Tell Us About Your Ride – She found her 'Woo Hoo!' bike

WEIRS BEACH — Leah Smith bought her first motorcycle before she had ever ridden one. She saw one in the classifieds that she could afford, called the number and told the seller to drop it off. He was kind enough to show her where the throttle, brakes and shifter were. She was 19 at the time.

“I paid cash and taught myself how to ride,” said Smith, who lives in Fitchburg, Massachusetts and works in the HVAC industry.

It wasn’t until more recently, though, that she found her ideal motorcycle – something that’s just as good at climbing a sand dune as rolling through Lakeside Avenue.

That first bike, which she bought 21 years ago, was a Suzuki Savage 650. She rode that bike for ten years, then traded it for another, then traded that bike for a Honda Shadow Spirit. She still has the Honda, which would have been the more comfortable, reasonable machine to ride to Laconia, but it isn’t the one closest to her heart. That’s why she rode her Kawasaki KLX 250, a four-stroke, dual purpose bike with a gray and black camouflage finish.

It’s a bike she likes so much that she bought it twice.

“I had the exact same bike in green and white. A friend of a friend stole it,” she said. That was a couple of years ago. It took a while to work through the insurance company, but when she finally got her payout, she knew what she was going to do with it. “I wanted the exact same bike,” she said.

The KLX wasn’t the kind of bike that fell right into Smith’s wheelhouse. It has high ground clearance for use on narrow, technical trails – which means that the rider has to sit higher. For Smith, that means that she can barely touch the ground with her toes when she’s on the bike.

“It was like learning to ride all over again,” she said. But, as with the Suzuki, Smith didn’t let a lack of skill stop her from jumping on.

Soon the skill came, and one of her favorite places to gain that skill is at a motocross park in Oxford, Massachusetts.

“I ride the hell out of this thing. Mud, sand, hills,” she said, and has found that if she has the guts, the KLX will get her through – or up – whatever.

At the motocross park, there was one feature, a steep, sandy hill she had always shied away from. That was until she saw another rider, on a similar bike, tackle it, so Smith pointed her front wheel at the hill and opened the throttle. To her surprise, the bike went up the hill without skipping a beat.

“I was like, woo-hoo! It was so fun,” Smith said. “I love this bike. If I could go back and do it again, my first bike would be dual sport – this is what I want to ride.”

And that’s why she rode the KLX, and not her cruiser, to Laconia. That, and because she’s not one to blend in with a crowd.

“I like the fact that it’s different,” Smith said. “When I bring this, people notice it.”