Why this book: Recommended by my Brother-in- Law Jimmy Phipps who is an avid dirt-biker.

Summary in 5 Sentences: An enterprising young man in his late teens, growing up in a small town in  Pennsylvania is gifted a used dirt-bike by his father, an avid dirt biker himself.  After getting comfortable on his “new” bike, he learns that the original owner who lives in California wanted badly to purchase it back, so the young man agrees, and decides to ride the bike across country to deliver it. The story is about that trip, and then jumps ahead 40+ years to when the young man is in his 60s, and is able to find that bike and buy it back once again. Now a 60+ year old man, he decides to relive his youthful adventure and ride it back from California to Pennsylvania. 

My Impressions: A short (150 pp) and fun read – a book written BY a dirt-biker, ABOUT a dirt-biker, and FOR dirt bikers – which I am not.  That said, I did thoroughly enjoy this short coming-of-age novel taking place initially during the window when I was the age of the young protagonist (late 1960s.) 

The year is 1969 and Mitch is an 18 year old young man, a clearly humble and well brought up teenager, whose father had instilled in him good values.   A year or so earlier, Mitch’s father had seen a used Yamaha DT-1 dirt bike for sale and thought it a good bike for Mitch to get started on. The Yamaha DT-1 was a relatively small, safe and well-regarded dirt bike, so Dad bought it for his son, and he and his son spent a year or so working on it, and Mitch learning to ride it.  During that time Mitch learned to maintain, ride and do simpler repairs to it, and became a decent dirt biker.  Being 18 years old in 1969, he was subject to the draft and so decided to join the Navy, which meant selling his bike.  But before he could sell it, Mitch was contacted by the original owner who lived in California, who badly wanted to buy that specific  bike back, since it had belonged to his son, who’d been killed in Vietnam.  Since Mitch was going to sell it anyway, he  agreed, and then decided to undertake one more great adventure before joining the Navy, and deliver it by riding it across country. 

Part of the challenge of dirt biking cross-country is that there are not always good dirt roads and tracks through parts of America, so Mitch had to get his bike certified as street-legal for him to ride when there were no dirt tracks, or where the terrain was impossible or dangerous for dirt riding.  He was on a pretty tight budget, so planned to camp most nights, so he had to carry a small tent and sleeping bag.  He’d shop for cheap food along the way, but mostly ate poor-quality pre-prepared sandwiches that he bought at gas stations and truck stops.  About once a week,  Mitch would find a cheap motel and get a good night’s sleep and a shower.  He avoided streets and highways when and wherever he could, and some of the tracks he was riding were very rough and challenging. Dirt biking over such rough terrain was physically demanding, forcing him to ride slowly and carefully and long days of such riding exhausted him.  He’d normally cover about 150 miles a day, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on weather and terrain.

During his trip across America, Mitch had several mis-adventures, and his lack of experience  challenged his ability to adapt, improvise, and overcome.   But Mitch proved to be remarkably resourceful and resilient for an 18 year old.  In one case he had a small accident out all alone in the country, and banged himself and his bike up, but was able to continue and later recover and repair his bike.  In another instance, he lost track of fuel and ran out of gas.  In another incident, his bike simply broke  down on a remote track in Texas, and though he was a pretty good mechanic, nothing he tried to repair it got it running again.   In each case he had to find, ask for and accept help from sympathetic strangers who on several occasions, saved his bacon. In the case of the breakdown, he found a local bike mechanic who determined that the bike needed a new part, which had to be ordered  from California, which (then) took 2 weeks. During that window, Mitch took a physically demanding job working for an oil exploration company, stayed in a cheap motel, and made what-for-him was good money at $35/day, until the part came in and he was able to continue to California.

On arriving in California, he bonded well with the original owner of the bike – who took on a father-figure/mentor role to Mitch, and introduced him to the dirt biking community in Los Angeles.  There Mitch had some memorable experiences, seeing and experiencing things that  an 18 year old, doesn’t see in a small town in Pennsylvania.  The wide-eyed excited young Mitch then returns to Pennsylvania by commercial airline,  and joins the Navy.

The book then jumps ahead 40 years.  Mitch had served 4 years in the Navy,  been married and divorced, then married again and his wife had passed away. He had returned to his home town, succeeded as a small business man, and was getting ready to retire. Looking back with nostalgia on his adventure as a young man dirt biking crossing the country, Mitch decided to try to find that same bike.  He contacted some of the people he’d met when in LA as a young man delivering the bike,  learned that his old mentor who’d bought his bike 40 years earlier, had since passed away. After some more clever sleuthing and a few phone calls, Mitch located the man who then owned that same bike. That man was a bike collector and didn’t want to sell the bike, but Mitch made him a very generous offer and he accepted. 

The final part of the book is the older version of Mitch flying out to California, connecting well with the owner of his old bike.  The two of them got along well, got drunk together, had some fun, good-ole-boy dirt biking adventures together for a week or so.  Then Mitch decided to relive that old adventure, and ride the bike back to Pennsylvania.

This time he opted to stay in motels, and he had the money to deal with any exigencies.  The older Mitch also had a few misadventures, including close to the end of his ride, being hit by a car, which injured him and the bike, but not seriously.   But the one  story that comes to mind was when his bike was stolen from in front of his motel room, and how Mitch was able to find the thief – by looking in the papers for someone selling parts to a Yamaha DT-1. He eventually finds the parts seller, agrees to meet him to buy the parts, and determines that these parts are from his bike.  He tells the seller he’d like to buy the rest of the parts, and when the seller takes him to his garage, Mitch pulls a gun on the guy, gets his bike back, takes the guy out into the country, shoots him in both knees, calls the police and tells them where that thief is sitting wounded, and the address where they can find a garage full of stolen bikes. He then takes off. Mitch had covered his tracks well, so that no one knew who he was, or where he was heading. 

Mitch finally makes it back home to Pennsylvania, and both Mitch and the Yamaha are pretty beat up,  both in much need of some rest and restoration.  Which makes for a happy ending.

If this sounds like a book you’d like to read, and are interested in this book, the author’s contact info is in the book: Rick Sieman at superhunky@gmai.com  520-413-2596.  Also I found another review of it at: https://ultimatemotorcycling.com/2025/07/13/the-last-ride-by-rick-sieman-book-review-riders-library/#:~:text=After%20Don’s%20death%2C%20Mitch%20decided,off%2Droad%20all%20the%20way!