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