Lafferty Dirt Class, Saturday 11/8

[Rut Row]

I thought I'd start a new thread for this

Bucho, Racer Al and I are driving up Friday evening and staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Vineland. After staying at a Holiday Inn Express and taking Rich's class, we'll be the hottest DAMNed Riders around!

Bucho and I are meeting Racer AL at the first Service Plaza north of Bal'mer Friday night around 9 PM.

The class starts at 0900 Saturday.

Soon to be hot DAMN Riders:
- Racer Al
- Kyler
- Bucho
- Crofrog?

[Roadracer_Al]

I'd just add that the class is held at the address on the "Riding School Flyer" PDF from Rich Lafferty's site:

http://www.rlafferty.com/riding_school/ ... chool.html

[Rut Row]

Al isn't going to be able to make it after all dang...

anyone else coming or is it just me 'n Bucho?

[Roadracer_Al]

Yeah, sorry. DAMN allergy. I was really looking forward to it, and it looks like a great weekend for it, weather-wise.

[Rut Row]

Al - be glad you didn't go. Bucho was lapped 3 times by a 10yo on a KTM 65SX...

BUT! we had a great time and I learned a lot. Can't wait to get back out and practice it.

[Bucho]

Yeah it was pretty good. I don't think I've ever wrecked that many times, ever.
It would have been great to have to some helmet cam footage to show you the tight beyond tight trails he had us riding. And yes, Lafferty's son did lap me several times on the last practice loop. But in my defense, the handle bars on a 65SX could actually fit between the tight trees we had to squeeze through!!! (that kid was really good, wasn't fast at all, but didn't make any mistakes either)

[Roadracer_Al]

So, what was the content of the class? During the brief conversation I had with Rich, he said he'd basically teach practice drills. Was there more to it than that?

a

[Rut Row]

after teaching the practice drills, we got to practice them on some super tight prime NJ sandy single-track. Heck, the trail riding alone was worth it.

[Bucho]

Yes, we did some work on fundamentals. Worked on slower speed turning while standing on the pegs, and proper body positioning while doing so.

We went out to a sand pit and worked on higher speed turning. We laid out big ovals some w/ berms and some flat corners. Again proper body positioning, braking, shifting... Here is where I wrecked alot. I had my front end wash out a couple of times in the soft sand.

But the tight little loops he put us on were fantastic. I've done very little single track and it was all single track and incredibly tight. A bike w/ lower gearing and a hundred less pounds would have been nice, but I'm sure i would have still struggled a bit no matter what I was riding.

Worked on some log hopping, dealing w/ tight trees, some of us even did his concrete "rock garden", which I thought would be easy but wasn't.

It was some of the hardest, tightest, longest 33 miles I've ridden.

[Rut Row]

On a humorous note, one of our classmates was a n00bie like me and he was riding an 08 450EXC. It was spotless and looked like it just came off the showroom floor. I asked him how new it was and he said he had it a few weeks and then launched into his cleaning routine. He sprays it down with a cleaner, lets that set for an hour then power washes it. Then takes a huge hair dryer and blows it down and hand wipes it!!!

Bucho and I look at our GR mud encrusted bikes, then at his bike, at him, at each other and turned away so he wouldn't see us laughing...

It wasn't pristine clean at the end of the day.