My first bit of supermoto-ing

[colin1]

at the bike show NEC

I was quite lucky to have a go as I queued from 1215 to be able to book at 1pm for the afternoon session and it turned out there were only 7 places I was 5th in the queue. The guy checking me in was less than impressed seeing a recent pass certificate and provisional instead of a full license. He wanted to know how much riding experience I had. I replied a year on a rs125, an hour on a dominator and 10mins on a 450 on the offroad experience. He asked how I had got on with the 450 and I said fine. I had to say ti all with the greatest of confidence, as he was sizing me up. He was a bit doubtful and sceptical especially as im about 5ft9.

It was run by https://www.supermotoschool.co.uk/ and more like a wheelie school or a DAS lesson than the offroad experience thing. They wanted to actually teach us how to get the back out and there was a bit of pressure to do things properly rather than just go at your own pace and get a feel for it. The track was about the size of a swimiing pool or two.

As with offroading, you have to sit quite far forward to load the front wheel. I had thought sticking your leg out was to catch it if the bike slips a bit but apparently its more about getting more weight forward. It took me a few laps to do this properly. You are supposed to have your leg close against the bike and your heel as close to the front axel as possible.

After a few laps getting the feel of the WR450's, they tried to coach us into getting the back out. I think the guys running it were serious racers and were quite serious generally. Their mission was to get us to ride supermoto properly in a short time, when they usually have a day to get ppl to do it.

The method for getting the back out, is to slam down from third to 1st with a bit of lean on. The engine braking makes the back wheel skid out. If you do it without any lean, you just make the engine chatter or backfire.

The track was very wet with a lot of standing water and I would have preferred doing this sort of thing on a sharp corner at low speed but they wanted us to do it on a shallow curve that lead to a sharp corner which was after a long straight.

None of us really had the balls to put enough lean on to do it properly but I got a few little slides here and there.

The thing that really hampered me was the big boots. On the offroad challenge I had just stayed in first but at least I had a boot which was my size.

On the supermoto, they didnt have my size, just one size up. I asked if I could do it in my own boots but they said no.

Although I'd been comfortable with a 450 offroad, for bmx style throwing a bike around, Id be more comfortable on a smaller bike such as a wr200.

I did my first wheelie on the straight which caught me by surprise, and i didnt keep the bars straight, but had them straight by the time it landed.

Offroad, you keep everything smooth and balanced which feels natural, but onroad, with a supermoto you are trying to offbalance the bike to get the back otu which feels unnatrual and is more difficult.

Its really easy to ride a supermoto gently or a dominator gently, but its actually quite tricky to ride one like a nutter. One of the guys who had a go has a dominator and he said it felt wierd riding a single 4t like a 2t (he meant riding with high revs). To me it didnt feel like a 2t, as it was all about the engine braking.
____________________
colin1 is officially faster than god