We just bought a tiny ATV for our son to practice riding on. He’s too short to touch the ground on our CRF50, and he probably wouldn’t be able to balance anyway, so we decided to go with an ATV for him instead. That way, he can start to learn throttle control and braking, and get used to riding on dirt for a year or so before we put him on the motorcycle.
We went with a really cheap knockoff from China here because we didn’t think it would be worth it to spend $1,000 or more on a Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, or Kawasaki ATV that the boy will outgrow in no time. But we’ve agreed that we won’t let him ride it on a real track with other riders; it’s just going to be a practice rig for dirt terrain. That way, safety shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
So now that we have all these off-road vehicles to haul around, we’re probably going to need one of those big travel trailers to get our stuff to and from the track. Our van, as big as it is, simply isn’t going to cut it in this case.
Today we’re going to go buy a helmet and some boots, then we’ll maybe give the ATV a whirl in the backyard.