Ride Training with RawHyde: Intro to Adv- Part 1 Days 2 and 3

Intro to Adventure
Day 2/3- Saturday/Sunday

Early rise. The evening was quiet, aside from the soothing sounds of grown men snoring and farting harmoniously in the large barracks style tent.

Saturday morning in the group tent, beds made and everyone's out getting their bikes ready

Out of bed and into the riding gear, boots and all. We had quick breakfast and then were off to the coral for bike checks and a debrief/lecture with Jim. He philosophized on the riding of large bikes in dirt and how one should approach their thinking. He discussed confidence, misconceptions, bike handling, balance, weight and the physics of traction. I was selected to assist with a demo whereby he stood atop a loaded 1200 and instructed me to kick the front wheel as hard as I could, to simulate striking a large heavy object with the front wheel ; to demonstrate how posture rigidity can affect your balance and the bikes handling.

After the debrief, we split off into groups based on experience and headed out with the coaches to work on skills. One of the main reasons I'm here is to better by abilities both on and off-road in preparation for Thrukon. There are many riders here of varying ability attacking diverse terrain, which most of the participants have never encountered.

A student hits the apex a little too hot and loses it in a cloud of Tehachapi dust

The author climbing what looked like a much steeper hill in person

During the training there was a section on how to solo-lift a 450lb motorcycle that's lying on its side. While this was an extremely useful skill to have, sadly, my bike was selected as the demo for this lesson. So after about a dozen times of being dropped on its side by the coaches, the valve covers got misaligned and started leaking oil. The group got a impromptu lesson on how to loosen and readjust the valve covers to re-seat them.

Adjusting the valve cover to stop oil from leaking

All-in-all the Intro class was a good opportunity for me to acclimate to the 1200GS and get a feel for its power to weight ratio. Later I would come to find that the suspension was set much too low for my height and I would be adjusting it out in the Mojave desert after bottoming out multiple times on some rather intense terrain littered with basketball sized boulders. It was at this point I realized why I had felt like i was sitting on a steroid powered Vespa.

For the completion of this report, please see the following post >>>