Super-Moto!

I'm interrupting the ongoing saga of my tales at The Tail, to redirected your focus in another direction.  I hope you don't mind but certainly you've realized by now that it takes me a little while to bring the blog up to speed on my goings-on.

Anyway, onward!  If you live in California, you have no doubt heard about SoCal Supermoto School. If you haven't... well you're about to.  Why? Because its one of those things you need to do in life before you die.  Why? Because if you love motorcycles, and you love riding, and you love riding in environments where you can all-out hooligan your happy ass around a track on someone else's bike, then you've probably already clicked the link before I've finished this sentence.  If you haven't and you aren't interested in doing so by the time I've finished this post, well then you're greatly missing out and, well, fuck it.  MOAR school for meeeeeeeeeeee!

I was convincing enough to persuade some friends to join me for the event, which made it a lot more exciting.  I highly encourage bringing your friends to join in the fun.  Because what's better than doing a day of havoc on wheels than to also be able to point and laugh at the destruction of dignity that unfolds as you and your friends take turns making fools of yourselves in the dirt section. Add to it that you also get a group discount and what's left to decide?!

I ventured a few hours south with the new boyfriend, my best friend, and a few other Candidates for Adventure (CFAs).  We met up at Adams Motorsports Park in Riverside promptly at 7... 08 in the morning to get started on our 7:00 a.m. date with destiny.  Brian (the dude who runs the show) was busy cracking the whip on his two small indentured servants (read also: kids... who are amazing little minions of bad-assery) to prepare for the day's event.  Roughly 9 people were in attendance and we got right to work scribbling our names on paperwork we didn't actually read in the familiar routine (to most of us track-heads) of eagerly waiving our rights or interests in filing any potential lawsuits should we be overzealous enough to catastrophically injure ourselves on the go-kart track.  "Go-Kart track?!"  You scoff.  Yes indeed.  It's a go-kart track, but most who are familiar with Supermoto already figured that would be the case.  What you may not have figured is that for the last half of the day, it is a combination of half-pavement/half-dirt, half-life/half-death-to-dignity. But before you scream the high pitched song of the siren and close this window, know this:  no matter what your skill level, as long as you are comfortable operating a motorcycle (and you ride within your limits) you will not leave this event with any less than a shit-eating-grin.

Fig 2a. Riding track on a sport bike... laying into it...

If you are an avid motorcyclist, a track day enthusiast, a canyon carver, or pretty much any other type of rider this will only make you a better stronger rider as it compels you to learn the art of riding to your traction level.  This is something that a lot of riders tend to overlook, especially those of us who primarily ride on nice sticky asphalt. It also demands that you pay attention to what the bike is telling you (which you should already be privy to as a rider anyway).

Brian covers a few universal rules of track riding during the first few sessions.  Turn in points, line selection, etc.  But he also fine-tunes it within the context of the Supermoto style of riding, which means that almost everything you learned about riding a sportbike is going to be counter-intuitive when it comes to how you sit on and ride a Supermoto bike. This was probably the biggest challenge for me: breaking the habits of sport-riding and remembering to sit forward (practically on the tank), to the outside of the turn with the bike under me, my outside elbow in the air and my inside foot out.  This is much different then hanging off to the inside of the bike with the knee out (see Fig 2a).  Needless to say, I screwed up on more than a few occasions.  Haha but even in spite of my struggles there was an incessant giggle in my helmet as I puttered around the track and attempted to get it right time and time again.

Fig 2b. Riding Supermoto... and sorta kinda doing it wrong

That's a little better, still gotta get that butt over and the elbow up a little more

I was easily the slowest rider out there but I didn't care because it was so much to work on and I was having fun. Once the dirt opened up, there was a revelation of new challenges.... err... 'opportunities for growth' that made most in our group cringe a little.  A set of doubles, a berm and couple of table tops before you emerged back onto the pavement introduced an element of physical demand that was certainly noticeable by the end of the first session out.  I was probably the only rider who didn't even try to use the berm in the dirt section because it was all I could muster just to get over the doubles without face planting.  It was enough just to try and regulate the proper speed but it isn't as hard as it seems.  It's more about reminding yourself to stay relaxed and stand up on the pegs (which I learned earlier this year when I went on my first real dirt riding adventure... stay tuned for that post).

Looking at this picture makes me smile, probably the entire time I was on this bike I was grinning and laughing.

Even in my bloopers I had a fantastic time.  I came out of the day with an increased sense of confidence in dirt and a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was just out there physically riding and practicing in that environment of traction.  I learned a tremendous amount about my own limits of confidence, how fear gets in the way of just about everything unless you confront it, and I even learned a lot more about understanding the language of bike feedback.  In all honestly, unless you're an experienced dirt rider, or you've actively done Supermoto in the past, you're not going to get it all right by the end of the first day anyway. And if you go into any of these events taking yourself too seriously or trying to be the number 1 dude the first session out, you're going to miss out on a lot of the point. The skills you develop doing one Supermoto School day will easily make you a better rider no matter what your style is.