Learning To Ride

LEARNING TO RIDE

Honda Red Riding School

STEVE ANDERSON

Perhaps the scariest thing that motorcycle manufacturers face is the age of their customers. Thirty-some years ago, the average motorcycle buyer was about 21 years old. Today, he's over 40, and, worse, each year the average customer gets older. Those kinds of demographic trends worry companies that want to be in business forever-it can lead to where GM's Buick division finds itself today, with its typical buyer already collecting Social Security and their latest car purchase perhaps also their last.

Many of today's riders came of age in the great dirtbike boom of the late Sixties and early Seventies, an era that minted more motorcycle riders than any other. I know it made me a rider. My motorcycle experi ence started as a young teenager with my cousin's Honda Trail 70 in some fields near where we lived. The level of instruction left something to be desired. My uncle and cousin explained that twisting the throttle made the bike go and pointed out the location of the shift lever and the brakes. Somehow I survived the first few hours, and over the next sev eral years became proficient at riding OPB `s-Other People's Bikes. My cousin and my younger brother had various minibikes later on-XL7Os and XR75s and the like-and I raced through the woods with them. Eventually, my cousin grew into a Husky 250 motocrosser that I rode more than a few times. Later, when I became interested in streetbikes, I would bring those many hours of off-road riding experience with me. Instant motorcyclist.

In many ways, the motorcycle in dustry has been living for decades off the literally millions of riders that were created in that now long-past boom, and it hasn't been creating new riders at anything like the rate they were created then. Whenever I think of that, I can't help thinking of another recreational activity that is far more successful at creating new participants: skiing. Motorcycle dealers offer motorcycles, and you can walk into a dealer for any of the major Japanese manufactur ers and find a showroom full of new minibikes and trailbikes. But rider training and new rider creation isn't integrated in the program. Go to a ski resort, though, and the training packages for young children are truly impressive. Mom and Dad get their lift tickets, and the kids go to ski school for a big chunk of the day. The resorts typically offer reasonably priced packages for kids that include equipment rentals, training and supervision, and lift tickets. The parents have a chunk of the day to ski on their own, while their kids are being turned into future customers. Brilliant!

The economics of skiing and motorcycling are totally different, however. Ski resorts sell access to their runs, while the equipment itself is almost peripheral. Motorcycling as an industry is all about selling motorcycles and riding gear, while access to riding areas has typically been free. An integrated package like ski resorts offer would be difficult to emulate.

But Honda has been attempting to do the next best thing with the creation of a chain of Rider Education and Environmental Learning Centers. The first one was opened in Colton, California, in 1988, and set the form for the others. On a tight, 3-acre lot, Honda carved out an impressively large riding area, with both a paved lot for streetbike training, an open dirt area, and a number of manmade hills landscaped to match different local environments, from the Mojave Desert to the pine-filled San Bernardino mountains. Then the designers squeezed into those hills a third of a mile of surprisingly realistic interlocking trails. Soon afterward, Honda opened similar facilities in Irving, Texas, Troy, Ohio, and Alpharetta, Georgia.

I had heard about the Honda Rider Education Centers (REC) years ago, but my interest grew with my own children. My daughters Isobel, 14, and Lily, 11, had been raised in a household filled with motorcycles and motorcycling, but had never ridden themselves. A Honda REC, I thought, would be the perfect way to introduce them to motorcycle operation in a way intimidating to neither my daughters nor their mother. (My wife Barbara realized that motorcycling and I were hopelessly intertwined when she married me, but has been more reluctant to see our daughters involved.)

So after registering for a full-day private class (weekdays only, $400 for two, including use of riding gear and motorcycles), my girls and I headed out to the Colton REC very early one summer morning. We exited the freeway and quickly found ourselves turning deep into an industrial park in dry and deserty Riverside County, an area filled with tilt-up buildings and looking like the last place you'd go off-road riding. But at the end of a cul-de-sac stood Honda’s facility. In the front was an impressively large and modem building; in the back was the not-so-small and beautifully maintained riding oasis.

We were quickly greeted by our instructor, Charity Okerson. Charity, a certified MSF instructor, had been working at REC for 3 Vi years, and quickly charmed the girls with descriptions of teaching Omarosa to ride when TV’s “The Surreal Life” had recently been filming at the Honda facility. After introductions, she hustled them off to the gear room. We’d brought new riding gear for the girls to wear, but Honda’s gear room would have more than adequately provided for them. There was enough clean and well-maintained offroad riding equipment hanging from racks to outfit the entire field of the Barstow-to-Vegas race in its heyday, with helmets ranging from children’s XXS to adult XXXL. Either Andre the Giant or Mini-me Verne Troyer could have found something to fit.

Once in shiny riding gear, the girls met Charity out by the freshly graded dirt riding area. The program follows the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s “Dirtbike School” curriculum, and began with Charity running through the MSF safety and risk debriefing. This wasn’t

simply a lecture, but a question and answer format that kept the girls engaged.

After that began the fun stuff. From a row of about 40 Honda red dirtbikes, Charity selected a CRF100 for 5-foot-6 Isobel and a CRF80 for under-5-foot Lily, and wheeled the machines out onto the field. First was an introduction to control location, including the kickstarter, and then a demonstration on how to sit on bikes, forward on the seat with arms up and elbows bent in fine motocross style. Charity demonstrated starting the bikes and made Isobel and Lily practice shutting them down. Then came the first operating exercise, the “Friction Exercise.” The girls were one at a time asked to shift into first gear with the clutch pulled in, put both feet down, and then let the clutch out until they were rolling forward slowly. Once they were moving, Charity, walking along with them, would ask them to pull the clutch in and coast to a stop, and then start again. Once the girls were on the other side of the field, the friction exercise would continue in the opposite direction, and repeat until they had clutch operation, if not mastered, at least under a semblance of control. I couldn’t help marvel at the smoothness and lack of drama of this teaching process compared to my own first rides, and those of other new riders Eve seen being taught by amateurs.

Each step built on its predecessor. After clutch operation came braking, still in a straight line. Now the girls were asked to start from a stop and brake at designated spots. Perhaps their biggest struggle during this time was starting their machines after they had stalled or been shut down. Remember the first time you had to kickstart a motorcycle? There’s more technique to it than you might recall, and I watched the girls struggle to make the necessary, forceful kick. Sometimes, when she saw them getting tired, Charity would step in and start the bike for them. But the assistance wasn’t excessive. They had to try each time, and soon enough I saw them improving.

Straight-line exercises were soon replaced by riding around in a large oval, with continued emphasis on the basics. In the first hour, the girls were riding around in first gear, kick-starting their bikes themselves (most of the time) and braking to a stop. Charity watched Lily struggle with the slightly big CRF80 and its clutch for a while and decided to shift her to a smaller CRF70 with a semi-automatic transmission. Her speed and confidence almost immediately improved, so much so that Charity had to keep reminding her to slow down.

The exercises kept increasing in complexity. Soon came gear shifting, with the girls being asked to shift from first to second at the beginning of the oval’s straight section, then back to first

for the next turn. There was some fumbling with this, but rapid improvement. Then came exercises on riding posture, and moving from a seated to a standing riding position without loading the handlebars. There were weaving practices where the girls were asked to steer in and out through a pattem of cones as they went around the oval.

Soon Charity was showing them how to make tight turns with proper body weighting, holding the bike down while they were more upright, around a tight pattern of four cones. When that was conquered in both directions, the girls were asked to do the same thing in a figure-8 pattern, demanding that they shift in opposite directions as they went around the figure.

DIRTBIKE SCHOOL BY THE NUMBERS

Getting down and dirty at an off-road riding school is easier than ever, thanks to the explosion of nationwide training programs. When searching for a training center near you, a good first step is to check out www.dirtbikeschool.com. Dirtbike School is a program offered through the Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF), an industry organization responsible for creating the basic curriculum approved by major manufacturers and used by the training center listed on their site.

In addition to Dirtbike School, training sites can be found with a quick search of the web. Typing in “dirt bike training” reveals hundreds of training sites around the United States and Canada. Searching for a course that caters to just women? Kids? Maybe a private group lesson? The types and variety of courses available are incredible. Many of these training companies, in addition to providing basic rider training, also offer advanced rider training for the hardcore member of the family, ranging in scope from enduro to motocross to trials to flat track. Looking to shake up your moto schedule even more? Many of these operators even offer tours and rental bikes so you can try something new.

Training Facts:

Statistics from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation show that off road rider training is on the rise. (Purchasers of new off-road motor cycles will want to look into manufacturer reimbursement for some of your training costs!) Dirtbike School participation was up 13% in 2004 and has trained more than 11,000 riders in the past five years.

In the past five years, 50% of students who took a Diribike School course were between 6 and 15 years old.

Drama wasn’t entirely absent that morning. Both of the girls tipped over at least once; the one that hurt a bit was when Isobel caught a handlebar end in her chest as she fell. It took a few breaths before she was ready to get

up and back on her bike, and I could see her be more careful and deliberate for a while. And there was an instant when first riding around the oval that Lily accelerated too hard and veered off toward me and the haybale I was watching from. Though I could see momentary panic in her eyes as she rushed toward me, she steered between my haybale and the row of them that marked the edge of the field, recovering and continuing as if nothing had happened. With that, Charity and I exchanged glances and shook our heads, and I appreciated the lack of anything solid near the riding field.

The final field exercise was the most dramatic, with the girls asked to ride over a 4x4 beam. Charity demonstrated how to stand and unweight the front wheel by rolling on the throttle just before the obstacle, then rolling off as your back wheel cleared it. Isobel watched with a look of disbelief on her face, her expression clearly saying, “You want me to do WHAT?” But both girls tried it, made it on the first attempt, and were soon repeating the maneuver with grins on their faces.

Then it was time for the highlight of the day, the trail ride. Charity took them on a 20-minute winding ride through the green-marked trails at the facility. My two girls, who had never ridden a motorcycle until five hours earlier, made it through with nary a mishap. Clearly enthused, they didn’t want to stop, but it was time to give the motorcycles back, change clothes, thank Charity, and head for home.

My overall impression? It’s hard to image a better way to introduce someone to motorcycling than via the MSF’s “Dirtbike School” curriculum, particularly as it’s delivered at one of the Honda RECs. The professionalism, the facility, the equipment and the staff are all impressive. Participation

on a non-private basis is $150 when the course is offered, and a private family lesson package for two parents and up to three children is a bargain at $500. (If you're nowhere near a Honda REC, check wwwdirtbikeschool.com to see where else the MSF course is taught.) But, of course, there is the one certain drawback of the course. As we drove

home, Lily turned to me and asked, "So when are we getting dirtbikes?" Do you think Honda might have had that in mind?

To learn more about a Honda Rider Education Center near you, go to www.honda.com. To find a Dirtbike School near you, go to www.dirtbikeschool.com.

TIPS FOR GETTING THE MOST OUT OF TRAINING

Gary LaPlante is the owner of MotoVentures, a 300-acre private riding ranch outside of Temecula in Southern California that offers students instruction on everything from basic to intermediate and advanced rider training, as well as trials training and adventure tours. MotoVentures has conducted hundreds of classes and developed a valuable checklist for potential students to consider as they prepare for a two-wheel education.

Check one - The desire to ride

Stressing the importance of a good attitude, LaPlante offers some advice regarding the mindset of prospective students.

“The desire to learn to ride has to come from the student, not from someone else. Students who come to us with little desire to become riders and few expectations as to what they might learn rarely get all they could from training.”

Check two - Coordination and strength

Once prospective students decide they have the desire to ride, gaining the physical ability is key. LaPlante stresses starting with something kids are already familiar with. “For kids, we recommend they master riding a bicycle before taking on the challenge of motorcycling.” This advice applies to adult new riders, as well. LaPlante continues, “Adults can benefit from spending some pre-training time on a mountain bike (off-road bicycle) to help re-acclimate themselves to the world of two wheels.”

Check three - Ready to learn

Once students have done a little mental and physical preparation, they need to come to class ready to learn. As LaPlante explains, “Participating in a rider training course demands that students concentrate on the task at hand and in some cases follow multiple instructions simultaneously.”

Check four - Learning never stops

Once students have graduated from a rider training course, they have the basic ability to operate a motorcycle, but learning is far from over. “Learning does not stop at the end of the class,” LaPlante explains. “In fact, students are really ready to learn after they have had a chance to get some of the basics down. We strongly urge students to read class follow-up materials and practice the drills they have learned. Make practice a game, set goals and have fun as skills improve. Once riders begin to feel that they are no longer being challenged, they might look into more advanced rider training.”

To find out more about MotoVentures, visit their website at www.motoventures.com

To learn more, check out Cycle World's Kids & Motorcycles micro site on www.cycleworld.com.