f you go on an off-road adventure ride on a dual-sport motorcycle, you will fall. But seeing the terrain may be worth the pain.
My ride to RawHyde Adventures’ off-road motorcycle school in Castaic is typically heroic: daring and expert lane splitting, fistfuls of throttle and clutch, spectacular knee-dragging cornering. I even pop a wheelie or two. My riding skills astound me.
So imagine my surprise when, having left the asphalt to turn into the ranch’s gravel driveway and going all of about 10 feet, I fall off my borrowed BMW F800GS in a spray of loose rock and liberated motorcycle parts . . . Hey, whoa, what the . . . ker-RASSHH! Pain and humiliation mingle inside my helmet. I have not dropped a bike ever, and yet here I am, resting gently on my face. The marquee lights around my motorcycle-riding ego suddenly go dim. The squirrels laugh. Gravel tastes funny.
So begins my five-day education in off-road riding…Â Details
Ohlins’ 2WD project manager reveals: it was faster dry or wet, suffered only a 2.5bhp power loss, and that there were four manufacturers who had Ohlins 2WD-equipped mules.
This is an extended version of a story which appeared in MCN in April.
A week before he retires, Lars Jansson – Öhlins’ R&D manager of future projects and the man behind the would-be revolutionary 2-wheel-drive system – is at last free to tell its secrets, and reveal … Details
The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) is pleased to announce the first member of the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame Class of 2009, each of whom will be revealed in random order over the next few weeks. Among the honorees who will take to the stage at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas this Dec. 5 will be seven-time AMA National Enduro Champion Randy Hawkins.
“In the world of off-road racing, one of the toughest sports on the planet, there are few who can match the stellar accomplishments of Randy Hawkins,” said AMA President and CEO Rob Dingman. “From the late 1980s through the ’90s, Randy made it look easy, dominating the AMA National Enduro Championships, while carrying the flag proudly in international competition.”
AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famer Jack Penton, co-chairman of the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame Off-road Committee, added…Â Details