DirtyHarry
Race Dog
2 weeks ago I did attend to an off road riding course. After travelling over 20.000km on unpaved roads during the last 3 years, I thought I do know something about bike riding. I did travel far, but I was never sure if I am doing the right things on my bike.
To cut a long story short, I have learnt the most important things in the first 30 min. of the course.
1) If you want to turn your bike on tar you steer the opposite way with your handle bars. This did sound ridiculous to me. My tar riding improved by 100% with this simple trick. Turn your handle bars the opposite way and you are able to steer into the corners so fast, you won't believe. My pig transformed into a race bike with this little trick.
2) Stand up - Look up - Open up. I did read that before, but my own interpretation about the most important riding advice was somewhat different.
I did stand up and did look up before, but the open up thing I did refer to my right hand only.
Now that I do know how the open up thing works, I am able to ride my bike through soft sand at speed, without going off my bike every 100m.
I can’t wait to go back to Namibia to ride the Brandberg sandpit again, just to set the record right.
3) Put your weight on the higher foot peg if you corner on lose ground. Well I got that half right before, when I put my body upright by reflex. Now that I put my weight on the higher peg, my riding has improved a lot.
The rest of the course was also a lot of fun. Emergency braking, body balance when riding slow and most of the other things I did right by default.
In hindsight I should have done this riding course 3 years ago when I started to ride bikes again. Due to my ignorance it has taken me so long.
The game drive on your own bike at Bontebok Ridge in Wellington is worth the money already.
Rony, thanks a lot for all the riding tips during the day. After your course, I am riding faster and lot safer on my bike :ricky:
To cut a long story short, I have learnt the most important things in the first 30 min. of the course.
1) If you want to turn your bike on tar you steer the opposite way with your handle bars. This did sound ridiculous to me. My tar riding improved by 100% with this simple trick. Turn your handle bars the opposite way and you are able to steer into the corners so fast, you won't believe. My pig transformed into a race bike with this little trick.
2) Stand up - Look up - Open up. I did read that before, but my own interpretation about the most important riding advice was somewhat different.
I did stand up and did look up before, but the open up thing I did refer to my right hand only.
Now that I do know how the open up thing works, I am able to ride my bike through soft sand at speed, without going off my bike every 100m.
I can’t wait to go back to Namibia to ride the Brandberg sandpit again, just to set the record right.
3) Put your weight on the higher foot peg if you corner on lose ground. Well I got that half right before, when I put my body upright by reflex. Now that I put my weight on the higher peg, my riding has improved a lot.
The rest of the course was also a lot of fun. Emergency braking, body balance when riding slow and most of the other things I did right by default.
In hindsight I should have done this riding course 3 years ago when I started to ride bikes again. Due to my ignorance it has taken me so long.
The game drive on your own bike at Bontebok Ridge in Wellington is worth the money already.
Rony, thanks a lot for all the riding tips during the day. After your course, I am riding faster and lot safer on my bike :ricky:
