• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

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Signed up for this local riding school

robertaccio

robertaccio

Husqvarna
Pro Class
I am signed up for Motoventures level 3 class on the 16th Feb. This is Gary LaPlante's advanced offroad and trials riding techniques class (for getting through technical stuff even better with less fatigue). He will have Gas Gas trials bikes to ride included in the class. Arrival time at the Anza location across from Cahuilla MX track is 0900, cost is $215 with your own bike. It's from 0930-1530 with lunch included.

http://www.motoventures.com/
 
We have so many MX based Schools out here in SoCal but Gary comes at this from his state championship Trials into his MX offroad factory test rider skill set.
Ive been to Marty Smith's MX clinic, have had informal Ryan Hughes ride/instruction and have ridden ridden with 2 different ISDE trophy team riders (gold medals and team winners) that always gave informal instruction during rides.
This will once again be a more formal set up and my goal is to raise my "wheelie fo a purpose" game, its a weak point of mine.
Jersey, I think you guys do have Pro level enduro xc instruction in the NE with Ben Smith at WER.
 
robertaccio said:
We have so many MX based Schools out here in SoCal but Gary comes at this from his state championship Trials into his MX offroad factory test rider skill set.
Ive been to Marty Smith's MX clinic, have had informal Ryan Hughes ride/instruction and have ridden ridden with 2 different ISDE trophy team riders (gold medals and team winners) that always gave informal instruction during rides.
This will once again be a more formal set up and my goal is to raise my "wheelie fo a purpose" game, its a weak point of mine.
Jersey, I think you guys do have Pro level enduro xc instruction in the NE with Ben Smith at WER.
Click to expand...
Rich Lafferty does schools and private lessons in NJ. He has a real talent for teaching, which not all top riders have. Andrew Delong just did a private lesson with Rich, to work on sprint speed for National Enduro sections. He's helped my riding for sure.... I've got a tune up lesson planned next month, before my first enduro of the season.
 
Get his book before you go to maximize your experience. Great book and is sylibus for the course. Look forward to your report as I'm thinking of doing that too.
 
Destry is planning some clinics in the Phx area ... took one when I first started riding 6 years ago and he was (is) a truly nice guy and a good instructor. Destry: "Hey, you guys like sand? Me neither lets go run my sand practice area." Destry: "Hey, you guys like rocks? Me neither, lets go run some." Destry: "Ok, I'll go first and show you how fast you can ride this section, then you 6 will take turns and I'll give you feedback, you 6 will watch and then get your turn while the others take a break. Me (about 5 times that day) "Destry, that was so cool - I didn't know I could do that - I didn't know I could go that fast!" Final ride back to pits I've got it "pinned" and can hear Destry closing on me -fast- on his Yoshimura Kawasaki. I finally give up trying to keep him behind me after riding like a squid for 1/4 mile and he zooms past me - takes his hand off the throttle and slaps me on the shoulder as he goes by and yells "nice job" ... and off he goes, passing me with his hand off the throttle :confused:

Steve Hatch also has clinics around the country = mostly Phx area in the winter. More structure than Destry and his stuff is also available in print and on video.

Eager to hear your report after.
 
Robert, I want to do that class just to be able to ride a trials bike! They look like so much fun.

In Colorado we have American supercamp (ill be doing this year). They used ttr125's if I remember right. It's seems more flat track style but that will help with a variety of motorcycle racing. I'm really looking forward to it, especially since I'm not very good to begin. I should see an impressive improvement.
 
I am in PA, and I was also thinking about doing the Shane Watts school in DE in March. If not, I am definitely doing one of the Lafferty schools, they're cheaper and I am sure I would learn plenty.
 
Kyle Tarry said:
I am in PA, and I was also thinking about doing the Shane Watts school in DE in March. If not, I am definitely doing one of the Lafferty schools, they're cheaper and I am sure I would learn plenty.
Click to expand...
I've ridden with Rich and Shane, both are excellent. Rich's style of teaching clicks more with me, than Shane's style does. You should ride with both, if you can.
 
Norman Foley said:
You should ride with both, if you can.
Click to expand...

I definitely would love to. However, I can't afford $400 in dirt bike classes in one month. :D I may do one this year, and the other next year, or something like that!

Good to hear the positive feedback about Rich Lafferty.
 
Just for a start, Gary's school is a value added school. It is a good school in a good location. I expected a number of classmates , when I arrived it was me and 2 beginner's. The instructors were Gary and Rob, Rob is a senior class former pro mx guy and both are friendly and knowledgeable. Rob went off with the 2 young guys for a start from zero class. The school is a Yamaha sponsored deal and they have WR250F, TTR230s and WR450s, the boys were put on TTRs to start but for the later session were on WR250s.
For me we did a 1 on 1 all day with Gary. First Gary went out and I followed, this was his way to gauge my speed in his labrynth of twisty single track. We stopped a few times and analyzed my feeling while riding, he is a very technically astute motorcyclist after spending so many years with both Honda and Kawasaki as a pro test rider.
One of my focus points was to do those Graham Jarvis (et al) wheelies from an almost stop and with no fanfare, we did a bunch of runs to start that in the open area, for me a 1/2 dozen times then I need to move so we kept revisiting that technique through out the day, and during my training runs nthrough the trails, I would stop and practice my slow rise wheelies , which are still one of my most fear factor techniques, I always feel frozen and like my chair is going over backwards even when the front is fricken 2 feet off the ground.
Thats all I have on that wheelie thing, its still a work in progress after all these years. For me one day will need more days but I now have the tools to do it and the close quarters vision from Gary's instruction. PS Mr trials Gary is a wheelie king and if you go to his class ask him about if his wheelies ever caused any issues...
As for our analyzing sessions we cmae up with a set up (that one of my trophy rider friends used in exagerated form) we rolled my bars forward to carry more weight over my front, note also I removed the OEM 5.6 rear spring and installed my 6.4 which keeps my tank arse from sackiing out the rear end. My cornering speed instantly got better with the ergo change, my legs also started burning an other spots due to the change of body position. Gary has alot of very precise and some non-common thoughts on ergos. When I say non-common I mean for the common rider, if you observe the top tier guys they are well within his ergo concepts, many of which are trials based. Watch Mike Brown for one example we discussed in corners you can find his head almost in front of his freakin wheel. alot of process was very slight tweaks to me, truth is I've been very fortunate to have been out riding with many world class level rider my (slow) style is and was pretty good in bike rider position and many ergo mistakes he sees with riders were not evident in my case. The main thing was the even more front wheel bias in my position, which I have even known as I find myself too far back alot of times. Ryno stated the same. Adding a word to this is very proper bike set up so you do have big confidence in your front.
Gary is a big proponent of the rider movement around the center axis of the bike and this movement needs to be constant. Not to be a nag but when I hear about folks putting on "harley" seats to their racing chassis dirtbikes or mantioning how hard the seats are (we discussed this), fact is that the design of the machine is like a racing bicycle you dont really "sit" on it, if you want sit, sit on a cruiser bike that cups both your cheeks and holds you in one spot and doesnt split the crack (hope that was not too harsh.
Yes sitting is option that is understood, but the 2 main dirtbike positions are attack and standing "rest"(see the baja guys standing position on the non bumpy stuff)--read Garys book to get all the details and or visit the class. Its well worth the cost of admission.
sorry for the ergo discussion thats not my call Im not the instructor.

So in a nushell I got 1 on 1 all day with Gary and some time on his GasGas 280 trials bike as well, most of all I wanted time on my new TXC310R to learn her feel as the motor is waaay different than my 2011 TE310 tractor. It was for sure a successful mission up to Anza for the day. PS he stated, implored, commnanded that I must get a trials bike......

of course there is more very good stuff that reflected the views of Ryno's ergo stance as well as well

with the 6.4 Im at 34mm static and 100 even race sag. front oem .47 feels good so far
 
Nice Rob! I need to ride my trials bike more in this coming season. Even though it's 28 years old, my old Fantic has the basics of a modern trials bike.
 
Awesome 1 on 1! What a great value. Riding schools always challenge one to break out of bad habits or simply try unfamiliar techniques which may REALLY help you! Now take all this newfound confidence knowledge and setup with you to the Tractor scrambles and clean up!:thumbsup:
 
gary is the real dealio rob great choice. 3 yrs ago i was signed up for cl# 3 but...trans died and surgery was pending so..i had to back out. i need to re-up as things have changed over the years and my balance aint for beans anoymore. good job rob.
 
I was just on the motoventures website the other day after I read the book (the best I have read so far, can't wait for the snow to melt and try some of the tips out) Wish they had something like that closer to Michigan. It looks like one of the best programs out there. I think my whole family could benefit from this sort of training. Can anyone recommend something like this in the great lakes area?
 
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