The following article was written by Olivia Ann McGreevy Hildeshiem – NOHVCC’s own Marc Hildeshiem is her Dad. Olivia is a 15-year-old sophomore from Eastern Washington and a lover of animals who hopes to pursue zoology or animal science as a career path in the future. She lives with her parents, two siblings, two dogs, and a cat. When not attending school, participating in after school sports, or tending to her lamb for FFA; Olivia loves riding dirt bikes. Olivia loves riding trails, and can often be found on trail rides with her parents, aunt, uncle, cousins, grandfather, and great-grandfather. You may also remeber her breakout performance in NOHVCC’s Safe and Responsible Use PSA (link below).
From Olivia:
Have you ever had that exciting moment in your life, where you just feel the adrenaline rushing throughout your body? The same moment in which you feel like you could conquer any obstacle that interferes with your life? These moments come quite frequently in my life. In fact, on October 3rd of 2021, I had another situation in which I could feel the adrenaline kick in. Every year, my family and I attend the annual Dusty Cleavage Girl’s Ride, and this year it has been the most exciting one yet.
The past two years, we haven’t been able to attend the ride because of a few broken bones, and then Covid interfered. Think about whenever you ask someone the question, “What’re you looking forward to in the future?” You usually get some generic answer, such as pay day, a new movie, maybe even a concert right? But personally, if you ask me that question, my answer will always be something along the lines of, “I’m looking forward to being able to ride again.” At first people will be like, “You ride horses?” and then I’ll have to explain that I ride something much more “extreme.” Granted, I only ride a small TTR-230, but a 2-wheel motor vehicle is much more spectacular in my opinion.
Now, this annual ride is for females of any age, who just want to come together as a whole, ride some dirt bikes, and possibly win a few prizes. As I said previously, my mother and I have been waiting about 2 years for this event to happen again, and thanks to the many sponsors and the lovely hosts, we were able to attend this year. The hosts set up two trails this year, compared to the one they had a few years back. The trail my mom and I used as a warm up lap was directed around with green arrows, while the more “challenging” one was directed about with red arrows.
My mom and I usually ride together at these events, so once we were both confident enough, we switched to the red trail. When I say this trail was not the hardest I’ve been on I mean it. Hills have never been my specialty, whether it’s up or down. My mom says she personally likes uphills better, I don’t know why. The way I see it, is if I crash going downhill, I’m still technically getting to where I’m supposed to go. If I crash uphill, it’s like I have to restart to get my momentum back. Thankfully, there were no serious crashes, just one small tip over.
The reason I mention the hills is because the red trail had plenty of them. Immediately as you break away from the green arrows to follow the red ones, it becomes a really steep downhill. And like I said, I like downhills better, only in a sense, I get to where I’m going faster. It wasn’t a bad downhill though, just a little slow since it was our first time on that trail. I know you probably don’t want to hear about the entire ride, so I’ll just skip to one of my favorite parts, the steep uphill.
This hill was just slightly less steeper than one of the ones I’ve been on. However, this doesn’t mean it wasn’t challenging. We had many people out on the course to help people, just in case they fell over or something similar. I waited til someone waved me up, before I started up the hill. Now, I want you to try and imagine something with me. Imagine that you are on an incline of about 120 degrees, clutching onto the handlebars with the wind blowing through your helmet. The main thing you’re focused on, is overcoming this challenge of a hill. The only thing in your line of view, is the path in which you will take to the top of the hill, the few trees about 50 feet away from you with sun rays shining through them.
Sounds nice right? Well, this was the moment in which it had occurred to me how much I love dirt biking. I have been dirt biking since I was about 6 years old, but it wasn’t until that moment of realization I knew how passionate I am about this sport. The best feeling in the world, to me, is being able to accomplish something I find challenging without any help. This hill I found a little tough, but I made it up with no help. I did it on my own, and that to me, is all I need.
This event however, wasn’t just to ride our dirt bikes. It was to also have fun with those around us. It’s October, so they held a costume contest. The one that won, was a runaway bride, she decorated her dirt bike and everything! I like to think I came in second though, with my giant blow up unicorn. Everyone who got picked as possible winners, which I was one, got to pick a prize from off the table. Since mom has been asking for new goggles, I grabbed her some. In order to win the rest of the prizes, you had to get your ticket drawn from the jar of the prize you put it in. While they were announcing the winners, we had a potluck, in which I only ate 2 giant pieces of pie.
This weekend was one of the most tiring, yet fun and eventful adventures I have ever had. I not only got to do two of the things I love most, but I got to enjoy myself and get outside for a change. Because of school, sports, and FFA, I don’t get to ride as much as I want to, but whenever I am not exhausted, and I have time, I will ride around our backyard. Being able to be a part of this event has really brought up my spirits, and I can’t wait to participate in the next one.
With that being said, Thank you for taking the time to read this!