My ride to RawHyde Adventures' off-road motorcycle school in Castaic is typically heroic: daring and expert lane splitting, fistfuls of throttle and clutch, spectacular knee-dragging cornering. I even pop a wheelie or two. My riding skills astound me.
So imagine my surprise when, having left the asphalt to turn into the ranch's gravel driveway and going all of about 10 feet, I fall off my borrowed BMW F800GS in a spray of loose rock and liberated motorcycle parts . . . Hey, whoa, what the . . . ker-RASSHH! Pain and humiliation mingle inside my helmet. I have not dropped a bike ever, and yet here I am, resting gently on my face. The marquee lights around my motorcycle-riding ego suddenly go dim. The squirrels laugh. Gravel tastes funny.
So begins my five-day education in off-road riding. [...]
Heh. Every time I get ta thinkin' I know what I'm doing in the dirt, I get re-wised up exactly the same way! Welcome ta the club, pal!
RawHyde teaches something called "adventure riding," which involves piloting ridiculously large and powerful motorcycles -- so-called dual-sport bikes such as the BMW R1200GS, KTM 990 Adventure, Ducati Multistrada and Moto Guzzi Stelvio -- in the bush. Dirt roads, sandy desert whoops, rock-strewn switchbacks, water crossings, you name it. After a couple days' instruction, students can put their new skills to the test on an expedition to what Hyde calls Base Camp Alpha, a 400-plus-mile round-trip ride into the Mojave through some of the most dramatic and inaccessible terrain in California. That's why I'm here.
With their tall saddles and more limber suspension, dual-sport bikes are the SUVs of motorcycling; and as with SUVs, relatively few owners take advantage of the bikes' off-road abilities.
They're not casual dirt bikes for runnin' an' jumpin' and playin' at the gravel pit with yer friends on Sunday afternoon. They're big and expensive and suited for travelling around the world. The bikes he named are top of the line.
Note: The 'Mojave' and 'California' links are mine. Mr. Neil's links were pretty much ads for hotels.
[...] Dual-sports are also the quintessential midlife crisis bikes, and male menopause is always a growth industry. [...]
"It's cheaper than a divorce and a girlfriend," says riding instructor Mark Stickelmaier, 52, a theatrical equipment contractor by trade.
Makes ya wonder how he figgered that out! Heh.
Enjoy the rest of the article. At the end of the school, the students go on a lovely ride. Here's the upshot:
The last off-road section of the day is also the most spectacular: a 30-mile traverse of the Piute Mountains, which takes us from the sere scrub of Jawbone Canyon to the lush, cool meadows of Kelso Valley and then up 5,000 feet to the Sequoia-lined ridge road over the mountains. It's steep and difficult terrain, with dangerous cliffs and sections of technical riding that test all the lessons learned at RawHyde. I fall only once; unfortunately, I fall on top of my Good Samaritan, Reilly, who has gone down just ahead of me.
The crest line of the Piutes is fantastic, a postcard view of a California only a few ever see, and best seen from the saddle. If eating a little gravel is the price to get here, well, I'm buying.
I think he gets it.
BTW, good links to that area of California are a little thin on the ground unless you're a birder or a fireman. I bet Badtux has the whole site at the 'Piute Mountains' link memorized. Heh.
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