DS Skilz-drill 02 - Sep '07 - Recap

We gathered at Vince's in Santa Paula. Terry Eannetta, Don Gordon,
Paul Beck, and Bob Kelly met here. Steve Atkin joined us later.

At the end of DSS 01, it was decided that DSS 02 would be a review of DSS 01, plus the basics of lofting the front tire. So, we planned on covering wheelies, counterbalancing, steering by skidding, and steering by powersliding. We touched on everything but powersliding; there just wasn't enough time.

After a short ride to a deserted area of orchards, we spent some time learning to loft the front tire on pavement. Luckily, we found a spot with a deep crevasse on the edge of the road, to keep us from inadvertently riding off into the orchards if we lost control:

Tire-lofting gets trickier with partial traction; practicing on pavement gave us a chance to get comfortable with the feel of the maneouver. Our goal was to be able to do several short wheelies at slow speeds. Eventually, using this skill off pavement may save the front wheel from getting dented against a rock or dropping into a rut.


Later, during the paved portion of the climb into the mountains, we made brief videos of ourselves cornering using counterbalancing body position, for later critique. This position is invaluable when riding off-pavement, and quite often useful on pavement as well.


Once in the dirt, we began basic skidding practice. As Paul Beck shows here, we started out practicing skidding more or less straight.










Here, the terrain got the better of Terry, and started turning the bike. Note the slight lean in the direction of turn. He is also just beginning to turn the front tire toward the outside. Good form.










Here's Bob Kelly putting the '08 KLR through it's paces:










Next we started instigating turns by skidding. Terry seems to have his game on here, although in absence (so far) of a cogent argument otherwise, I advocate a little more body-English...










... Here Don Gordon shows what I mean. His body is a little bit outside the bike. This may be a style issue, but I believe pretty strongly that counterbalancing vastly improves handling in situations like this.










Don got a little close on some of his practice runs...












Here Steve is skidding into a turn, without steering out of the turn, and without much counterbalance...










... It didn't work out all that great for him...










After skidding drills, we headed down a winding, descending trail that allowed us to practice using skidding to instigate turns while decelerating. I managed to get from the ridge where we practiced to the water crossing below without steering in order to navigate the turns, except while skidding: I would skid into a descending turn, turning the bike as I did, then accelerate in a straight line toward the next turn.

We found a straightaway with water bars, and managed to experiment with lofting the front tire off pavement for a little while -- but then we got scared and raced on back. See, we passed this gate --










-- not really sure that we should. It later occurred to us that it was hunting season, and that the gate was closed in order to keep hunters from entering an area of the Forest that is closed to hunting. But at the time, we thought we might be a band of immoral, lawless, devil-may-care ne'er-do-wells, going by that gate, and when we saw the police helicopter, we ran like frightnened pigmies before a ravenous pterodactyl.

As it happened, the fellows in the pterodactyl were apparently making sure that this section of the Forest was not -- as much of the rest of the Forest was -- bursting into flames, and cared not a whit that we were out there doing a poor job of wheelie-ing over water bars on the roadway.

We regrouped in the shade at the base of the mountains. Did I mention that the high for the day in our area was 110 degrees?










We were wiped. Here, Paul Beck eyes Bob Kelly -- will his core temperature drop down to normal, or is he past the point of no return and doomed to go supernova?












Bob (and the rest of us) eventually found a watering hole, with some sort of iced beverage... It cooled us down, but it made Terry have a hard time finding our table. Here he is after a long walk around the room...










Here's Steve on the way out, commenting on the impressive lineup.










Don even changed his socks before going into the restaurant. Here he is changing back. If you don't look this happy (and slightly more dirty) after one of these rides, I feel I haven't done my job.












I managed to break my turn signal switch (and nothing else) in a fall during the day. Here's the McGyver repair: I used a soldering iron and some extra plastic to "weld" the vital little bump back on the bottom of the inside end of the switch lever, and -- after losing the original spring -- a spring from a cheap retractable pen...












... The shaft on which the lever is impaled was broken, so I replaced it with a small screw. I had to dremel off the tip of the screw where it protruded from the underside of the switch housing (not shown), so it would still fit into the handlebar mount.












All in all, a day well seized. We forgot to discuss what to cover in the next DSS ride at the end of this one. Unless I hear other preferences from you riders, the next DSS ride (after the RawHyde weekend) will likely cover in greater depth, one of the techniques we covered here. If you'd like to cover something else, feel free to email me or post it in a comment.