No doubt, one of my early influences in life. Pretending to be him, I’d jump off the stupidest crap on my BMX. RIP Buddy.

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I must first start out with saying what an awesome team Jimmy and Heather have working with them during their Off-road Skill Course. Sean, Scott & Jesse were all outstanding. Heather was fantastic. And Jimmy was just awesome to watch. They all took time to answer questions and help you improve you skill. At the end of Day 2 if it weren’t for Scott, Jesse & Sean I probably wouldn’t have made my way back. Their encouragement of my ’stupidity’ was very helpful (More on that later). I will admit some of the areas covered in the class were things I already knew, but either got to lazy to do them or just never really put thought into them. I did however learn a few new things which I plan to practice anytime I get a chance. I’d also like to say that my fellow classmates were very upbeat and positive. I think everyone had a blast, even the few that broke their bikes a little (myself included).

My Husky’s engine is still in the shop getting new intake valves so I didn’t get to take the smaller bike. So, I took my BMW R1200GS with knobbies! One of my goals of this class was to learn how to ride my big bike better. I’d like to take it more places, and some of those places require riding through dirt and adverse conditions. What better place to do this, than with the Master of the Big Bike Jimmy Lewis!?

Morgan and I loaded the bikes into the toybox and headed on up to Primm Nevada Friday night. I figured it would take the same amount of diesel to drive with or without the trailer. Additionally lodging would be free, and everything we needed would be right in the trailer. It works really well for any kind of trip really. Personally I’d rather travel on my bike, but since we were taking a class that would be based out of Primm having the trailer as a headquarters is nice.

Day 1

Before the class started we ran into Bob from North County BMW along with Gary from San Diego BMW. I bought my GS from Bob back in June. It was pretty cool running into him up in Nevada taking the same riding class. Today started out with Jimmy telling us about the course, what to expect, and the general code of conduct. I thought it was very wise of him to point out that ‘Yes, you can get hurt doing this course. Its up to you however to make sure that doesn’t happen.’ Something that he said was very true ‘The most important bit of safety gear is yourself, use your head.’ Very sound advice. The format of the class is a show-and-tell where Jimmy shows us, tells use tips and tricks, then we go try it. Heather and the gang then watch us and give us pointers. Everything in Day 1 is about bike control. There are little to no high speed drills. Control of your machine is the priority. If you can control it at low speed, most of it translates into the higher speed actions. I took away a few things which were true pearls. We learned a variety of bike control techniques as well as simulated events that you don’t want to happen, so you’ll know what it feels like when it does and how to react to it. Everything taught through the day lead to another drill that added to your abilities. At the end of the day it finished with a drill that pulled everything together, and was quite a bit of fun. I didn’t get to take a picture of the final drill, its too bad too cause is one of the few times in my life I’ve ever seen Morgan fall over on a motorcycle!

The end of the day brought a sense of accomplishment, a beautiful sunset, and a good dinner. Morgan and I looked forward to tomorrow to really see our our beasts would handle the true off-road experience (and to see how we would handle it as well).

     Day 2

Sunday is the big day. This is where we get to test ourselves and our skills. Jimmy and gang took us on a 100+ mile dual-sport ride through the Nevada desert. The format was basically a ride with a easy and hard route which would intersect bringing the group back together. At these junctions there would be some more instruction and time allowed for us to try what we just learned. After the drill we could choose to go the easy or the hard route. Morgan and I took the hard route all day except for one section where Jimmy basically said “Don’t go this way with the twins, you’ll hurt you, your bike, and probably someone else.” We took his advice, and took the easy way for that section. For the most part the both of us were pretty impressed with how well the bigger bikes could handle the terrain. Most of them morning was spent riding double track, dirt roads, and paved roads. We had one optional section of single track that paralleled a dirt road. That was a little more challenging, but not impossible. We ended the morning with lunch at a nice pizza place in Sand Valley NV. The pizza was great! Heather was the first on there so she got to see the display of public drunkeness by [assuming] one of the locals.

Post lunch took us to the sand dunes. The ride out there was pretty uneventful, more double track but with the added spice of silt! For those of you who don’t know what silt is, its basically the closest thing you can come to fluid dirt. Its soft, it goes all over the place, and hides wicked things. Through the day I found I was generally faster than 60% of the people in the class. So rather than eat their dust I’d wait for a safe time to pass and go around them. As we were heading down the road the two people in front of me started to go really slow. I went to pass them and the front rider turned out to be Heather. Let’s just say I got reprimanded for passing in the silt bed. (DOH!) I have a bunch of pictures of us playing in the sand dunes. I apparently failed the ‘get yourself out of sand’ part of the course. Jimmy had to get me out of the deep sand. (pic) I passed on trying to make it up the big hill as I was having trouble on my bike on the little hills. Here are a few more good pictures from the day.

After the dunes we split back into easy and hard groups. I got myself turned around in the dunes and saw Jimmy’s bike heading out the way we came so I rode down the road to catch up. I realized when I got there that I blew it, and it was Heather on the GS Adventure leading the easy group back out. They got a few bikes caught in the silt bed, so I turned around and rode back to the hard group. At this point Jimmy took us back over the sand dunes (riding his KTM 525, I should have got a hint at this point). I got stuck at nearly the same spot in the deep sand that I got stuck in before. Two of the guys helped me dig out, and I proceeded off the dunes right into sand/silt that was worse than the dunes. I vaguely remember Jimmy telling us ‘Do not ride out past the dunes, you’ll get stuck!’ Then, here we are, riding out past the dunes and I’m getting stuck. If it weren’t for Scott and Sean being positive and encouraging I would have been alot more pissed than I was. I was pretty mad that I couldn’t make my way through this stuff without a great amount of difficulty. I would get stuck, dig in, dig out, repeat. Finally we caught up to the rest of the group and the first thoughts through my head “Ah crap! I’m the only retard on the GS!!!!” And I was…

Morgan had ridden his KTM 950 Adventure through there, and there were two HP2 BMWs. But I was the ONLY GS that attempted this section. On my Husky, this all would have been a breeze. On the GS, you can’t get lazy, you have to maintain control of the bike the entire time. Small mistakes get emphasized, and going done on a 600 pound motorcycle isn’t fun. Not to mention picking it up. So far I had done well as I hadn’t really dumped it. I had gotten stuck, but didn’t actually go down at any point. The ride from this point on was all loose rock. The GS did ok but the lack of a steering damper and the bubbly front tire it made this section very difficult. I did finally eat it on a downhill section. The bike just suddenly decided “I’d like a nap RIGHT HERE!” The crashbars were worth their weight in gold here. I got away with a broken handguard mount, scratched cylinder head, scratched exhaust, and a slightly rashed arm. When I arrived home I also discovered that my Bill Mayers Seat had some unexpected wear. I sent them some pictures and they said ‘We’ve never seen this happen before.’ I guess some of you R1200GS riders needs to do some more off-road riding!!!!

To sum it up. It was a great experience. I absolutely feel I am a better rider now than I was on Friday. If you want to improve your skills and be a better rider then I highly recommend this course. Not only will you ride away with some new skills, but you’ll ride away with some new friends.

For the rest of the pictures you can check out my Flickr Photoalbum.

Well, basically I’ve decided that I have to make some decisions on life. And traveling is one of those decisions. On March 26, 2010 I’d like to embark on a journey. The only things I have worked out so far is that it will be on a bike, and it will be away from here. I haven’t decided if I’m selling my house or what to do with Karma and Pookie, or what it means for the rest of things. What it does mean is that I have until that countdown timer on the right ticks down until zero to figure it out

Currently I’m reading a book on Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. Its interesting so far. I’ve got a stack of books at my house to go through over the next few months. But in general I want to take the time now when I am still fairly young and generally able to see what I can. Wish me luck!

So, rumors have been around for a while that BMW was going to make a F800GS. Well, pictures have finally arrived. For a while I figured they were photoshopped, but this one basically sealed it for me as a reality.