Twist of the Wrist II DVD

One of my first assignments for Rider was to attend and review the California Superbike School. My palms got sweaty and my chest tightened at the prospect of riding an unfamiliar sportbike on an unfamiliar racetrack for two days and interviewing the legendary Keith Code. I hadn’t even ridden on a track before! That proved to be a pivotal experience for me. After years of learning to ride through trial and error, Code and his coaches took the mystery out of cornering by breaking it down into a simple—though not necessarily easy—step-by step process. [Read more]

Ride for Life

I hadn’t realized I’ve developed a spiel for talking with motorcycling newbies until just the other day. Like most of you I take pride in being something of a Do-It-Yourselfer, except when it comes to washing windows. Unless the Yourself happens to be you, that is, and then I’m fine with it. Seeing as how you weren’t around the other day though, I hired a seemingly bright 20-something kid to knock out the job.

Spotting the large glossy photos and various other monuments to my motorcycling ego around the house, 20-something paused squeegeeing at one point to ask from down the hall (I was supervising from the recliner in the living room) if I did something related to motorcycling. [Read more]

Reg Pridmore’s CLASS Motorcycle School, Part 2

Reg Pridmore in the CLASSroom.

After tech inspection, classroom orientation begins promptly at 8:15am. With an hour-long lunch break and ending at 4:30pm, CLASS Motorcycle School is a full day: between seven and nine 15- to 20-minute track sessions and an equal amount of classroom instruction. Students self-select into A (fast) and B (not as fast) groups, with one group on the track while the other is in the classroom (at some tracks, CLASS runs three groups). Last year I immediately jumped into the A group since I had quite a bit of track time under my belt and had previously taken another school at Streets of Willow. Many A-group riders were CLASS veterans (some being members of Reg’s frequent-rider club, Force 5), and they ran a fast pace from the get-go. Being a moto-journalist with Rider stenciled on my leathers, I felt obliged  to keep up. Only a few sessions into the day, I pushed a cold tire too hard on the first lap and crashed out in the Turn 8 bowl. Lessons learned: ride your own ride, and warm your freaking tires, dude! [Read more]

Reg Pridmore’s CLASS Motorcycle School, Part 1

Family affair: Meredith Peake and her two sons, Joseph and Alexander Villarreal, attended CLASS together.

The May issue of Rider included a feature by Lance Oliver titled, “Track Training: 10 Reasons You Need to Get Out There!” Oliver summarized excellent reasons why attending a motorcycle track school makes sense no matter what or how you ride. His last reason says it all: “you’ll be a better, safer street rider.” Every motorcycle track school instructor will tell you the same thing, but reading those words next to photos of sportbike riders in full leathers on a RACE-track makes it seem far-fetched. [Read more]

Adventure GearLab 7: Asterisk Knee Braces

Two of my best, most loyal friends live just a femur’s length below my waist. They are my knees and they’ve been with me through decades of motorcycling, bicycling, running, backpacking and other activities where they could have failed me – but never have. A couple of years ago I got smart (hey, it’s never too late!) and quit relying on my good luck to keep them in shape. My brilliant idea was to start wearing knee protection whenever I ride my dual-sports off the pavement. And based on the experience of two friends who’ve spent a lot of time falling off their trials bikes while learning the skills necessary to stay on them, I popped for a set of Asterisk Cell knee braces. [Read more]

Expect the Unexpected

So last night on my ride home from work one of those 30-gallon trash bags, spread out in full sail, flew across the concrete divider from oncoming traffic and plastered itself to me. This was on the freeway, by the way, and I was cruising along at about 70 mph. In the split second my brain had to process this hazard before it wrapped itself around me, I’d put my left arm up to fend it off. Fortunately, in doing so, that cut down the amount of time I was “blinded,” as I was immediately able to pull the plastic bag away from my helmet. [Read more]

Designing Rider

Jody Levitan here, art director for Rider magazine, where you can usually find me at my computer designing layouts and doing my best to create a more enjoyable reading experience with a visual story as well. I’m also the most novice rider on staff and in May it will be three years since I’ve taken the MSF class and fulfilled my childhood dream of riding and therefore ending my rider envy for the rest of the staff. [Read more]

Low Low Load Capacities

What is up with low motorcycle load capacities these days? I’m not talking about cargo capacity, the volume of the bike’s built-in luggage; I’m referring to how much weight the motorcycle can carry in total. It’s not uncommon to see load capacities fall below 400 pounds on luxury and sport-touring bikes that seem intended to carry much more. Put my wife and me in full riding suits, helmets, boots and gloves on the typical luxotourer, for example, and we often can’t even bring our cell phones (never mind any extra clothes and such) without exceeding the bike’s rated load capacity. We’re not oompah-loompahs (we don’t even like chocolate much), so what gives? [Read more]

Ride for the Cure

October has been National Breast Cancer Awareness Month for 25 years, and for the last three of those years a Ride for the Cure fundraising event has been held at Rynoland—the Ryan Hughes Elite Motocross Facility in Anza, California. The event took place on Saturday, October 3, and proceeds went to Michelle’s Place, a local breast cancer resource center. Gates opened on Friday for overnight camping, and they opened again early Saturday morning for a full day of riding on the large and mini tracks. [Read more]

Wait Apexing

On the Rider European tour in mid-September I had, thanks in part to a pot of coffee with lunch that reminded me of crude oil, an epiphany of sorts. I use the word “epiphany” here simply because it sounds more cerebral than the operatic “revelation,” which is appropriate in this case.

In motorcycling we often use the term “late apexing” to describe a cornering technique that helps keep the rider out of harm’s way and let’s him see farther around the corner before committing to a particular line around it.  Trouble is, I would wager that using the phrase “late apexing” on its own to describe this technique imparts about as much immediate understanding to most riders as does using the word epiphany (in just about any context). Telling a fellow rider unfamiliar with the term that the best technique for negotiating blind corners is to use late apexing is about as effective as saying the best technique is to use epiphany, which could be some kind of hair product.

[Read more]

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