SMIB's doing the Shane Watts 2 Day Dirtwise Class

[scott P]

I have to cook my sweetie breakfast and then change the brakes on the Honda Accord

[joints4sale]

BOY! What a day! I am incredibly sore. While learning to do "stopies" I tweaked my right shoulder bad. The damage from that started affecting my riding the rest of the day(I can't actively raise my right arm, I must have torn my rotator cuff). During our rutt exercise I went down HARD on that same shoulder. At first I thought I broke something, but ended up not doing any additional damage. I made a point in marking my territory all over the place, I might have to change my screen name to "Crash Jordan".

So if you crash as much as I do you might find this little trick helpful.

[joints4sale]

Won't make it to breakfast in the AM, but I'll see everyone at the park.

[JaxObsessed]

Jeez Erik, First the ankle now the shoulder.... You just wanna be me don't cha? :)

PS.. I hope you heal quickly and uneventfully.

[Hack]

^ yeah but he probably gets better deals on replacement parts than you I wanna say have fun SMIBs but SURVIVE seems to be more the word for today.

[bwalsh]

Originally Posted by joints4sale

During our rutt exercise I went down HARD on that same shoulder

Ruts sucks. I cracked a rib or two and smacked my helmet(hard enough to get dizzy) dropping into a rut, catching a fork on the side of it, and going down a couple years back...
Hope your shoulder isn't too messed up.
Looks like for the most part it was a fun time!

[scott P]

Did everyone survive today??

[Dorito]

I will take my hat off to Wattsy as he is one person that truly loves his job. He’s probably got more bike talent in his little finger than I have in my entire human. The man can truly handle a bike like it is a third arm. He certainly was able to explain the exercise, provide real-world experience and demonstrate the exercises with ease. There is absolutely no doubting his talent on a bike. With very minor infrastructure, Wattsy was able to craft many different exercises. In fact, it is surprising how many things you can practice on a flat piece of land, which can be varying complexity and intensity. I would probably consider another class.

However, having just come home the BMW performance center 2-day off road course last weekend, this course was more different that I could imagine. I would have never survived the Wattsy class without the skills learned then. It was interesting that some core skills are the same regardless of the bike or track. Front brake locking, rear brake skidding, hills up and down rider position were prevent in both classes.

As a novice (dirt) rider, I would rather learn a technique properly from the beginning than learn a bad habit which invariably impossible to break later--> Practice doesn’t make perfect; Perfect practice makes perfect!

Wattsy was very encouraging and never angered the entire day. However, I know he recognized I was the novice but just ran out of bandwidth to coach me to great success. I would have really preferred the exercise lanes to be tailored to receive feedback on every loop, rather than a “survival of the fittest” race we often found ourselves in. The latter, I suspect is part of the deeply rooted MX mentality that “if you aren’t on the throttle, you’d better be on the brake” and I am the outsider wondering why. Riding dual sport, you learn to take care of other riders, because you are so far from home . The MX mentality appears to be cutoff other riders off at all expense, non-safety conscience, almost appearing to down-right lack manners and sensible judgment.

I accomplished great things when Wattsy was able to personally coach me through it for the rookie errors that I was making. For example, I did my first wheelie mid-morning, and before lunch he had me over a 2 FT diameter log! I found the warmup lap daunting on the Sat AM and got completely overfaced. But by Sun PM I was confident that I could get through it despite my pokey speed.

Constructive criticism:
1) Safety—There were numerous acts that I found to be dangerous. The exercises didn’t allow control of the riders nor their MX mentality, despite a training event. For example, while I was setting up for a turn other riders would cut to the inside, then screw up their line leaving me and other riders to concentrate on accident avoidance rather than skill development. Riders often failed to yield right of way to fallen riders, often even roosting them as they tried to regain themselves. Late on the last day during the hill climb, there were multiple bike collisions, riders falling into trees and general mishaps. I would absolutely agree that learning to start a bike on a hill is a most useful tool, however, it would have seemed prudent to find a smaller incline to practice the start/stop hill exercise as most appeared to get through on luck and ignorance rather than true developed/mastered skills.
2) Breaks—Really need to encourage riders to take off their helmets and get off their bikes for rest/water. Need a mid-morning and mid-afternoon break. A lot of energy wasted on sitting on a bike, that could be used to learn techniques. Most riders were spent mid-afternoon. Lastly, with only one instructor, there was nobody to ride "drag". The novice slowpoke, was left to find my own way home off the trail multiple occasions.
3) Exercises are meant for training. However, need to provide riders more room to practice. The exercise with acceleration in the straight lines needs to provide riders with more room between lanes. The 4-circle exercise would have also benefited from moving the circles themselves away from each other.
4) It’s tough to cater to advanced and novice riders, but the student to instructor ratio (16:1) made it difficult to provide consistent feedback to during exercises.
5) Recommend either adding a block to the registration form on experience or asking students to ensure students don’t get overfaced. Although every rider needs to ride their own ride, you can surely get yourself in too deep quickly.

[JaxObsessed]

Thanks for the synopsis Dorito. How did the others take it? Joints's injury?

[EOD3MC]

Bike cleaned up, gear put away and damn am I tired...Great last two days though.

I would have to agree with Dana's critique...There were times were I was more worried about keeping up then focusing on the lesson as well.

There were things that could have been better, but overall, It was a class well worth taking. There were many things that I know will prove useful not just with off-road riding.

Shane did a great job..

[Tom_WR450F]

I can understand Dana's critique....I believe the class is geared for the somewhat experienced off-road rider and not the novice....but I am of the MX mentality so I found it to be just what I expected......I also agree with her suggestion for a little more breaks (e.g., one mid-morn and one mid-afternoon) cause I found myself at times just totally wore-out and in need soem fluids and food.

one a side note - i REALLY enjoyed being with all the ADV Riders and SMIBs....you're all a great bunch of people!!! Also, teh other students in the class were fun to ride with.

so now i'm going to take some advil...drink soem water...and let my 2 daughters read me stories until I fall asleep.

[Tom_WR450F]

[joints4sale]

I will have to agree with Dorito in her assessment. I think the class is intended for people to improve their MX skills. Some of those skills transfer well into trail riding, but I think the "race" mentality doesn't. The class is also geared toward smaller bikes and so it is difficult to do some of the exercises on a bigger bike. For example trying to do a stopie on my 625 was difficult and that is where I injured myself(I also don't think that drill was applicable to my riding style).

Please take my criticism with a grain of salt. Shane did an excellent job of teaching the class. I just think that maybe this class wasn't intended for me. Don't get me wrong I had a blast and learned some new skills that I will practice for the rest of my life as well as reinforcing others that I had already learned.

[blaster11]

Originally Posted by scott P

Did everyone survive today??

Actually just barely. While going over the largest log there I carried too much speed and got bucked off over the handlebars and landed right on top of my head. When I hit the ground I heard crunching and I wasn't sure if it was the helmet or my neck . Bottom line is I got up and eventually walked off after being checked by the medical staff present. I went and got X-rays tonight just to be sure and everything appears OK. So I need a new helmet now and a new summer riding jacket since I ripped the zipper while exiting over the handlebars.

[Dorito]

The Lion had to go to Wizard of Oz for courage, the Tin Man for a heart, and the scarecrow for a brain. After a nice visit to Patient First, I conclude from Blaster's x-ray that he does have a brain (and no neck fractures). By extrapolation, Wattsy = Oz!