Dirt biker Tatum Hood, junior, was born in Alaska, and had first grown her love for ATVs when she was gifted a small electric four wheeler for her 3rd birthday. Ever since, her passion hasn’t stopped growing. While she was in Alaska, she would go with her parents to go mudding, which is known as an off-road motorsport, in their rhino ATV. They would go off and travel far off through the muddy terrain. Later on in life she moved to Arizona, where she continued to use her four wheeler and dune buggy, both off-road vehicles and took them with her parents to drive off to go to the Glamis Dunes in California.
Now that she lives in Vegas, she goes to closer desert spots like Dumont in California, and Amargosa here in Vegas. Her passion started because of her parents, they both inspired her to do something different, and at the dunes she didn’t want to ride quads like them. Hood rode 3 wheelers and challenged herself to using a dirtbike in 2021. This is where her skill grew widely, starting off small with a Honda CRF 80, mastering that and getting a Yamaha TTR LE 125, mastering that in 2023, and getting even better now with the Yamaha YZ250F. Even now she’s still inspired by her parents because she’s learned and has gained so much skill over the time being, especially because of how much skill it takes to ride a dirt bike itself.
She believes that if there are any beginners, they should start off small first because of risks that riders may face, as well as the challenges that they’ll encounter in the learning process.
“My biggest tip for beginners is START SMALL and work up, you can’t ride a big bike with no experience, things never go right and you could get very very injured. Starting out with a small bike and working your way up will set you up for success, and you will be able to master it! Another tip is start out riding on trails and not the dunes, those are two very different terrains and it takes an art to riding on both of them, it’s better to start out on trails and be able to feel comfortable than riding the dunes. Being able to control your speed, and working the clutch and now killing it, and balancing, the bike I have now weighs 225 lbs. and is about 51 inches tall and it’s difficult at first to balance only one foot when you aren’t moving.”
Hood’s experience has taken her around 4 years, but she doesn’t consider herself a pro, but she’s able to ride many bikes, and uses the power to weight ratio to help her have a smooth ride. She also considers herself to be riding dirtbikes in the near future, and she’ll continue to do it as a hobby.
If it isn’t Hood riding dirt bikes, then it’s her maintaining hers and working on it before any of her dune trips. In the future, she hopes to get a Yamaha 2020 YZ450F.
