My Globerider buddy, John Shelton, good friends Peter Kukol and Zuzana Kukol and I have come to the desert near Primm, Nevada to take the Jimmy Lewis adventure touring dirt bike class.

That's Jimmy in the photo demonstrating the proper method to, er, "lighten the front end." Seriously, it's a legitimate skill that can get you over tall obstacles and out of tight spots.

Jimmy is more than qualified to teach this class. He is a Paris/Dakar competitor and one of the best motorcyclists in the world. Nope, no anorexic trials bike will do for his classroom demonstrations. He teaches on a stock R1150GS to make it clear that everything he shows us can be done on even the biggest bike. The porky GS looks much, much smaller in his expert hands. It's the rider-- not the bike.



Here is Jimmy showing us how to position ourselves to ride down steep hills. Stand on the pegs, shift your weight to the back, brake the rear wheel just below the point of locking up, go light (if at all) on the front brake. This hill didn't look very steep and when Jimmy asked for the first volunteer I was quick (as always) to raise my hand. I didn't know Jimmy planned to lift up the backs of our bikes. It gets quite a bit steeper!

My round-the-world trip last year was my first real experience riding through dirt, gravel and mud. Take it from me- you don't want to learn dirt riding in the midst of a long trip! My street reflexes kept telling me that I didn't have full control of the bike and as a result I was uncomfortable, anxious and tensed up much of the time. Ride like that for a few days or weeks and you'll be worn out and beat up too. It was obvious that dirt skills and street skills were two different things. I resolved to learn enough dirt skills so I could enjoy the kind of roads we were on rather than fear them.

Jimmy is a patient teacher. We spent the first day on a dry lake bed practicing drills. The point of each drill is to learn to control the bike so it will do the work for you. Jimmy reinforced that message time and again. "Wrestling the bike will just wear you out. It's bigger and stronger than you. Instead, learn how to balance it and control it to let it do the work." Sounds like a martial arts technique, doesn't it? The second day we took an 80-mile trek through the desert testing different road conditions to apply what we've learned.

I can tell that I made a major mental leap because now I'm driving slow through the easier parts and fast through the harder parts. It's just the opposite of what my survival instincts told me but I'm gaining a sense of how acceleration provides stability through uneven terrain. Hitting the brakes shifts weight to the front wheel which tends to make it dig into sand or gravel-- just the opposite of what you want. Accelerating shifts weight back, lightens the front wheel, and provides more stability. It took some practice to learn to overcome my instincts and trust giving it gas but it worked. I was able to ride through places where, before, I would have slowed to a crawl, stuck out my feet, and wrestled the handlebars. It's a big improvement! Now it's up to me to take this back home and practice it.

I highly recommend the Jimmy Lewis course. John, Peter, Zuzana and I are all thinking about coming back for another one next year. In the meantime I'm going to work on perfecting my technique for "lightening the front end." ;-)