The Long View

Two weekends ago I was back at Rich Oliver's Mystery Camp, this time with my better half Peter.

As I expected, Peter had no trouble on the 125cc dirt bikes and came away with a better appreciation of the range of bike handling skills one needs if one is going to ride cross-country. Thanks to Rich's good teaching, I was much improved (with still a long way to go) from my first visit in February. By the second day, I was sliding my rear tire and not freaking out about it, in fact, I was grinning.

Even better, one of the guys in my class decided to run right through the middle of a tiny mud pond creating a lovely mud rooster tail which splattered me well enough to get slurry through my shirt and into my bra. He lost traction, went wide and fell off his bike while the mud-covered slow person in the group passed by.



I can't say enough good things about what Rich and Karin Oliver are doing with their school. Rich is one of the smoothest riders I've ever seen, and he is natural teacher who can adapt on the fly to the needs of a wide variety of personalities. If you can tear your eyes away from your fellow classmates and watch Rich teach, you'll see that over the two days his eyes shine with delight as he sees people's confidence and abilities increase. He understands that baby steps are easy for everyone but the baby.

Karin cooks healthy, tasty, beautifully presented lunches. Never before have I been told so graciously to leave the dirty dishes alone. And she's no slouch rider. She was lapping most of us, and, it was great fun to have her two kids riding with us. Her daughter, 11 year-old Megan, hadn't planned on riding the last 25-lap "race" with the class but she and I made a deal - even though I was mentally tired and not really up for 25 laps with other tired riders at the end of the day (a lesson learned from track days) - I told Megan if she would ride I would ride and so we did.

If you aren't reading World Rider, I recommend the blog to you. This entry has pictures of a couple, Billy Gibson and Trisha Cotton, who left Australia six months ago and are on their way to Cape Town, South Africa. He's on an older BMW 650 GS, she's riding a Kawasaki Super Sherpa, a 250cc bike.

Rich Oliver's dirt bike "fun camp" is run on a flat track. He has an "adventure riding" course as well - I'm likely to return for that at some point. There's a big gap between a 125cc bike on a flat track and a bad ass adventure touring machine on rough roads, but finding my way across that gap is the path I've set for myself.

In September I'm going to try my luck on a 650GS at RawHyde Adventures, a rider training school specializing in big bikes like the 1200 GS. I met the owner, Jim Hyde at CalMoto over a year ago. He has a Ladies Only course offering which includes fundamentals:

• An introduction to dirt riding techniques and the top mistakes most people make
  
• Body position for effective off road riding
  
• Throttle brake and clutch techniques
  
• Balance techniques
  
• Turning technique using counterbalancing
  
• Obstacle avoidance
  
• How to control front and rear wheel skids
  
• Hard Acceleration technique on dirt and gravel
  
• Hill Climbing
  
• Descending steep hills in a controlled manner
  
• How to ride in Sand and Gravel
  
• How to recover from a stall on a steep hill.
  
• How to turn around, fully loaded on a steep hill
  
  [I wonder if Jim has seen Richard's Kuhn's method?]
  

When I read about women like Trisha Cotton riding across Africa on a 250cc bike, I wonder what the heck I'm thinking as I watch a youtube video of the 800GS - well, no harm in drooling - I'll be able to throw a leg over one in September at the dealership. I've had a flyer from Rawhyde Adventures on my refrigerator door for months but I wasn't ready to sign up. I'm signed up now!