Road Trippin’

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Whew, I have been super busy with my Ashley Fiolek MX School. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to teach at first, but it’s been fantastic. I also find it inspirational to work with so many different people who, like me, are excited to ride.

My friend, Ryan, and I decided to load up my truck with our dirt bikes and my dog, Bambi, and head to Florida to ride, teach classes, and visit my family. It was a crazy trip because we wanted to drive nonstop. With three bikes and a pooch, it would have been hard to get everything unloaded; into a hotel room for the night; and then reloaded back on the truck the next morning. So, Ryan and I took turns driving, while the other rested.

As you can imagine, we got pretty silly along the way, taking Snapchat pics of each other sleeping. My parents kept texting us to take breaks, but we pushed it! We made it to Florida in about 36 hours—not too shabby— even though we had to keep stopping here and there to let Bambi out to handle her business.

Once we were back in the Sunshine state, Ryan and I rode at a couple of tracks near my home. We also went over to Croom Motorcycle Area at Withlacoochee State Forest. It’s so much fun there, with miles and miles of forest; you can ride through it and encounter all different kinds of obstacles, which makes it a cool challenge. We even took a little break from the bikes, and met my mom and brother down at a Disney water park.

So after our mini vacation, Ryan flew back home, and my friends Kate and Ashley J. arrived to help with the drive back to California. They also assisted with my MX clinics along the way. I had six of them in different states: Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado! That’s a lot of road tripping!

Of course there were some funny things that happened along the way. When I was doing my class in Louisiana, Kate, went into the portable toilet. It was an unforgettable experience for her. Apparently, she thought her phone had fallen in, so she panicked, and wound up falling into the toilet herself! I could hear her screaming to Ashley while I was teaching my class: “Where is some water? I need to wash off NOW!” she yelled. Now she’s scarred for life!

Late one night, Ashley and I were driving to Colorado, we were starving

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and had no wifi signal to search for a restaurant. When we’d almost given up on finding food, we came up on a Sonic. We ate and continued on, but then had to stop for gas.

I opened up my door to get out, when a can of soda fell out and exploded all over my legs! I turned to look at Ashley, who was busy scouring the truck for something. “Oh no, where’s my credit card?” she said. That’s when we realized that we’d left it at the Sonic, and had to trek all the way back. Luckily the guy who waited on us had the card.

That morning we made it to our hotel and got a few hours sleep before my class. We were headed to the track when we got a flat. When I contacted AAA, they came out but didn’t have the right tool, so they had to tow me to a shop. The man who put on my new tire asked my name and why I was in town. “ Oh yeah, I know who you are,” he told me, “my son is taking your class this morning!” Talk about a small world! The whole trip was crazy and wonderful and an amazing way to spend a summer month!