Off Road Training
Prep for the Himalayas and the dodgy roads of India!

Yesterday A and I went down to Yamaha's Off Road School and spent a day with Barry, Steve and Mick (and about a dozen other trainees :) at Golding Barn off road track down near Brighton. WOW, what a day!!! So much fun!

We had be out on the town the night before and had to rouse ourselves to rip it down to Brighton on the street bikes for 10am. We made it just in time, got ourselves kitted out and then we were split into groups to get aquainted with the bikes on the practice loop. That was ok, it was pretty tame....we were ready to move on to the big track!

I think it needs to be said that neither of us are very tall and these are very tall bikes....it was pretty precarious. Left foot on the ground to start the bike, then slide the butt over, right foot on the ground to put it in gear, then release the clutch and slide the butt into the middle, both feet on the pegs and off you go. When you come to a stop it's slide the butt to the left to get the foot down while trying not to topple the bike on top of you :)

On the main track we really started to have some fun, just down the first straight was the first corner...and the corner was a BIG wet mud hole! So much for being clean - the bikes and everyone's left foot were now covered in brown mud :) The course was a series of rutted tight turns, muddy sections, steep ups and downs, and lots of lumps, bumps and jumps. When we had mastered the easier lower section of track they let us loose on the whole track, with a huge off camber hillside. It's amazing what these bikes can do. One of the instructors would take time out to have a rip round on one of the motocross bikes - he was FAST! Way faster than us, and would catch big air on some of the jumps.

All in all it was a beautiful day - the weather was brilliant, but we still had some slippery surfaces to learn some offroad skills and to gain confidence in our abilty to handle whatever terrain we may come across in our travels. We are tired and sore, but we have huge grins on our faces :)