I headed out for the second day of training at the BMW Off Road Skills course feeling really confident after the progress I’d made on day one. I felt if I could make that same progress again today I wouldn’t be too far off. As it turned out, it was the first thing I learnt on the course that proved to be the most useful – picking the bike up off the ground.
Today’s first drill was a straight run through deep gravel made up of tiny stones. As soon as you back off the throttle the front begins to sink; too much power and the rear starts to fishtail. With the bike bucking and weaving it is hard enough to control in a straight line, so when Elvis set up a slalom through stacks of tyres I found it pretty much impossible.
I’m not sure if it was over-confidence on my part after such a positive first day but out of four or five attempts I didn’t make it to the end once and dropped the bike at least twice. My concentration was wrecked so I went away to practise some figure of eights on my own on more solid ground. After a short session practising uphill runs we spent the rest of the morning riding trails but I struggled to get my focus back and my mindset was summed up by a trio of crashes within the space of about 50 yards.
The first came when riding through a deep puddle, when I was distracted by another group that I spotted watching us out of the corner of my eye. I leaned over the front too much, spun the rear in the soft mud and dropped the bike on its side. I hauled it upright with my feet sliding around on the squishy surface, jumped back on and headed towards an even bigger, even deeper puddle - let’s make this interesting and call it a small lake. This time I tried to keep my weight to the rear and be more gentle with the throttle but I just went too slow, the front wheel got bogged down in the soft mud at the bottom and I came to a grinding halt.
I managed to jump off in time to keep the bike upright but the water was so deep it poured over the top of my boots and filled them to the brim. Now it’s hard enough for me to throw one of my little legs over a motorcycle as it is, let along with knee-high motocross boots full of water and my standing leg sinking in thick mud. However, I managed to clamber on, powered out of the water and continued down the trail, only to be faced by a third water hazard.
‘Third time lucky’, I thought. ‘Just stay on the throttle, keep the bike moving forward.’ I blasted through and as the rear gripped on the solid ground on the exit, pointing slightly sideways, I gunned straight for a tree. Unfortunately I was so focused on keeping the throttle pinned I couldn’t think of anything else, other than to close my eyes and hope for the best. When I opened them I was pleased to see I was uninjured although now, as well as being wet and muddy, I was also covered in pine needles. All I needed now was for Noel Edmonds to drop a bag of flour on my head.
After drying off over lunch we got the chance to swap bikes in the afternoon and complete a small circuit on each different model. I tried the 650 Xcountry, which in comparison to the F650GS felt like a toy that had been custom-built for off-road, as opposed to an extremely versatile road bike that can be adapted. The F800GS felt very similar to its smaller sibling, only slightly more stable and with more progressive power delivery. I wasn’t sure whether I should try the R1200GS Adventure, having never ridden anything that size, but I was encouraged to and was glad I did.
As soon as I rode it down the hill at the start of the circuit it felt comfortable, well-balanced, safe and stable to the point that you don’t even notice the extra weight. The power went straight to the ground and the rear spun up easily, which felt much easier to control than the lighter bikes, which offer less torque and tend to drive you forward in straighter lines. Of course, that didn’t stop me from pushing it too far and throwing myself over the handlebars. Believe me, picking it up off the ground is when you do notice the extra weight.
We jumped back on our original bikes and had time for a couple more trails before the end of the day, which I managed without major incident other than a problem that first surfaced for me in the hill turn exercise we had done on day one. If you watch the video closely (http://www.geton.co.uk/content/matt-roberts-bmw-road-skills) you can see how I stall the bike on descent but manage to pull the clutch in and fire her up again.
At low speed in first gear it only takes a touch on the brakes to make the bike stutter and stall so you always need to be feathering the clutch when you go for the brakes. Even though I was trying to do this throughout the second day, using just two fingers as instructed, I obviously wasn’t pulling the clutch in far enough. This is not a good habit because if the bike stalls downhill the wheels lock, skid and slide around until you do get the clutch in, at which point, if you are not ready on the brakes, the bike suddenly runs away.
It is tricky to get the combination right and above all for the right reaction to become second nature. This was a particular problem on the final exercise, which was a slalom along the side of a short but steep hillside. To be honest by this time I was exhausted, my concentration was completely gone and despite still being game for the challenge I must have crashed four times – going up the hill, at the top, going down it and at the bottom!
I’d like to think that I just needed to sleep on my clutch problem and it would have disappeared overnight, as often happens as lessons sink in. Maybe it was simply a case of altering the lever? Either way I plan to put it right on a trials bike over the next twelve months before returning next year to tackle level two.
You might be wondering why the BMW Off Road Skills course is for you. If you only ever plan to ride on the road, you may not see the point of learning to tackle rocky inclines, streams, gravel and mud. First of all, it is brilliant fun and worth it just for that. Like me, you may find you love it and want to do more. You may even start plotting an epic transcontinental Globebuster expedition.
However, more importantly, the skills you learn will come in handy every time you ride your motorcycle and help keep you safe on the road. Your balance and control will improve no end – as will your reactions to changing conditions, such as rain or oil, or worst-case scenarios like an accident right in front of you.
Anybody can learn to ride a motorcycle; the question this course answers is how you will react when you have to ride it outside your comfort zone.
