Adventure Camp

Where Does The Time Go?

Well, Adventure Camp has come and gone. All in all it was a good experience. I learned a bit more about riding my bike off road and met some really nice people. 

We arrived at camp around 3:30 on a Friday, I had reserved a tent and cot so I just had to pull up and unload my stuff. The tent turned out to be large enough for 2 so I told my friend Claudette to just bunk in there with me. She got another cot and unloaded her stuff. It's amazing how much 'stuff' we can haul on those bikes! 

They fed us dinner, we met the instructors and then we hit the hay excited to awake to our first day of training.

Training Begins

I'm now realizing that most any training involving these large dual sport bikes is going to be slow speed maneuvers. The whole first day was non-stop action. We learned an aggressive stance and rode most of the day in that stance. We went through a muddy ditch, over small logs (some went over large logs) and we learned how to turn the bike around on a hill after stalling it going uphill, we did a single track trail which scared the bejeesus out of me and we did stops and starts. I'm sure there was more but it's all kind of a blur at this point. It was a long day and we were pretty tired after we ate so we all hit the sack again in great anticipation of our 2nd day of training.

Day Two

This day started out with a bang. I was in a group that started the day on a crazy single track trail, up and down and round and round. Needless to say, I was the second to the last to come in. The last one had turned off somewhere along the way and the instructor couldn't find her. She was fine, just decided she didn't want to do the trail. I felt the same but by the time I would have turned around there was no way to do it so I just kept going at my own pace. 

We then met up with the whole group in the large field and started doing off set weave around cones and this is where my fun ended. I was doing great, I thought. Really trying to lean the bike on the tight corners while getting my body offset to balance. It was the same tight right turn that bit me. Down I went and this time it was a bit painful not to mention knocking the air out of me. I landed on my right side with my bent arm under my right rib cage. My ribs were on fire and I couldn't get a breath in. Now just having one of these would have been bad enough but both at the same time was a bit disconserting. Lucky for me there were two instructors nearby who were able to get me to relax, catch my breath and assess the damage. I knew my ribs were not broke as I know how extreme that pain is but I wasn't sure that if I had cracked the ribs so we took it slow. Ended up having the paramedics come out to check me over and we determined it was just bruising. So, lucky for me one of the gals had driven down and towed her bike and she had room on her trailer for another bike. And she lives by me! So my camp ended with me riding home in the truck. 
By the next day I was feeling a little sore but nothing like I had been told would happen. Not much bruising and not much pain. Apparently this granny has strong bones and bounces too! :)

Overall the camp was fun and informative. The instructors were really helpful and the camp site itself was good. If there was a down side there were a lot of us who felt like there were too many people in the class itself, at times it was a bit chaotic. We were suppose to be broken up into groups but that never happened so it was 26 or so bikes going every which way most of the time. I guess that is good skills for riding in a parking lot. 

After having done this camp I look forward to seeing what others have to offer. I'm pretty sure I won't do this one again. I've heard of another company starting up in the area that has great reviews and will be looking more into that one for future training. Hopefully it will have smaller classes for more one on one.

Future Plans

In the mean time, I'm signed up for one more training this year. It is next month and one day only with a man named Coach Stroud. I've heard wonderful things about him and I'm hoping he will be the one to be able to figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm going to get that damn right hand turn if it's the last thing I do!!