General Discussion Forum

I've been riding motorcycles off paved roads since the early eighties, but I've never looked forward to doing so. From my first attempts in the Nevada desert aboard Norton street bikes, to later misadventures on a Honda XR350, right up to epic trips to Baja and Utah on the trusty R100GS, dirt has always been something I put up with in order to reach interesting places, not an attraction in itself. My riding buddies had shared the occasional tip, but most of them involved going pretty fast and just bouncing over the rough stuff. The Honda had taught me that there's a lot more to it than that, usually by pitching me off when my mind lost pace with the events unfolding in front of the handlebars. Lots of companies offer off road schools, but they all seemed geared more toward budding motocrossers than ageing Walter Mitty types on 600 pound ground pounders. But when I got wind of a class put on by Jimmy Lewis I was immediately interested. Jimmy is an ex-factory racer for BMW, and has contested the Paris/Dakar on four occasions, usually campaigning BMW twins much like the R100GS. I figured if anybody knew how to handle one of these monsters, it was Jimmy. But the real trick would be teaching a bone head like me how to do it.

An email to Jimmy Lewis Racing got the ball rolling, and Heather Lewis' prompt response told me I was in the right place:

"90% of our students are just like you. They ride off-road because the roads take them somewhere. Jimmy and I are the opposite. We ride the street because it takes us to the dirt roads. However we have had lots of practice teaching people like you. Most of our students want to learn how to ride their loaded large dual sport bike in the sand and on technical roads. The way we teach you to do this is to take the out-of-control situation and put it into a controlled environment or situation. We teach you how to use the clutch, throttle and brakes to control the bike in the off-road environment. Much of the drills that we have you do are slow and take lots of control with the clutch, throttle and brakes and balance. But if you master the drills you will be just fine in the situations that you described. The strange thing for street riders that bugs them is the wheels sliding around on the gravel or dirt roads. If this happens on the street this is a problem so when you feel the sliding on the dirt you think "oh no! Problem", but in the dirt you can use this sliding to your advantage in complete controlled situations. When you leave our class you will probably want to explore more dirt roads just because they are dirt roads and they lead to cool places."

Heather's insights were right on target, and I quickly got my deposit down for the class. The first week in October couldn't come fast enough, and would be a nice reward for the intense business travel schedule that would have me away from motorcycling for most of September. But I was also concerned because that same travel schedule would keep me from toning up, and I knew I'd be hammered dog meat if I didn't get some conditioning in. Then there was getting the bike ready in time. I still had a little carb tuning to do on the R100GS, and I had yet to try out the Dunlop 606 dual sport tires on the spare wheels. And a little voice in my head told me I should check out my fifteen year old riding gear to make sure it would still work. Surprisingly the motocross pants still fit, but the Bell Moto3 helmet would take some clean up. Sweat had rusted the D-rings on the strap, and the thin foam at the top had rotted out. But with a little polishing and some scraping, it would do. The elastic band on my old goggles was stretched out of shape, and local shops could only offer to sell me a new pair for $35, something I wasn't keen on since I'd probably only use them once for this class. So I made do with adjusting out the slack. Somehow I managed to get it all sorted out, and convince myself that the factory jetting would be just fine on the GS. While I didn't get much hard core exercise in, I knew that with enough Motrin I could always suffer my way through.

The last day in September saw me droning my way south through California's Central Valley on Interstate 5, the knobbies singing a happy song, but the bike serving up an alarming weave at speeds over 75. The 606s weren't a good match for the GS on the road, especially in their nearly new condition. I'd have been better off taking the two lane back roads down to Las Vegas, but the hotel Jimmy was basing the course out of threatened a shortage of non-smoking rooms if I didn't arrive before late afternoon. So I chose to put up with the wobble, humoring myself with comedians on the satellite radio in the tank bag. Eight and a half hours and one repaired ground lead later I rolled into the parking lot at Buffalo Bills which straddles the state line between California and Nevada on Interstate 15. It was the usual drill with casinos: Find a door, then wander aimlessly until I found the front desk, all the while dodging slot machines and fat gray hairs out to win their fortune. Even though I made it by three thirty, there were a couple dozen people in line ahead of me checking in. No worries, though, and when my turn came they had my reservation and a nice non-smoking room near the lot where I'd parked. Good thing, too, since my next job was humping my gear to the room, including the fully loaded Jesse bags. It didn't occur to me to let a bell hop do it for me, and the clerk at the front desk didn't offer. Luckily the temperatures were in the low nineties and the air conditioner worked great. A shower was all I needed before dinner, conveniently provided by a Tony Roma's just off the main gaming floor. With ribs and a pint tucked under my belt I hit the sack in hopes of being well rested for the rigors of the next day. That plan came to an end at about 3:30 AM when late returning revelers spread their noisy cheer up and down the hallway, and my excitement/nervousness kept me from going back to sleep.

I finally gave up the toss and turn at around 6:00 AM and got ready to ride. I stuffed my Camelback with water, wallet, money, and keys, slipped into my gear, donned my Darien jacket and Sidi dirt boots and tromped my way out to the parking lot. The GS fired right up, and as I left the parking lot I found a spot where a few more GS and KTM dual sports were parked. I wandered around for a bit looking for Jimmy's motor home, finding Doug on his R1200GS on the same mission. With only one more place to look, we joined the majority of the other students in checking in and finishing off the balance of our $500 course fee. Formalities concluded, we were invited to park a folding chair in the shade of the motor home and begin our lesson.

Jimmy had just finished spooning a fresh set of Conti TKC80s onto his R1200GS, which he wheeled before us to use in his lecture. He went over the basics of bike handling, emphasizing how important it was to keep the bike balanced. He asserted that lots of people wear themselves out holding the motorcycle up when they could save lots of work by keeping it balanced on the tires instead. He demonstrated by stepping off the big GS and holding it up with one finger on the bars, then showing how much work it took to keep it from falling over with only a few degrees of lean. Throwing a leg back over the saddle, Jimmy showed us that only one foot on the ground was needed to keep the machine at the balance point, and the off foot need not even be on a peg to do so. Jimmy's not a big guy, and to watch him nimbly manage the GS was confidence inspiring. It was a revelation to me, since I seem to spend a lot of time wrestling the handlebars at low speed and when stopped.

Next topic was body position which Jimmy describes as a natural standing posture. Legs straight or slightly bent at the knees, back straight, arms outstretched to the bars with hands lightly resting on the grips. If needed, students were instructed to bend at the waist to reach the bars, since bending the knees too much overworked the muscles in the thighs. This was another "ah ha" moment, as my usual posture had my butt hovering over the saddle and knees bent almost double. Jimmy's emphasis on minimizing effort stems from his long hours of desert rally racing where eliminating even the smallest energy waste was a significant competitive advantage. As I was to see later, the same applies to overweight, out of shape weekend warriors.

This is Jimmy on his way to the ideal braking position. Elbows out, bending at the waist, knees still almost straight, the idea is to get as much weight back and behind the seat as possible to resist the braking forces being applied by the wheels. When in full crouch, his butt was almost behind the passenger seat and his chest fully behind the fuel tank. His right hand works the front brake while his right foot is on the rear brake pedal. Brake application is modulated, and he repeatedly cautioned against slamming, since that was apt to break traction and end in a slide. Oh, and riders with newer bikes need to disable the ABS, since there are lots of times when the rider wants the tires to slide.

With the basics out of the way, Jimmy and Heather went on to describe the exercises we'd be working on. Most of them would be done standing up, so we'd start with posture and riding position, then do some braking exercises, followed by acceleration drills, sliding, combination drills, and finally some trail situations where we'd try our hand at some sand. DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) had commandeered the lot Jimmy normally uses for the drills, so we all moved to a near by dry lake bed, which turned out to be ideally suited to our purposes.

Looking back toward Primm from the dry lake bed.

At the start of each drill, Jimmy, and sometimes Heather, would demonstrate what we'd be doing. They took great pains to explain why the drill was structured the way it was, what they wanted us to get out of it, and what the hazards were if we got it wrong. We were encouraged to ask questions, and to stop whatever we were doing if we felt uncomfortable. Jimmy asserted that if we hit our un comfort limit it was because we didn't understand what we were supposed to do, either because we hadn't heard it right or he'd not explained it clearly enough. Either way all we had to do was ask a question and he'd get us back on track.

First drill was riding while standing on the pegs. We were to weight and un weight the foot pegs left to right and observe that weight on inside peg steers bike in that direction. On the trail ride the following day I found that this works very well in deep sand/gravel. Heather encouraged us to keep our feet moving on the pegs to better distribute weight and pressure over the course of a day.

Next up was a rear braking drill where we were to skid to a stop in a straight line. After we got comfortable with that and were able to keep the bike under control, we used a little butt english to slide rear end out to one side, again braking to a stop. Jimmy cautioned us not to let up on the brake until we were stopped, as doing so would probably result in a high side, with us being thrown off the machines. The ultimate evolution of this maneuver was to turn slightly to the left or right and skid rear wheel, again to a stop. During all of this we kept the speed low, no more than 20 MPH or so, and we used only the rear brake, always leaving it on until we stopped.

Front braking was next on the agenda. Jimmy stressed that what we were about to do was not good riding practice, but was intended only to get us used to the feeling of the front wheel skidding. While giving bike gas, we gradually applied the front brake until front wheel skided. We released the brake when bike started to fall or otherwise misbehave. The idea was to see how far we could skid the front wheel, and still keep control of the motorcycle. Evidently I did rather well at this exercise, since Jimmy commented how torn up the leading edges of the knobs on my front tire were.

The emergency stop drill combined front and rear braking. It was a four step process: roll off the throttle, pull in the clutch, butt goes back but stays above seat, arms out front but not stiff, then hit the back brake while modulating front. That's a lot to remember all at once, so we started slow and deliberate, gradually reducing the time between each step until it became one very short sequence. Done properly, the bike would come to a full stop and we could keep it balanced while we chose which foot to put down. Usually though, we'd be just a little unbalanced at the end and be reaching out with a foot to keep from falling over. Jimmy had us practice until we could pick which foot to use, an especially tricky feat if you wanted to put your right foot down.

The last drill of the morning was the wheelie, and it was one that I had been looking forward to. I've only managed to wheelie a motorcycle on a few occasions, almost all of them unintentional. Yet being able to loft the front wheel at will was a very handy skill off road and sometimes makes the difference between a smooth ride and a bent rim. Jimmy had us approach it in several steps. First we rode around snapping open the throttle, looking for a speed where we got the most forward lunge in first gear. Some of the faster bikes could loft the wheel with just throttle action, but not my GS. Next we feathered the clutch as we increased the RPMs, then snapped it out to feed the flywheel energy into the back wheel. Jimmy showed us how we could modulate the clutch with just two fingers, using the other two to hang onto the handlebar. Only a small motion of the lever was required, and if the clutch lever was adjusted properly so that we could disengage the clutch fully with the lever resting on the two fingers still grasping the bar, only a small effort was needed. I had a lot of trouble with this, as my stiff clutch and weak left hand combined to tire me out very quickly. The fat Gran Turismo grips made it hard to get a good grasp of the bars with just my little and ring fingers as well. The next step in the exercise was to jerk up and back on the handlebars as we released the clutch. At that point I was really tired, and felt I had only a weak grip on the left handlebar and very little control. I was a little uncomfortable with the exercise, and went over to talk it over with Jimmy. He said most airhead riders had trouble with wheelies, and suggested I drop fanning the clutch and see how that worked. I was able to get the front wheel very light with just the throttle and jerk, and several times got it a few inches into the air. But at least I knew the recipe now, and maybe swapping the grips out to something thinner would help. After the class I noticed that the clutch on the R1200GS is much lighter, and look forward to wheelie practice on that bike in a vacant lot.

About this time we noticed Jimmy and Heather heading back to the motor home, and since it was about noon, I figured we were due for lunch. Sure enough, by the time I rolled to a stop there was a table laid out with deli style meats, cheeses, wholesome breads and all the fixins, along with all the soft drinks and cold water a rider could want. Even better were the stories Jimmy told as we ate, about the testing he was doing for BMW on the new HP2 (he had his test mule there for us to drool over), about his Paris Dakar rides, and about his plans for the future. Jimmy is clearly a thinking rider, and he's refreshingly candid and modest about his accomplishments. He's a good communicator, too, and his coaching and story telling come from the vantage point of one that's been there, and has thought about how events happened and what the most appropriate response is. Lunch concluded, we resumed with the drills.

After lunch we started a new series of exercises. First up was an acceleration drill: accelerate to red line in first gear with the throttle pinned wide open. We were told to feel rear wheel spin, and how the rear end wanders around. Also how power falls off as RPMs go over highest power point. Jimmy told us to just let the bikes run into the rev limiter, and seemed surprised when I reminded him that the two R100GS riders didn't have rev limiters. We were told to just watch the tach and notice when the power fell off. So off I went, breaking the rear wheel loose right from the get, rooster tailing off into the dry lake. The motor pulled strongly all the way to red line, no power fall off at all that I could feel. That's probably more due to the very low first gear than anything else. After a dozen or so of those, we gathered 'round again and were told to repeat the exercise, this time using first gear to just get the bike rolling, then snicking into second. Even with the throttle at the stop, the rear wheel had more traction and didn't seem to be slipping nearly as much. Again the bike pulled strongly all the way to red line, and again I didn't detect any power fall off. But the lesson was clear: If you're looking for traction, get out of first as soon as you can because throttle modulation is much easier in second.

The next exercise involved turning. Riding in circles to be exact. Jimmy showed us how to weight the outside peg, with the inside foot off the peg (sitting on the saddle). He demonstrated that pointing the inside foot (leg straight and outstretched dirt track style) controlled the radius of the circle. Point the inside foot forward and you get a wide circle, perhaps five to ten bike lengths in diameter. Move the inside foot back toward the peg and the circle magically tightens, in my case to something like three or four bike lengths. Then Jimmy slid his fanny off the seat to the outside of the circle, still weighting the outside peg, and decreased speed. The circle tightened even more, to the point where just a couple of bike lengths were needed to completely reverse direction. When it came my turn for this I was surprised at how easy and stable it was to make really tight turns with my butt off the outside side of the seat. Even more surprising, sliding from one outside position to the opposite side smoothly flipped the bike into turning in the opposite direction, again as if by magic. I started looking around about this time, noticing a dozen or so motorcyclists spinning dizzy circles on the dry lake bed, and wondering what someone stumbling upon the scene would think. I also noticed that the smoother than normal ground I was enjoying happened to be part of a make shift road, and there was indeed a big black Suburban headed my way. I sheepishly zigged out of the way, and did notice a bit of confusion on the driver's face.

At the start of the afternoon's training Jimmy had noted that some of the exercises would tax various components on the bike: the acceleration tests were straining the motors, while the brake tests of the morning were hard on the pads and generated a lot of heat in the rotors. So Jimmy tried to spread the work around, separating brake intensive drills with ones that worked the motor, or ones that weren't hard on much of anything like our circle spinning. The next exercise had us back to emergency stops, but this time the task was to transition as fast as possible from max acceleration to max braking. After Jimmy demonstrated we observed that the rut roosted by his back wheel stopped just a couple of feet before it started to skid, demonstrating a transition time of just a fraction of a second. This was another drill that required lots of concentration: Whack open the throttle, then roll off, pull in the clutch, butt back and off the seat, arms outstretched, quickly but smoothly apply both front and rear brake, and pick the side you want your foot to come down on. Pick the right side for extra points. To make it even more interesting, Jimmy carved out a series of lines across the dry lake with his rooster tailing HP2, then had us try to stop just short of the line. There were three distances to choose from, the shortest at somewhere close to ten feet, the widest perhaps three times that. Since Jimmy and Heather would be moving between the lines to indicate which we were to stop at, we had to judge when to stop accelerating and transition to the brakes. I found that I could stop way faster than I could accelerate, even on the dirt of the lake. But I also found I often forgot to get my weight back far enough, instead grabbing the tank with my knees to keep myself from sliding forward. Old bad habits again. And I also learned deliberation: trying to do everything too fast often meant I didn't do something right.

Jimmy hamming it up for Jon's camera. That's his HP2.

Next up was the barrel race. We were to accelerate hard toward a cone, brake and slide out the rear wheel to set up for a turn around the cone, slip our butt off the seat to the outside, weight the outside peg, circle the cone once, then straighten out the bike and accelerate hard toward the finish line, then emergency brake to the line, but don't cross it. This drill brought everything together from the afternoon's work, and again it was a challenging exercise. The runs were made four abreast, so there was even a slight competitive aspect to it. And again Jimmy's demo made it look deceptively easy, but my first try had me in a very lopsided orbit of the cone, turning in too close at the start and ending up way beyond it before I could get turned around again. But I was able to get the back end sliding around to set up the turn, and weight to the outside definitely tightened things up. And while I wasn't always first back to the line, I wasn't last, either.

After another brake for water (Jimmy lets Heather schlep around a backpack full of bottled water for those that don't bring along a camel back) we got some instruction on sand riding. Now I'd rather do almost anything than try to ride a GS in sand, including go to the dentist and have my teeth drilled. But after the progress I'd made so far, I was hoping maybe Jimmy had a little magic trick to make all those troubles go away. Such was not to be, as I found that even Jimmy has trouble going slow in the sand. And that brings up my own personal sand dilemma. Racers like Jimmy go fast and stay on top of the sand where they can maintain a fair amount of control and work a lot less to keep going. That's great when you're in dunes or on roads where you're going straight and can see what you're going to hit. In my world, though, the tracks are often narrow and wind between boulders and mesquite bushes, the sand may be just short stretches that look just like hard pack, and I'm carrying close to a hundred pounds of gear. The last thing I want to do is go fast and crash hard, since there's no telling how long it'll take to fix the bike or get medical help. So I was relieved when Jimmy showed us how to go slow in deep sand, but a little disappointed to find that his technique didn't deviate substantially from my plodding ways. He started by standing on the pegs, weight centered and arms loose. Speed was in the ten to fifteen MPH range, kept nearly constant by short bursts of throttle when the bike was going straight. When the bike slowed or dug in, Jimmy dropped to his seat and picked a foot to put down. The trick is to keep moving and aim for the firmest ground you can. Don't spin up the rear wheel, since all you're gonna do is dig a hole. When that happens, Jimmy showed us how to use the throttle and clutch, along with pushing with our knees on the tank, to rock the bike back and forth and knock down the steep ramp at the front of the hole. That only happens when the back tire is kept from spinning. To make sure we had a chance to practice this, Jimmy would sneak up behind us and grab onto our luggage racks, halting progress until we were well buried. Several times he'd take over a machine, demonstrate the technique, then burry the back wheel again before giving it back. My own chance at the sand came as tail end Charlie, so it was loose and very churned up. But I was able to rock out when Jimmy grabbed my rack, and standing on the pegs and avoiding a death grip on the bars seemed to help a lot once I got going again. The only real excitement was climbing out of the eighteen inch rut at the end of the trail, but others had made a bit of a ramp and the bike did all the work.

By now most of us were pretty well spent, but Jimmy showed us how steering was mainly a foot peg weight thing, not a handlebar thing. Backing up onto firm ground, Jimmy came flying down the sandy trail, rapidly oscillating the handlebars half lock to half lock while the bike went essentially straight. He says if the ground is making the bars move, we should rock the bars back and forth ourselves to distract us. After a while we'll get used to having the bike squirm around and it won't bother us. In spite of his inspiring demonstration, I didn't see any students attempt it.

By then it was about five o'clock, and many of us were having visions of that cold Modello Negro we'd seen Heather loading a cooler with at lunch. I took one last shot at the sand on the way to the barn, and by standing on the pegs and steering with my feet I managed to make it through without stopping. From there it was a short blast across the dry lake back to the Lewis' palatial motor home and that first cold one. The group chatted for a few minutes, then agreed to meet at Tony Roma's for dinner in about an hour.

I was a few minutes early and found some of the other guys in the bar. We laughed and joked about the day's exploits, and everyone felt that they'd learned a lot. Several said they'd learned more than in all their previous attempts at experimentation or with friend's coaching, and I had to agree with them. When Jimmy and Heather showed up we headed into the restaurant, breaking up into two tables. I found myself seated at Jimmy's right knee, and to my delight privy to the many stories he'd tell of his Paris/Dakar racing and editor duties at Dirt Rider magazine. He's also a strong supporter of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, an organization that may be our best shot at preserving access to our rapidly dwindling off road playground. I also got to know some of my new riding buddies better, and found that we shared many interests in addition to riding off road. Fun as it was, the day's exertions were catching up with me and by eight o'clock I was ready to hit the rack. Tomorrow was the trail ride, and I wanted to be as fresh as possible.

Day 2

The group ride with Jimmy and Heather was our chance to try out the skills we'd practiced on the lake bed the previous day. Jimmy stressed that it wasn't a race, and that we'd be spreading out to stay away from each other's dust. That meant we'd be using hand signals to stay in touch, with riders pausing at obstacles or turns until an approaching rider acknowledged the signal. The first rider would take off, while the recent arrival would wait for the next guy. This leap frogging would ensure that we stayed evenly spread out, and that no one lost their way.

Jimmy led out on Power Line Road, surfaced with loose gravel with deep gravel and sand in numerous washes crossing the road. I thought I was in for a lot of work, since the bike started squirming and shimmying almost as soon as we left the parking lot. But Jimmy's tips on posture and balance made a big difference, and as long as I kept my weight centered and didn't try to wrestle the bars it was a lot less taxing, even standing up all the time. The road was straight as an arrow, heading out across a long valley and up over a low ridge. Riders quickly spread out over a couple of miles, and I gravitated toward the back where I could take it easy.

We stopped at most of the washes, and it was interesting, and a little bit unnerving, to watch the man in front of me fishtail and spin his way through the deep loose stuff. No one fell, though, and my own crossings, though not without their moments of random direction and big eyed excitement, were steadily improving in the amount of confidence and control I was able to exert.

We stopped once on this leg near the top of the ridge to watch Jimmy ride up a very steep but short hill on his 1200GS (the HP2 stayed in the motor home this day, and Heather rode a Honda dirt bike). Jimmy showed us how to balance the bike on the hill, killing the motor while in gear and letting the clutch act like a rear brake. Again he stressed the need to maintain balance, and not wear ourselves out holding up the motorcycle. Coming down, he used the clutch and front brake to walk the bike down. Clutch engaged, he'd release front brake and the bike would inch forward as the front suspension extended and the rear collapsed. Then he'd hold front brake, release the clutch, and the front end would collapse while the back came up, allowing the bike will inch forward again. The beauty of this technique is that it freed either foot to hold the bike up, and still retained perfect control of forward progress. Reversing directions, he stopped part way up the hill and showed how to tip bike into hill and wiggle front wheel back and forth to swing the front wheel down and off the hill.

The ride continued over the summit, crossing what seemed to be wider and more frequent washes. The best technique was standing on the pegs, legs slightly flexed, no weight on my hands, loose grip on bars. I tried to keep my weight balanced on the pegs and let bike move under me. I'd slow down before a wash, then accelerate slightly or use steady throttle through loose stuff. As long as I wasn't pushing, pulling, or leaning on the bars, the bike would go straight through the worst of the loose stuff. If I leaned on bars, or got my weight back and pulled on the bars, the front wheel would go off course and knife into the ground, trying to low or high side. Steering by weighting my feet worked much better than steering with the bars. I'd weight the side I wanted to move to, and the bike would magically respond. Moving my feet around on pegs helped distribute strain on the feet, but I had to be careful I didn't steer the bike by mistake. A short section of really deep sand finished this leg, and we got a chance to show off for each other as we gathered for our second stop.

A short street leg started us off, followed by another gravel road with some washes, but mostly hard pack, and nothing as challenging as we'd seen earlier. A very short section of hard packed dirt immediately before lunch was fun. By then we'd ridden somewhere around fifty miles, and I was more than ready for something to eat. Lunch was pizza and soft drinks, and for me, lots of water. The food was really good, and it was great to hear that I wasn't the only one that was feeling challenged. After replenishing our tummies and our camel backs it was back outside to hit the trail again.

We followed another dirt road out of Sandy Valley, the site of our lunch stop. This one followed a wash up a canyon, and both Jimmy and Heather thought it would be easier for us than the Power Line road. That wasn't to be, as long sections of deep loose gravel covered the road where wash had over run the road. This section was shorter than the first leg over all, but it was just as challenging. That is to say we were getting lots of much needed practice with our new found riding skills! I helped a couple of riders get unstuck, but found myself really getting tired from riding my own bike. But it seemed that the more fatigued I got, the looser I was on the bike and the straighter it went. The message here is that I was still pretty nervous, and when I was too tired to tense up my riding improved. Now if I could just start out relaxed, I wouldn't need to get worn out to ride well!

Near the top of the saddle we stopped again and watched Jimmy climb another very steep hillside, then inch the bike down. The guy's part mountain goat, and certainly looked the part perched way up there on the rocks. One KTM Adventure mounted student followed him up, but took a trail back to the road. Who could blame him!

At the bottom of the saddle the group split, with Jimmy leading part of us through the desert and Heather heading for the freeway. Heather's route showed more promise of an easy ride, and I thought about how much more often I crash when I'm fatigued. So I stuck with Heather, but we didn't take the freeway! Instead she had us picking up a service road, which degraded to a sandy lane that lead to the dry lake we'd trained on the day before. So even though the ride wasn't exactly a cake walk, compared with what we'd already ridden it was definitely easier and somewhat relaxing, and a heck of a lot better than droning down I-15. That last blast across the dry lake was a great topper. The groups finished up at about the same time, and Jimmy's route turned out to be the easier one. Another cold beer finished off the day of about 70 miles, with those of us that were staying over agreeing to once again meet at Tony Roma's for dinner. I just can't seem go get enough BBQ, and the salmon was great.

Observations:

Descriptions of riding surfaces and associated challenge varies with the experience of the teller, and Jimmy is a very experienced rider. What seemed to me like deep sand and gravel on the ride was just a little film of dust to Jimmy, who asserted it was only a couple of inches thick, and hard ground was to be found below it. His experience with deep was measured in feet, and his techniques focus on keeping the bike on top of the loose stuff, no matter how deep it is. He assured us that when the back wheel dug in under the conditions we experienced, we could rock our way out, and that the wheel would eventually find firm ground. Jimmy also related his experience with the fine powdery sand in Africa, which could be deep enough to bury a bike up to the tank. Given that perspective and experience, the "dust" we were struggling through on the group ride was just that, even though to me it was some of the toughest riding I had ever experienced.

I wasn't having much fun on the first leg of the group ride, but looking back that wasn't because of the difficult terrain. It was mostly due to my lack of physical conditioning, and my nerves. I knew going into the class that I'd have trouble in that regard, and tried to set up a training schedule to help. Unfortunately, a heavy work related travel schedule and plain old lack of will power resulted in only limited time with the weights, and no cardio training at all.

Given the purpose of the course, the Power Line route was perhaps the best validation of the techniques Jimmy was teaching, and the fact that I was able to make it though that leg unscathed was testimony that I was paying attention to what Jimmy was trying to get us to do. Without his tips on posture (bend at the waist, not at the knees, and keep your weight off the bars) I'd have crashed regularly. And having used the techniques successfully to negotiate the bad stuff (and having had big trouble when I lapsed back into my death grip bad habits) I'll have more confidence next time conditions like those crop up.

I did observe that Jimmy and Heather both seemed surprised that the condition of both the Power Line road and the road that led to the saddle from Sand Valley had deteriorated so badly since their last visit in May. Their normally good assumption that the storms of winter were over by May and that no further degradation would occurred was invalidated by the rutted roads that were for long stretches covered in heavy deposits of gravel and sand. They could only conjecture that summer thunderstorms had been the cause. In my experience the only way to know the condition of a road is to ride it. It's a minor nit, but the quality of the class would have been improved if they could have provided accurate descriptions of the road ahead, alerting us when to expect the worst, and even more important, when conditions would be better. It might have taken a few hours for Jimmy and/or Heather to ride the route in advance of the class, but doing so would have allowed them to change things around, and to recover from the loss of some of the lesson/training areas that had been damaged beyond use or modified by the highway department and DARPA so that they were not available. We were told that there would be frequent stops on the group ride for demonstrations and coaching on new techniques, but road damage and DARPA eliminated almost all of them. Worse, most of us thought that the poor conditions on the Power Line road would only deteriorate as the ride progressed, as the natural assumption was that the first sections would be structured to provide an easy warm up for tougher obstacles to come. As a result, I approached each new section with an elevated level of dread, and had myself psyched out before I even threw a leg over the saddle. When the opportunity to truncate the ride with an easy sit down road ride presented itself, I jumped at it in hopes of giving my aching muscles a break. I was sure I didn't have the stamina to handle the challenge of another set of Power Line quality roads, and Jimmy didn't know what the alternate route had to offer.

But like I said, that's just a small nit in an otherwise fine experience. And it translates accurately into real off road riding where you never know how good or bad the road is until you ride it. You better have the ability to cope, and know when you're in over your head and turn around before it's too late. If you're a Walter Mitty rider like me, and have always wondered how you could improve your off road comfort level, get your deposit down on one of the Lewis' classes. You'll learn a lot, you'll have a good time, and you'll ride away with a ton of new found confidence and skill.

I've posted my images from the trip here, and those taken by Steve Abella here. There's also a lot of coverage over at the Adventure Rider site:
Jon's writeup
Kevin's writeup
Steve's writeup

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