Next up after the break was something I had done before, except this was on steroids. In the Beginning Rider Course one of the things they work on with you is riding over obstacles in the road. The generic obstacle generally used is a 2×4.

Let’s face it, in real life, all you really have to do to go over a 2×4 is to go over it. It will be a bump but not much more. In this case, Mike substituted a 6×6 landscaping timber. Now we’re talking an actual obstacle. This is the kind of thing–size-wise–you could actually run into on a trail.

The key here is to shift your weight back on the seat and goose the throttle just before you get to it so as to drop the rear end of the bike down and bring the front up, and in the process unweight the front tire so it goes easily up and over. Then you need to instantly back off the throttle and slide forward on the seat. The first time I tried it I dumped the bike and went sprawling. No damage done to me or the bike. Get back on and try again. Mike said the problem was my timing; I hit the throttle too soon and had already lost my front-end loft before I just plowed head-on into the beam.

Next time–and really, every other time–I did better. That was my only dump for the day. Some times were smoother than others, and in more than a couple instances I got smacked soundly on the butt as the rear end went over the beam, jacking up in the air in the process. So it was cool–I had never gone over anything that large before. Good to have some practice.

And that was another thing. I was in a class of one student. That meant I could keep doing things over and over again until I felt like I had them down. It doesn’t work that way when there are a bunch of other students all wanting their crack at it.

So then we headed for the hills. Small hills. The deal was just to ride up the slope and arc around and come back down. The idea here was to get your weight forward on the uphill, swing your weight to the outside of the turn while turning, and then move your weight rearward while coming down the hill. This was not at all hard to do, it’s just a matter of learning that this is what you need to do in this situation.

After that we traversed the slope. That is, we went up on the slope and then rode across the side of the hill with the slope going up on one side and down on the other. And then down the slope. Then back the other direction. The one additional element was to put your weight on the downhill side of the bike, which was to give the tires as good a purchase on the surface as possible. I’ll have more to say about that in a later post. At my request, we did it a couple times and discussed exactly what was going on and why. Doing it was easy; once again it was a matter of learning that this is what you need to do.

And next we did some trail riding. Mike and Kathy have 35 acres, with the house up by the road and all the rest of the property down the hill to the rear. The training track is down where things level off again and the whole area between the track and the house is tall grass. Mike has mowed an extremely twisty trail all through this area with more than a few really tight turns. It’s good because there are no rocks, no holes, no logs, and so if you can’t quite make a turn you just run wide and it doesn’t matter in the least. But of course you want to stay on the path and make the turns. This is what you’ve been training for all day.

Off we went. Once again, making all these curves often required really, really turning your head way around to see into the turn. It was good that Mike had pointed out to me along the way that I would do best if I would put the bike in one gear and leave it there, rather than trying to work the clutch. Dirt bikes can rev very low without stalling so you just work the throttle. That gives your mind more bandwidth to process all the other things you’re trying to do at the same time.

Covering probably 15 times the distance it would have been in a straight line, we worked our way up to the house and if my recollection is correct, I made it all the way staying on the trail, no matter how tight the turns. And I was totally out of breath. Riding a dirt bike can be hard work!

OK, said Mike, what do you want to do next?

Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re becoming addicted to riding when you have rubbed your wife’s steering wheel raw trying to figure out why you can’t roll the throttle wide open.

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 couple days later Kathy called me to say two students had canceled and the only other one was a 10-year-old girl who had never ridden a motorcycle. Did I want to do my class with her or would I prefer to come in the afternoon and have a class all to myself? I opted for the latter.

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.