It's always awesome to meet other female dirt riders, so that made our most recent road trip to Nevada even better!
The story goes like this… Will and I were feeling a little inadequate on our big dual sport bikes after some spills and costly repairs. SO, Will found this “Adventure Touring” class over Easter weekend. The class is team-taught by Jimmy and Heather Lewis. Now Jimmy is quite the legend having won 3rd in the Paris to Dakar rally for BMW a few years back, but it was awesome to find out that Heather is quite the rider too!!!
So here I am thinking the DR650 was such a huge bike, when Heather throws a leg over the massive BWM GS1150 and tools around like it was my little KX! And she’s just not that big either at maybe 5’5” I’m guessing. Now I have NO room to complain about size after watching her on that thing. It was inspiring: if she can do it, well than maybe I can do it too on my much smaller/lighter DR650!
There were only six of us in the class, so we got really personal treatment from both Jimmy and Heather. Heather and I were the only women, so I was really glad she was there. The first day was drills on a big empty dry lake bed that broke things down into the basics: clutch, throttle, rear brake, front brake, and balance/weight shift on hills, slow turns, and fast corners. Then, we added SPEED for controlled skids, panic stopping, and stopping distance estimating. TOO MUCH FUN!!! We never imagined trying to wheelie the big bikes, but there we all were working on our wheelies! By the end of the day, the bikes just weren’t feeling as big; they were feeling more like regular ‘ol dirt bikes!
The next day was a dual sport ride through southern Nevada to test our skills and learn new ones. There was much biffing for everyone. Jimmy taught Will a prized lesson in getting the GS unstuck from a sand dune using the least amount of energy necessary. That was actually one of the class themes: relax, use good technique to not waste energy, and have fun riding the big bikes like the DIRT BIKES they really are!
Will and I had so much fun that we’re gonna join Jimmy and Heather on another class/ride up in Dubois, Wyoming in July. The ride is for 650s and bigger bikes, though, since it’s a true dual sport ride. However, the class day is for any dirt bike and my friend Annie is riding the DR200 for that! For those of you (like me) who couldn’t schedule in Nicole’s class, this may be the ticket because it’s such good stuff and Heather is an awesome instructor too!
Here’s a link to some of the pics. I had to hurry off to a job site the minute we got home from class, so I didn’t get all the pics posted. I’ll get the rest up there this week after I catch up on some sleep!
LINK TO PICS :thumb: :thumb:
The story goes like this… Will and I were feeling a little inadequate on our big dual sport bikes after some spills and costly repairs. SO, Will found this “Adventure Touring” class over Easter weekend. The class is team-taught by Jimmy and Heather Lewis. Now Jimmy is quite the legend having won 3rd in the Paris to Dakar rally for BMW a few years back, but it was awesome to find out that Heather is quite the rider too!!!
So here I am thinking the DR650 was such a huge bike, when Heather throws a leg over the massive BWM GS1150 and tools around like it was my little KX! And she’s just not that big either at maybe 5’5” I’m guessing. Now I have NO room to complain about size after watching her on that thing. It was inspiring: if she can do it, well than maybe I can do it too on my much smaller/lighter DR650!
There were only six of us in the class, so we got really personal treatment from both Jimmy and Heather. Heather and I were the only women, so I was really glad she was there. The first day was drills on a big empty dry lake bed that broke things down into the basics: clutch, throttle, rear brake, front brake, and balance/weight shift on hills, slow turns, and fast corners. Then, we added SPEED for controlled skids, panic stopping, and stopping distance estimating. TOO MUCH FUN!!! We never imagined trying to wheelie the big bikes, but there we all were working on our wheelies! By the end of the day, the bikes just weren’t feeling as big; they were feeling more like regular ‘ol dirt bikes!
The next day was a dual sport ride through southern Nevada to test our skills and learn new ones. There was much biffing for everyone. Jimmy taught Will a prized lesson in getting the GS unstuck from a sand dune using the least amount of energy necessary. That was actually one of the class themes: relax, use good technique to not waste energy, and have fun riding the big bikes like the DIRT BIKES they really are!
Will and I had so much fun that we’re gonna join Jimmy and Heather on another class/ride up in Dubois, Wyoming in July. The ride is for 650s and bigger bikes, though, since it’s a true dual sport ride. However, the class day is for any dirt bike and my friend Annie is riding the DR200 for that! For those of you (like me) who couldn’t schedule in Nicole’s class, this may be the ticket because it’s such good stuff and Heather is an awesome instructor too!
Here’s a link to some of the pics. I had to hurry off to a job site the minute we got home from class, so I didn’t get all the pics posted. I’ll get the rest up there this week after I catch up on some sleep!
LINK TO PICS :thumb: :thumb:
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