Jordan River MX

This past weekend Sam and I went up to Salt Lake to ride at the Jordan River OHV park. It has 3 MX tracks and 1 grand prix track. I was pretty excited since this would be the first MX track I'd ever ridden on.

The first thing I noticed when we got there was that I was the only guy on a quad. Everyone else was on a dirt bike. I'm still not sure if this was a sign of things to come, or if dirt bikes are just that much more popular in Utah.

After surveying the scene we found that the 3 MX tracks are are divided into novice (less than 125cc has right of way), beginner (greater than 90cc), and advanced (greater than 125cc Motorcycles only).

Since we both could, we both headed for the beginner track to see what this MX hype was all about. After the first turn there was a nice tabletop that got me pretty excited about how things were looking. After the second turn I ran into the mud. This track was had some very muddy sections. Two small jumps were totally unjumpable due to the mud, and one huge tabletop that should have been the biggest air of the whole track was trashed because of the mud.

After we both did a few laps, and repeatedly hit a long step-up at the end of the track Sam decided he wanted to see if the advanced track was in any better shape. Night and day difference. The advanced track was well groomed, had no mud and had about 3 times the amount of jumps. While many of the jumps were above Sam's current skill level, he ended up spending the rest of the day there because the track was in such better shape.

I hope you can feel the frustration pouring out of my words. If we are both riding quads, Sam and I are very similar in skill level. However, since he just picked up dirt biking, I am a much better rider on a quad than he is on a bike. Being delegated to the beginner muddy track while he was able to ride on the nice advanced track soured the experience further for me. It's clearly not a matter of keeping up. I'm not a great track rider, and I don't have the best track quad, but I'm still a better rider than many of the dirt bikers I saw there.

I'm hoping that I just hit the park on a bad day, and the beginner track is usually in far better condition. I do want to go back again some time (hopefully just after the beginner track is groomed) so I can experience the track with my riding ability holding me back not the riding conditions. However the fact that by the end of the day I'd only seen one one other quad riding MX made me think that this wasn't an isolated experience. Quad riders weren't coming then leaving early, they weren't showing up at all.

I hope Sam chimes in with his thoughts on the advanced track as well as the beginner track.

I did find that for track riding my Z is really underpowered. The one nice tabletop that wasn't muddy had too short a runway for my Z. No matter how hard I tried the furthest I could jump was about 5 feet before the down slope. I'm sure on a 450 I could have easily cleared it.

Overall I had a lot of fun, but not nearly as much as I feel like I could or should have. It's not somewhere I'd go every weekend especially with the $10 per rider fee and the hour drive. However I would like to go once or twice a year just for the experience. I hope in the future they do a better job of grooming the beginner track. As well as either letting ATV's on the advanced track, or building ATV's their own advanced track.