By day four, some wiseguy had scrawled nicknames in Sharpie across the upper cowls of our dirt bikes. Lance was Teacher’s Pet. Paul was Friction Zone Queen. Doug was Reason for Lawsuit No. 7.
Mine said The Rookie.
Fair enough. Most of the attendees at this off-road motorcycle camp had at least a few years of riding experience; some had traveled more than 1,000 miles on their adventure bikes to get there. I’d been riding street motorcycles for less than a year. Although I’d recently completed an introductory DirtBike School course through the Motorcycle Safety Foundation in Alpharetta, Georgia, that closed training range was a primer. I struggled to shift gears while standing up and had never crossed a creek, jumped a log, or pointed a bike down anything that even remotely resembled a mountain.
I had come to Traction eRag’s five-day XTADV Cross-Training Adventure Camp for a practical reason: I wanted to become a more capable street rider. Off-road training sharpens the skills that riders need when roads deteriorate or the unexpected appears: potholes, loose gravel, standing water, a cow with no urgency. XTADV teaches those skills on lightweight Honda CRF250 dirt bikes across a 5,000-acre, off-grid private ranch in British Columbia’s Interior Mountains, about an hour outside Kamloops.
I expected the riding to challenge me. I didn’t expect the week to remind me what an actual adventure felt like.
I cover luxury travel for a living, and my trips are planned from dawn to dusk—the hotel reviewed, the scenic overlook pinned, the dinner order chosen before I sit down. Most travelers now work the same way, planning every detail and knowing exactly what to expect at every moment. XTADV runs on the opposite principle: You don’t know what’s coming next.
Riders pause for the view, then chase each other through the dust on wooded trails.
Photo by Nick Dunlop
The camp followed a progressive program, with each new skill building on the last, but founder Dallas Shannon rarely told us in advance what we’d be doing. After breakfast, we geared up and rode to a dewy meadow on his ranch, where we drilled figure eights, practiced slaloms, or played dirt-bike Limbo, ducking beneath a tree branch that dropped ever lower until only the most skilled riders were hanging off the sides of their bikes like circus monkeys. Later, we tested those skills on harrowing single-track trails, through mud pits and ditches, and on murderous uphill runs littered with rocks.
I slept in a tent, wore the same filthy riding gear for five days straight, and never knew which fresh indignity or adrenaline rush awaited me the next day.
Shannon, the former publisher of the irreverent off-roading magazine Traction eRag, is as protective of the camp’s culture as he is proud of its curriculum. He interviews every applicant and will turn them down if he suspects their Red Bull Bro swagger could poison the group dynamic. During orientation, Shannon joked about the ranch’s punch card at the local emergency room and warned everyone to keep their egos tucked in their pants.
That personalized vetting produced a guest list that bore little resemblance to what I had pictured when I heard the phrase “dirt bike camp.” My cohort included lawyers, engineers, real estate professionals, retirees, and new parents from across the United States and Canada. The staff was just as multifaceted. Shannon’s wife, Kaveri, is both an accomplished adventure rider and an infectious disease doctor tasked with looking after “baby birds” like me. Alison, the chef, rides trials. Mark, the mechanic, previously worked as a forensic officer. The senior coach, Tim, is a military veteran lovingly nicknamed Satan. This is the guy they called in when some fool endangered the group. He is also an enormous softie whose fist bumps and high fives became the most coveted currency at camp.
Around the fire each night, conversations veered from horror stories about whiskey-throttle (the panicked grab of the accelerator at exactly the wrong moment) to Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Les Misérables. Dirt bikers proudly call themselves “dirtbags,” but these were thoughtful, accomplished adults who had paid almost US$5,000 to dress like Scout Troopers, sleep in rustic cabins or what the camp calls “luxury safari tents,” and risk looking ridiculous in front of strangers.
Shannon considers mistakes essential. Competence, he told us, comes from failing repeatedly, understanding what went wrong, and trying again. In pep talk after pep talk, he and his coaches asked us to picture the boundaries of our comfort zones, then aim just beyond their edges. They called the fears waiting there our dragons, and every rider had different ones to slay. One of mine was the figure eight.
The figure-eight drill, the author’s first dragon, tests balance in both directions.
Photo by Nick Dunlop
Circling tightly in both directions was hard enough while seated; doing it while standing on the foot pegs threatened to trigger my vertigo. My first attempts left me feeling as though I might vomit inside my helmet. The coaches had me modify the drill, practicing wider circles until I was ready to try again.
When I finally nailed the eights, the other riders erupted into applause. Someone quipped that I’d hired a stunt double. I was still the slowest in our group of 12, but for once I believed the coaches when they assured me I was improving.
The next challenge was a petrifyingly steep ascent, riddled with fat rocks, exposed roots, and a blind corner. More experienced riders had dumped their bikes trying it when Satan ushered me forward. “I should be knitting right now,” I muttered inside my helmet before opening the throttle. My legs flew behind me Superman-style, yet somehow I reached the top. Satan pulled alongside me, grinning, and offered a fist bump. “That’s how it’s done.”
The creek called for a different kind of nerve. I crossed it every morning, gradually learning to pick a path and commit to it. With every successful pass, my confidence grew—ultimately faster than my judgment. On day five, I decided to jump a boulder instead of taking the clear route around it. My front tire struck the rock and sent me careening over the handlebars.
By then, I’d lost track of how many times I’d dropped or crashed my bike. The insides of my knees were black and blue from squeezing the gas tank so hard, but I was also having an absurd amount of fun.
That’s how the week went: terror followed by exhilaration, humiliation followed by progress. A bumpy descent could make street riding feel like a Sunday drive; 10 minutes later, I’d be ripping through the forest in second or third gear, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. “The best rider is the one having the most fun,” Shannon had told us, and now I understood why.
Between drills, riders gather in the meadow where each morning’s session begins.
Photo by Nick Dunlop
Our last group ride was our longest and most beautiful. We dodged piles of bear scat on decommissioned logging roads, rolled off the throttle when an eagle glided between the pines with prey clutched in its talons, and paused for lunch at a deserted beach on a pristine alpine lake. I hung at the back of the group, partly because I was still The Rookie but mostly because I wanted to take it all in.
When we got back to camp, I dropped to the ground and kissed the dirt—stoked to have made it through the week. That night, Shannon handed out awards and mine came last: the Dragon Slayer, which he called the camp’s “highest honor.” I didn’t earn it by being the fastest or most technically proficient rider. I earned it for refusing to let fear have the final word.
On the flight out, I thought about the weird little family I was leaving behind and how good—and rare—it felt to wake up not knowing exactly what the day ahead would hold. I’ll probably never stop researching hotels and restaurants, hitting up friends for insider recommendations, or obsessively planning trips. But maybe the trick is knowing when to pause for a beat—and leaving enough room to be gloriously, occasionally humbled by something you never saw coming.
Only after I got home and unpacked my gear did I notice the lime-size demon sticker Satan had slapped on the back of my helmet. Coming from a rider with decades more experience than I had, it felt like recognition that I’d taken my knocks like a champ.
In 2027, the five-day, six-night XTADV Cross-Training Adv will be offered in May, June, and September. The package includes accommodations, meals, dirt bike rental, and more. It costs US$4,975 per person. Solo travelers are welcome. Apply here.
