a sponsor or vendor. Otherwise, if you saw a dirt bike, you knew a woman was riding it.
The organizers of Dirtastic found a clever way to break the ice with the crowd. We were given a Bingo sheet and, in order to fill it, we had to ask other participants about themselves. We had to find people who rode two strokes, who have ridden on a track, who wrench on their own ride, and more. Personally, I didn’t really care about the card. I just wanted to talk to people to figure out how they found themselves standing on a mountain over 4,000 feet above a town in Oregon. I heard stories about terrible boyfriends, stories about women on quests to reinvent themselves, and ladies looking for their next hit of adrenaline.
There was also another clever way to strike up a conversation. Dirtastic bolted the frame of a dirt bike to a giant spring. The goal is to board the bike and use a little muscle, some technique, and some balance to get the bike back perfectly on center. If you fail, it could throw you off, not too unlike a mechanical bull. I sucked at this infernal challenge. While I got the bike off the stand, I never got to balance it. On the other hand, Amber made it look easy.
What was heartwarming was that regardless if they succeeded or failed, the women always cheered on the rider. If you mounted that bike, you instantly had 100 or so women hyping you up and giving you advice. Sometimes, the crowd clapped even when people fell off. This alone was such a wild departure from what I’m used to, where you’d normally get laughed at for sucking at a skills challenge like this. But the Dirtastic community wasn’t like that. Everyone wanted to empower each other, not put them down.
The Main Event
Friday was the start of the big event. Dirtastic officially started with a speech from its current owner, Courtney, and a speech from its original founder, Kalin. The ladies also introduced all of the instruction team, and all of the instructors were as diverse as the women they were going to teach. Some of the instructors were former motocross racers, some just loved riding dirt bikes in the woods. Some instructors got into motorcycling later in life, while others probably knew how to ride a motorcycle before they could spell. All of them were pumped to teach us new tricks.
Since Amber and I signed up for Dirtastic late, most of the early clinics were already full. So, we spent most of our day on Friday hitting the trails with Dan, getting used to the Starks. Amber broke a brake lever on her Stark only five minutes into riding it, while I crashed one maybe 10 minutes later, darn near punching a hole into one of my thumbs. Oh yeah, these Starks are fast, alright. But that’s a story for my review.
Later that day, Amber and I joined an introductory dirt bike class. As I said, I have ridden off-road, but hadn’t touched a dirt bike until Dan gave me the Stark, and as I just established, a Stark is one of the fastest things in the dirt. Forget the 125s or 250s some folks start on, my first-ever real dirt bike experience was an unruly full-size thoroughbred.
I expected the fundamentals class to have a lot of things I already knew, but I started learning from the very start. The instructors gathered us around and demonstrated the proper dirt bike riding position. Sitting is terrible for control, so you’re supposed to stand up with your arms out and knees bent slightly. Now, instead of the bike controlling you and bumping you around, the bike does what your body tells it to. My mistake, at least before the class, was riding while standing straight up, which apparently isn’t much better than sitting down.
The instructors then ran us through a gauntlet. Some of the material would be review if you’re an experienced street rider, such as finding your clutch’s friction zone and how to ride slowly. However, this material was still important because a lot of the women at Dirtastic were entirely new to motorcycles. Also, the clutch and engine behavior of a two-stroke dirt bike can be very different from that of, say, a Harley-Davidson Street Glide.
Something new that I learned, aside from riding position, is that dirt bike riders will intentionally slip their clutches to keep their revs high when in ruts, mud, corners, or other situations that would normally take their engines out of their optimal rev range. This is different than what I learned in a street riding class, where slipping your clutch more than necessary was viewed as a great way to kill the clutch. I also learned that many racers don’t even use the clutch once they’ve launched out of the gates; they grab gears just by moving the shift lever.
Once the class nailed their riding position and clutch work, the instructors started combining those skills with new lessons. Soon, we found ourselves learning about weight distribution and braking. If you’re braking fast on a dirt bike, you don’t just hit your brakes like you would on the road. You want to transfer some of your weight to the rear of the bike while you’re braking, which helps keep traction in the rear tire and reduces the chance of throwing yourself off the bike when braking down a hill. So, we spent some substantial time getting weight transfer right. The proper braking position sort of resembled how you’d look if you were bracing for a really hard stop.
We also learned how to use our hips to shift weight during turns. The most proficient way to turn a dirt bike isn’t just to ride it around a turn, but to get your hips and your weight to the side of the bike that’s on the outside of the turn. This, in turn, allows you to get more speed through the turn without wiping out.
We also practiced walking the bike with its clutch up a hill. Not only does this teach proper clutch control, but it can also save your bacon if you drop your dirt bike on a hill. Admittedly, the clutch lessons didn’t mean a whole lot to the all-electric Starks, but Amber and I learned a lot. We’d later use what we learned in the class to hit a trail with far more confidence and with far fewer crashes than we did only the day earlier.
There were lots more classes during Dirtastic, including how to ride through turns fast, how to climb hills, how to blast through obstacles, and more. Sadly, Amber and I didn’t have time to do all that we wanted to learn!
Bright Personalities
One of my highlights from the class was this wonderful lady, Paris (above). She, one of the best dancers I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, had probably the most incredible story of the whole event. She flew in from South Dakota and rented a Jeep Gladiator camper from Turo. Then, only an hour before the class started, she bought a random dirt bike from a guy on Facebook and shoved it into the bed of the Jeep.
She then ordered all of her camping gear, food, and motorcycle gear from Instacart and DoorDash. I didn’t even know you could get an entire suit of moto gear from Instacart! Paris lives by the full send mentality of having an idea and just committing to it, no matter how crazy it sounds. Here she was, thousands of miles away from home and totally unprepared, but she put it all together in such an alarmingly short time.
This bike was just as chaotic as Paris was. It had no kickstand and no electric start. It was also tuned so that the engine wanted to do nothing but run at redline. So, she had to kick the little two-smoker into life and then constantly keep the throttle grip turned to keep the engine alive. This was hilarious because the bike stalled so much that it practically became a running joke of the weekend. When it did run, it had a power band that resembled a rock face. It was a bunch of nothing and then a whole crazy rush of power. It wasn’t as ridiculous as a Stark, but a rather rowdy ride for a beginner. Apparently, the seller of the bike messaged Paris later on just to make sure she was still alive.
Oh yeah, she was. She grabbed that green monster by the bars and had that thing tamed by the weekend.
Another one of my favorites from our class was Meredith. She started the weekend being one of the more timid riders in our group. She fell off her bike a lot, didn’t go very fast, and didn’t seem to trust herself or her bike. But by Saturday, she was ruling the trail. There were times when Amber and I threw ourselves off our Starks while Meredith rolled by, making hills and ruts look easy.
I don’t think it was just the class, either. We learned a lot in the class, but that happened in a parking lot. I think a lot of what helped out there on the trail was the camaraderie. We always cheered each other on, and when someone fell, we helped them get back up and back on the bike. We didn’t leave anyone behind and went at a pace everyone was comfortable with. We also stopped a lot and talked about what lines to take for obstacles ahead. There was a lot of strategizing, even though we were on a trail marked as being easy.
In doing so, Amber, Meredith, Paris, and I totally beat a trail that some of the women said was way harder than advertised. Who cares that we never exceeded 30 mph, we were having a total blast!
The Grand Finale
Later on Saturday, I took part in a Party Tricks class, where we had a slow race – last person across the finish line wins – and learned how to do wheelies. This instruction was awesome, and I finally learned how to initiate a wheelie myself rather than using engine torque to do it for me. Unfortunately, I got a little too confident and cocky too quickly, and wheelied the Stark so hard that I busted my knee and ended up in the back of an ambulance, but that’s for my other story. While I was in the ambulance, the rest of the class got to learn how to do dirt donuts.
Saturday moto rides ended with minibike games, where everyone dressed up all silly-like and then raced each other on tiny motorcycles.
Once everyone had had their fill of the trails, races, and instructional clinics, we all gathered for a neon rodeo-themed party. This was a frenzy. Out came dresses, bikinis, Stetsons, and the booze.
Paris won an award for her unbridled craziness, and others got prizes from a raffle. Then, we all settled into dancing, drinking, and chatting the night away.
The Real Magic Of Dirtastic
It’s hard to describe how amazing this was. Normally, I’m the person who sits at a table by herself and watches the action. But here I was, talking with so many fascinating people, collecting phone numbers, and punishing my hurt knee by getting low and twerking.
Meredith even set up a minibar with the cutest little cleaver to cut limes.
The energy was high in the air, and the low temperatures didn’t stop the fun. I saw lots of kissing, making out, and red Solo cups. Amber boggled my mind by walking around in a bikini with an invitation to touch her on it. A lot of women took her up on her offer. Meanwhile, Paris taught me how to twerk like a pro. I also found out that she works not too far from where I live, and she’s offered to take me on summertime adventures in Northern Wisconsin.
That, I think, is what made Dirtastic better than just motorcycles in the dirt. Yes, riding a dirt bike for the first time ever was thrilling. I also learned a valuable life lesson in never giving up that weekend. But there isn’t a two-stroke or electric bike in the world that could replace human connection. Dirtastic had that in spades.
It was at Dirtastic where I learned I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t the only weirdo into unique motorcycles. I was far from the only plus-size lady there. I wasn’t even nearly the only person of color there. I didn’t feel like I was tagging along with someone else’s group like an awkward third wheel. No, I was in this group.
This event was powerful in so many ways. The instructors gave me the skills to be a better dirt rider, and I hope to keep the new friends I made along the way for a long time.
I’ll Be Back!
But, more than that, Dirtastic was like therapy. There was no hate, no judging, and no mockery. Everyone was genuinely invested in your success. I got to watch in real time as myself, as well as perhaps 200 other women, become more confident, more sure of ourselves, and so ready to go back home and tackle the world. These women learned how to do some seriously impressive work on dirt bikes; they can do whatever they want.
It’s wild because when you go to the Dirtastic site, you’d swear that this event is about dirt bikes. Really, the dirt bikes are just a vehicle for something greater. I left Dirtastic a better version of me, and I think so many other women did, too. I can’t wait to go back next year.
So, if you have even a passing interest in dirt bikes, I recommend making the pilgrimage to the Dirtastic Main Event next year. If you can’t make it, smaller Dirtastic events are held in eight states and Canada. If you’re on the fence, just do it. You’ll go into it without any idea of what you’re doing, but you’ll come out feeling like a heroine. I know I did.
All images: Author
The post I Joined 200 Women On A Mountain For A Weekend Of High Octane Dirt Bike Thrills And The Motorcycles Weren’t Even The Best Part appeared first on The Autopian.
