Improving My Dirt-Riding Skills
I had been telling Kathy and Mike for years–literally–that I wanted to take their dirt-bike riding class and the time was finally right. I had the time, I had the money, and last week’s forecast called for a high on Sunday of 72. This is August and I didn’t want to roast out in the sun. I checked with Kathy and they had space available so I signed up. (Of course, come Sunday, the forecast was for a high of 86 that day. You take what you get.)
A posed shot of me. No, I wasn't riding without gloves, this is just a posed shot.
These guys live way out north of Strasburg so it’s a good ways out, and the final five miles or so are on gravel roads. Obviously I was going to be going on my V-Strom. But I wasn’t going to ride my V-Strom in the class; too many parts to break if the bike goes down. I would use one of their bikes.
I was a little antsy on the gravel, which of course is exactly why I was taking the course, so I can get more confident on that kind of stuff. I’ve been on some pretty rough roads but I don’t do it enough to really let it become a natural part of me. I’ll jump ahead right here and tell you that when I left, that gravel road was about as big a non-issue as it could possibly be. It’s all a matter of experience and familiarity.
The first thing we did was to work on riding while standing on the pegs and turning the bike by shifting your weight. I’m well accustomed to standing on the pegs but trying to steer just by shifting my weight is another matter. There were cones in a straight line and the idea was to slalom through them without using the handlebars. Let’s just say it would take a lot more practice for me to do this well, but I did manage to do kind of OK. Kind of. No half-day class is going to make you an expert; presumably you are introduced to some techniques that, if you practice, you will eventually get good at.
Next the idea was to ride from cone to cone while standing, up-shifting and then down-shifting, from the standing position. This entails slipping your foot forward to the shift lever and back away each time. And braking with the other foot as you come to a near stop at each cone, also shifting your foot forward and then back on the peg. The idea here is that you ride with your feet back far enough so that you don’t inadvertently shift or brake when you don’t want to. All that moving around of feet while trying to ride a motorcycle standing up does not come naturally. Again, I’d say I did kind of OK. More practice needed.
And then it was time to do some more slalom, only this time with the cones spread wide from side to side. On one side of the track they were widely spaced down the track; on the other they were tight, so that you almost had to make 180-degree turns to go back to the other side to the next cone. The idea here–besides shifting your body weight in a big way–is that you absolutely have to turn your head way around to look into the turn. I understand this. I learned long ago that the farther ahead you look in a turn the more smoothly you can take that turn. But this was a matter of turning far further than you ever would on the street.
So I did OK on the widely spaced cones. I totally failed to do so on the tightly spaced ones. I was grateful that Kathy confided to me that while Mike is good at doing those tight ones, she has never been able to do them herself. And Mike was very forthright that he had every intention of challenging me, throwing things my way that were not going to be easy. If they’re easy, how much are you really learning?
At that point it was time for a break. There was no shade (attempts they have made to create shade all just get blown away by the prairie winds) but at least sit and rest and consume copious amounts of fluids. And you bet my thighs were already burning from all the standing while riding. I was ready for a break.
Biker Quote for Today
Yes, I do have a retirement plan. I plan on riding.
Tags: United Dirt Bike School
