Hi, my name is Katy. I’m a motorcycle: a 2000 KTM Adventure-R and I want to tell you about a wonderful trip that Cheryl (my human) and I went on earlier this Spring. I wasn’t too sure about it at first because we’d never done anything like it before, but if you can, all you motorcycles should try to get your riders to take you to what they call ‘riding school’. You see, we went to the Jimmy Lewis Offroad Adventure Riding course in Primm, Nevada for two days and I had so much fun there! It was just like Disneyland for motorcycles! We went all over the place and Cheryl learned so much about what I can do when she lets me. She’s a much more confident rider now, and I’m a lot happier to take her places because she knows what she’s doing and doesn’t hang on to me so tightly anymore.
The trip started very strangely for me. First, Cheryl took me to the motorcycle store and bought me new shoes (she calls them “tires”) that weren’t like any shoes I’d had before. My old shoes were kind of smooth but these new ones were all knobby and felt weird to me at first. Then she packed me up into the back of her pickup truck. Now, I don’t like riding in the back of the truck normally, but this was different because we headed out of town right away. I’m a tall girl, so I peered over the cab of the truck as we drove. I watched as Eastern Washington, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada whizzed past me over the next three days. As we neared Primm, by the California border, we saw lots of other bikes in trucks, too. They were different than me, though. They had smooth shoes on and were almost all black. They had low fenders and loud engines. Cheryl called them “Harleys” and I think they were having a party in Laughlin, NV that weekend. Anyway, we arrived at the casino hotel where we were to stay and Cheryl unloaded me by herself (she’s pretty tall and strong, just like me) and locked me to the truck for the night. I was freaked out because of the hot weather, my goofy shoes, the different bikes all around me, and the fact that this casino had a roller coaster that went all around the outside of it; right over my head all night long. I could hardly sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time because a load of screaming people would pass over just as I dozed off. I don’t think Cheryl slept well, either.
Anyway, she came out of the building in the morning dressed to ride and took me over to another parking lot where there were lots of other bikes just like me! They all looked a bit confused, too, but our owners got along like old pals right away. There were BMW F650’s, Honda CL’s, another LC4 like me, and some BMW GS’s. I was nervous and so was Cheryl. She made some friends, though, and introduced me to Jimmy and Heather Lewis, who were really nice to me right away. Jimmy liked me and immediately started showing Cheryl all about how to stand up on me and let her legs do the work and explained that my handlebars are too low for her and that’s why her back hurts when she rides offroad all day long. I think Cheryl’s going to get some bar-raisers for me. That should make her happier after a long day of riding because she won’t hurt so much and call me names. Anyway, Jimmy checked my clutch, brake, and shift levers and made a few adjustments before moving on to the two F650’s standing near me. I think he likes bikes a lot because he seemed to know right what we needed. We were all smiling by the time our riders got on and we drove to the dry lake bed for our first lesson. Then the trip and the knobby shoes began to make sense to me!
It turned out that my new shoes were perfect for the caked mud on the surface of the dry lakebed. We spent the whole first day there. I had fun skipping around, skidding my wheels, and practicing panic-stops and Cheryl worked really hard to learn the techniques that Jimmy explained. I got overheated a couple of times because it was a hot day, but when I put my warning light on, Cheryl stopped doing the drills and we rode straight out across the lake bed until I cooled down. She really watched out for me. I was having the time of my life doing wheelies and sliding in turns and doing tight circles with her half hanging off my side. She even learned how to ride with two fingers on the clutch and brake levers for better reaction time and balance. She’s never been able to do that before! She told someone that it was hard at first, like learning to use chopsticks. But she worked and worked and finally got it. Now she doesn't lean on the handlebars all the time. She hangs on with her knees like she's supposed to.
We skittered in the desert all morning long, doing drills that were harder and harder for the riders but that came as naturally for us bikes as Hopscotch or Red Rover do to children on a playground. The riders stopped for sandwiches around lunchtime and then the fun continued all afternoon. Cheryl was really tired when she locked me to the truck that evening but she had a big smile and she promised me that the next day would be even more fun. And it was!
We started early the next morning and all the bikes were excited, wondering what we’d be doing. Most of us were dirty from the day before (although there were two curiously clean F650's) and we were looking forward to getting even dirtier today. First we went to a sandy wash and our riders took turns falling in the deep heavy sand. That didn't bother anybody, though; they just picked us up and kept going because Jimmy and Heather encouraged them every step of the way. After that, we rode out over the lakebed and on some rocky dirt roads to a steep, short uphill. Jimmy then showed our riders how we can pick our way up loose rocky hills if they stand up in the saddle and feather the clutch. I carried Cheryl up post-haste and was really happy that she didn’t have a white-knuckle grip on the handlebars anymore. She was finding the balance point and letting me get up the hill my way. That made my job so much easier. Coming down was another matter; she had to learn how to shift my weight from the front to the back of the bike in an alternating fashion using the clutch and front brake to get down the steep hill in a controlled manner. We did pretty well at this, too. But the best part of the class was the sand dunes!
They took us to a big sand-dune ‘bowl’ in which you could ride around the rim or go down in and come up the other side, or try to make it up this one particularly steep dune. Well, this was my chance to shine! I showed Cheryl that I could writhe and twist and slide all kinds of ways without letting her fall to the ground and she learned to hold on, but not too tightly, and to stay on the gas. She had a great time and the F650’s and I chased each other back and forth across the bowl with our riders whooping it up the whole way and taking pictures of us. Once, Jimmy had Cheryl spin my rear wheel down into the sand and get stuck on purpose so he could show her how I can dig myself out a little bit at a time.
The only time Cheryl let me down was when we took a run at the steep dune. I really wanted to get to the top and tapped my foot (idling the engine) until she got up the nerve to take a run at it. Alas, though, she blew the shift from first to second gear and we lost momentum so we crashed near the top. I landed on my side in the sand and slid ten feet back down the dune with Cheryl sliding beside me. I wasn’t afraid, though. Nothing was broken and Cheryl was just laughing so I knew we’d get back to the bottom somehow. When we stopped sliding, Heather and Ryan came over and Jimmy coached us from the bottom of the dune about how they should turn me to get me upright and mounted and down the steep, deep, loose sand to the bottom. Cheryl was too rattled to try the dune again but I wish she’d given me another chance. I could have done it! I know I could have!
The next thing I knew, though, the day was ending and we were racing full-steam back across the dry lakebed to the casino-hotel. It was a glorious ride because the sun was shining, my new shoes were all scrubbed-in, we’d survived the dune crash, and Cheryl was more loose and relaxed on my back than she’d ever been in all the four years we’ve been together. I could hear her yelping with joy as we sped across the desert back to the casino-hotel. I don’t know if she could hear me, but I was probably happier than she was because this is what I was built to do! What a great weekend to be a motorbike! You know, Cheryl always takes good care of me: buying me oil and chains and stuff like that. But taking me to riding school was the best thing she’s ever done for the two of us. Now we have all summer to ride and practice before going to the “Advanced” class next Autumn. Oh boy!