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Honda Skills Day
Report for the Skills day at the Honda adventure rally seeing as though there were a few of us. I cant remember everyone who was there so if you were let the message board know.
For an extra $75 we received some tuition on the Saturday, a bed in the dorms and a meal on Sat night. 6.30am Sat morn I left home to meet up with CRFAndrew and DRZAllan at Allans place. We left at 8.00am and arrived at Mornington Mills at 10.30. The place was deserted compared to last year when we turned up with 200+ bikes already in the pit area. A quick registration, scrutineering and gear up and we were ready. The skills day started with a tyre changing demonstration, both front and back. What was shown was to completely take the tyre off of the rim instead of just one side. Liberal amounts of baby powder was used, mainly to sop up the blood ( I reckon) from the old knuckles vs disc rotor routine. The tutors looked over our bikes for correct lever and foot control placements considering we should be standing most of the time. After a few questions and offers to let them use my bike next time as the tyre changing dummy we were off. There must have been at least 40 guys and Girls so we were split into 2 groups. We rode along the blue course for a couple of ks until reaching a large flat open area. Here we were told about correct positioning of body, feet, and arms, % of front vs back braking, (70% front 30% rear). We were then shown how much front brake can be applied without falling off and by locking up the front wheel then releasing it you can keep the bike stable and brake much harder with more confidence. We rode in a very large oval practicing to lock the front wheel, keeping constant throttle and releasing the front brake when it became unstable. Next exercise was cornering on very bloody slippery gravel with a 10cm berm on the corner. This was all about body position, elbows up, standing up then once into the corner sit as far forward as you can, inside leg extended with the foot near inline with the front axel. I was very surprised at how far into the corner the guys would sit down where as I would usually be sitting before the corner preparing for it. Next exercise was jumping logs. This was a theory lesson only with the tutor demonstrating how its done. A quick blip of the throttle a meter out to lift the front wheel slightly to ride up and over the log. We then moved on to a fairly steep slope with numerous culverts running perpendicular to the slope. Again it was all about body position, towards the back of the bike when going down and forward when going up. I enjoyed the training sessions and picked up some useful tips. I tried to put most of what I learned into practice on the Sunday and found I was braking harder and cornering easier due to my elbows being up. If youre new to trail riding like me I think it would be beneficial for you to attend a skills day like this one. I dont feel there is a need to do it next year but was glad I did it this time. Thanks to the T&E club for the professional way in which the day was put on. At the start of the day Allan made the call 1st to fall off buys a carton. Yes Allan bought the carton so SOTD for you mate.         |
