BMW Motorrad GS Off Road Australia Adventure Expert Course
In our everyday professional careers, training plays a key role. It’s critical to enable us to develop in our chosen fields and often plays a large part in helping decide between potential employers. Those with a better training program will often win out. Most companies will have something like the 70-20-10 guide when it comes to training. 70 per cent is learning on the job and problem solving, 20 per cent is assistance from colleagues and the final 10 per cent is for structured, facilitated learning. So we instinctively know that good training is key to improving skills.
And yet often we will put off or simply neglect to apply that same thinking to our riding. I know that even though I learnt to ride on farm bikes as a kid, I have spent the vast majority of my riding life as an adult on tarmac.
I’ve known for some time that even though I can apply my mostly road derived techniques fairly well in the dirt, I have some shortcomings in technique that I probably should have addressed by now. Particularly low speed skills and clutch control. On the road and track my mantra was always to control the bike with the throttle with scant regard for the clutch – and I’d carried that habit over into the dirt.
Yes I know the theory. Yes I can watch other riders and tutorial videos, but that can only get you so far…
Roll onto a few months ago when I was spending some time following Miles Davis on the BMW Safari aboard BMW’s great new F900GS Enduro, I figured it was time to pull the trigger. There was a specific moment actually, when Miles was doing some standup circle work for the snappers where I said to myself ‘that’s beyond me right now – but I need to learn how to do it’.
I knew it was time to make it happen. Firstly because I wanted to improve. And secondly because I realised that there are plenty of riders out there who, like me, have probably been riding for a while, probably doing well enough, but could do with some qualified pointers and course correction. Chances are that if you’re reading this – that’s probably you.
Enter BMW’s GS Offroad training and some more quality time with Miles and the team. Miles has a creds list longer than his arm and more bike control in his pinky than most riders can ever dream of having. Miles did finish Finke on a 1200GS. Mid field. So yeah, he goes alright. Nice fella too. Luckily for us mortals, he’s also more than happy to share the knowledge.
And so I made my way to Victoria’s ‘State Motorcycle Complex’ at Broadford for the Adventure Expert Course on an unusually cold and drizzly weekend in June.. Miles jokingly calls it skid school. And I like skids. We spent the first morning of day one going over some fundamentals. Things like body positioning and bike dynamics. Reinforcing things that I already knew, some that I was getting right and others that I wasn’t quite nailing in practice.
Some key messages were landing not just with me but the wider group:
- Flow with the bike, don’t stiffen up like a lego man
- Focus on momentum and finesse, not brute force. These bikes have way more power than grip
- Pivot at the hips, elbows out, head forward
- Grip with the legs, steer with the hands
Wisdom bombs dropping left and right. Pearl after pearl. But the key here is not just hearing or reading these and ‘knowing them’ but honing them via practice drills. Having the opportunity to test them under supervision and feeling the difference when you were executing correctly. A little ‘just move your weight back a little more during the braking phase here, ‘eyes up’ and ‘keep that outside elbow up a little more there’. Riders had the chance to repeat, repeat, repeat and then have the Eureka moments when things started to gel.
One of the trickier tweaks for me personally was getting into the habit of covering the clutch and front brake at all times. Not something I am in the habit of doing. I’d always been able to find enough traction via throttle control, but there’s another level to unlock when it gets really slick or rocky….
Learning to use the clutch correctly – at low revs, for maximum grip in slippery conditions was something new to me. And being able to practise that clutch and throttle application to maximum effect – getting the timing right after repeated attempts in a controlled environment? Worth its weight in gold.
I consider myself a mechanically sympathetic rider and admit that part of my ‘leave the clutch alone’ mentality had come from not wanting to burn it out prematurely. But it was rightly pointed out that as long as the revs are kept low – which they should be if you’re looking for grip, then your clutch will be fine. That is what they’re designed for after all…
By lunchtime on the first day I had already picked up a metric shit-tonne of tips and refinements. And conclusively answered the question around being able to teach old dogs new tricks. You definitely can. Skid school for the win. One of my goals set that morning was to be able to do smooth connected skid-to-slide turns. Just something that I’d never really tried before. Which as I progress, I’ll turn into those stand up circles I mentioned earlier. And by the end of day one I was already linking those slides up. Not every time, but frequently. I had the basics and knew what needed to be done. I just needed more practice.
Armed with the knowledge that I can now do it and knowing what it feels like – I have to make the time to practise my techniques regularly. Not just get out for a ride and rip about in a hurry, but have some discipline, find the places to work on those skills. Be the Jedi. Find the flow. Surf that dirt.
Day two built on the first day with more of the same, with some additional work on fundamental things like pivot turns, parking in sand and then puling away out of that hole was followed in the afternoon with lifting the front over obstacles with and without the clutch. Another area I need to work on, as I don’t use the clutch for wheelies. Again – I’ve always relied on throttle control.
By the end of that second day I was noticeably more confident in terms of channelling my inner Jarvis and finding traction with the clutch. I’m not going to be tackling Hard Enduro tracks any time soon as that’s not really my bag – although conquering that loader tyre ramp was fun… But the slow speed skills I’ve gained can be applied to all speeds with better bike control and less energy expended across the board. I will be a better rider for it, undoubtedly.
And when I looked around at the other riders in the group, every single one had made noticeable improvements over the weekend. And that’s what it was all about. Better skills, more bike control, more confidence, more fun.
Was it time well spent? Abso-friggen-lutely.
I should give a shoutout to Miles and Spence and the GS Offroad training team for allowing me to tag along with the group, BMW Oz for the lend of the terrific F900GS to rip around on – and to the group of awesome students I was with for sharing the weekend with me. You can find more of the GS Offroad courses all around Australia at their website www.gsoffroad.com.au and I can’t recommend them highly enough.
But even if you can’t find a course at a time and venue that suits you – find a way to get some training in with an accredited coach and up your game. Even if it’s just one day, you’ll be better for it.
You can guess who’s heading out tomorrow to practice.
