Bill the Duck meets Jimmy the Lewis

[Bill the Duck]

OK, now that Bill's JL report has been relegated to the nether regions beyond page one and Inte finally finished his "dramatic" report, I guess I'll do mine. The short story is that I learned more in two days than I'd been able to figure out myself in three years.

And now the long story. First, on the ride to Primm from Scottsdale I see this in Wikiup:



And here's Buffalo Bill's, the recommended lodging for the weekend. $7 for a pack of smokes, and the stools in the bar sucked mightily, although the ones in fromt of the slot machines were nicely contoured. Ah well, at least it was relatively cheap (~50/night).



So I meet Doug on the way in, then met Keith while waiting in the bar for Doug (the bellhop lost Doug's spare tires ) Jeff shows up a bit later. Then to dinner at the only non-buffet restaruant, Tony Romas, and to bed.

Next morning after a quick breakfast of bacon and donuts I head out to the back parking lot to meet up with the class and head over to the sand drag track. Here's Jimmy demonstrating proper clutch technique.



Here's the class watching Jimmy demonstrate a drill. That's Berti on the far left, not paying attention. This may be why he keeps having to retake the course In truth, Jimmy will watch how you're doing with a particular drill, and if you're doing well he'll change it for you to make it a bit more challenging.



Heather does a demo...



Jimmy demonstrating proper wheelie technique. I was surprised that this was in the curriculum as I'd always thought they were just a squid trick. But he later tied it in to off-road riding situations. Yes, he was heading straight for us.



OK, out to the dry lakebed. For those of you who have never ridden on one, it's an ideal learning surface. Soft enough to break the rear loose easily, perfectly flat, but still provides quite a bit of traction. I'd asked if power sliding was on the menu, but no joy. According to Jimmy, on the dry lake you had to use a bunch of throttle to break the rear loose, and by the time you get a good slide going there's a good chance of a pretty serious high-side if you cut the throttle.



Me: "Hey Heather! There's this big stupid dope in this AdvRider website named Nachtflug that thinks all GS's suck unless there's a babe sitting on them. Would you sit on my bike so my GS will stop sucking?"

Heather: "Sit? How 'bout I ride it?"

Me: :rabia "Uh, sure!"









Me: "Hey Jimmy, can I ride your bike?"

Jimmy: "Sure Mr. Duck, whatever you want." Jimmy's a nice guy. Loans me his wife and bike. Why do I feel dirty?



Truth is I just sat on it. Jimmy doesn't let anybody ride his bike, although he said he has seen claims to the contrary on the net.

There were a couple of sweet airheads:



This one had a clapped-out battery, but the owner got LV BMW to leave a replacement outside their door before they closed up. All better.



Next up - DAY 2

[Bill the Duck]

Day two starts with a birefing where we learn about leapfrogging.



Leapfrogging is a great group ride trick. At any turn or tricky spot the leader stops and holds his hand in the aire making the "loser" L shape. When the next rider gets close enough to see which way the leader goes, he signals the leader to go ahead. The next guy comes along and the process repeats. This allows riders to be spaced out, avoiding eating dust, watching the rider ahead and not the road, etc.

Here's the route. A little over 70 miles, elevations from 2600 to 5000ft.



Just a few pics from the ride, alsthough I got a picture of pretty much everybody but Inte from this point in the trail. The other pics are here , but here's one of Jimmy and Doug.

At that same stop Jimmy demos how to climb and descend vertical f-ing walls.





The first part of the ride was down a primarily straight powerline road that led up over a mountain range. According to Jimmy, the condition of the road was much more difficult than normal. Instead of relatively easy packed road with rocks and the occasional sandy wash, much of the road was loose sand/gravel/rock, with fairly large berms of sand and gravel in the washes. No pics, sorry. See Inte's report for a pic of my reaction to the return to pavement. The rest of the class trickled in with varying numbers of drops and missing/broken parts, and Chris (aka Rabid Dog) busted up his knee pretty good on his drop. Here's the regroup that followed shortly thereafter.



It was then that Inte discovered his loose chain guard and fixed it.



Jimmy found a washer for Inte to use, but it was bent. Here's the hammer and anvil Jimmy used to flatten the washer.



Pizza for lunch, then up another hugely sandy road. It was as if the recent torrential rains had washed all the loose gravel and sand from the surrounding hills onto the road, which seemed to have actually been a riverbed during the rains. Tough stuff, and quite tiring. When we finally got back to the trailer, the beer tasted very, very good.

We split up to freshen up, then met back up for dinner at Tony Romas (again). After dinner a few of us closed down the stage bar. Off to bed.

[Bill the Duck]

Does this ever happen to any of you? When I got into bed and got all nice and relaxed (thanks to Advil) and started to doze off, my mind automatically began replaying the hairier sections of the day's ride, only I'd screw up and crash, jolting myself back to full wakefullness. I couldn't stop it. This has happened before after challenging rides.

Anybody else?

[ktmnate]

no mater how many JL reports I read, I still enjoy them. Thanks for taking us along.


Nate

ps -I get the same type of dreams. They just keep me up and makes me absolutly shitty the next day.

[Bill the Duck]

Monday morning I got up late and took my time getting packed up. The ride home was uneventful. Took a bunch of sideroads that I said I'd do if I ever had the time. The one worthy pic is this one, just after crossing the Colorado. I hereby dub thee FYYFF Rock.



If you get a chance to to Jimmy's class, do it. Send Heather and email to get on the list (address is on their website http://www.jimmylewisoffroad.com/

Cheers!

[HappyGoLucky]

Nice report mate, thanks for sharing. Wish I coulda been there!!!!

[Hair]

This is mandatory training as far as I am concerned.

And since I have not made the trip yet, I can tell that I am way behind the curve.



Jimmy I'm a coming. Someday, someday.


Good job Bill.

[Team Dennis]

Excellent report and pics. Thanks for the effort.

[Lone Rider]

Way to go, Mr Duck!

[AceRph]

Looks like it was a lot of FUN Duckman. Thanks for sharing.

You didn't fall off?

[Boojum]

Enjoyed the report Bill ! That Jimmy Lewis..........

Boojum!

[Owlseye]

Great report Duck, and all the others who took the course. About your question about replaying the day when you're trying to sleep--- yes, I do. It also happens after a day of skiing, or anything else that involves heights. My episodes also involve sudden arm jerks too. My worst episode was after a 2 day mountaineering course that involved 1500 metres of "exposure". When the guide said that word, I interpreted it to mean ''windy" or some such climate based description. What it means is a 3 inch ledge with a crumbly base, and 1000 feet straight down. We were tied together, but that meant that if one person f***ed up, we were all goners. Got through it, obviously, but the longest 1500 metres of my life.... Being hit by a small rockslide didn't help the pucker factor either, I must say. The replaying sensation was so bad that for days I couldn't even close my eyes.

It's funny how our mind keeps those memories-- my face has long since healed, exept the scars, but i can still "hear" the sound of my face hitting the gravel and my full face helmet breaking from a crash I had in 1986. Hasn't ever taught me anything as I still do it all, but makes for some groggy mornings afterwards.

[HMR71]

Originally Posted by Bill the Duck

Anybody else?

We used to call those "Skater Dreams". When I was in high school a bunch of my buddies were sponsored skate boarders. On road trips there'd be ten of us sleeping around a campfire or in the same hotel room. Every few minutes someone would gasp and jump up in a cold sweat. Funny stuff.

[inte]

Originally Posted by HMR71

When I was in high school a bunch of my buddies were sponsored skate boarders.

Still skating? Who'd you ride for?

[Bill the Duck]

Originally Posted by AceRph

Looks like it was a lot of Duckman. Thanks for sharing.

You didn't fall off?

Nope. I'm fairly certain I would have if I'd tried Sunday's ride before Saturday's skilz and drilz. Three things made the ride easier and saved my pumpkin:

(Disclaimer: These are isolated skills that stick out in my memory. Undoubtedly my description will be inadequate and certainly not tailored to anyone's current skill level. Try these only at your own risk. Better yet, pony up the bux and do the class!)

1. Grip with your ankles. I used to grip the seat/tank with my knees. This lets you...

2. Steer with your feet. In sand I used to kinda resign myself to letting the bike choose which rut to roll along in. With great effort and significant pucker I could cross deeper sand going from one rut to another. But by standing and steering with my feet I could deliberately and quickly choose a specific line.

3. If the front wheel starts to knife in, crack the throttle. Not only is this effective in straightening out the bike, but it's hella fun too!

Bonus: The best laugh-out-loud-in-your-helmet skill I learned from Jimmy was to manually wiggle the handlebars back and forth when at speed in sand. The way he put it was "either the bike will do it or you can do it". I tried it, and it worked really well, no affect on direction of travel. Nearly pissed myself laughing.