I've joined the addiction.

[mithuth]

Originally Posted by greatmaul

That's cool. A lot of the research shows that people with previous dirt bike riding experience are much better riders on the street. They're better able to control the bike and don't freak out if it starts sliding and such.

I was actually kind of disappointed that I couldn't kick the rear end out, but that's probably for the best. lol

I did have my first off road experience with the 250...
I was riding behind my mom (who also rides a gz250 btw) on an old back country road through the forest. We were on a steep up hill that fed into a 25mph, 90 degrees right turn into a down hill. So you were literally changing from up hill to down hill and making a 55mph to 25mph braking all at the same time.
She saw the 25mph sign a bit late and locked up the brakes for a second, hooked a hard right and made the corner. Me, well I was watching the loose dog that was heading out towards the road towards us from the house on the corner, so I wasn't so lucky. I locked up both front and rear in a straight slide, hoping to make a full stop or decent slow so I could let off the brakes and hook the right.
"Nope, not happening," I thought to myself and I immediately went back to dirt bike mode. I saw an access road and let off the brakes so I could control the bike a bit better. I stood up on the pegs and aimed for the access road. Through a big patch of gravel, into a mucky mud hole about 8ft wide and 6ft long I went. I did gently slow the bike and get it back under control pretty quickly.
I turned it around and came back out, avoiding another trip through the mud and gravel as best I could. My mom's face was white as a ghost and her hands were shaking. She was VERY shook by what happened. Me, not so much. Maybe I'm just too stupid to realize the mortal danger I was in, or maybe due to past experience I wasn't in quite as much danger as she felt. Either way, I had a good deep belly laugh about it and told her to give me a little more warning before hard turns, then smiled and rode off.

Edit to add:
I kept teasing her (and still do) that she helped cement in my mind that I need to sell the 800 and get a 450 or 650 on/off bike. lol