Finally managed to co-ordinate schedules with the Trials Training Center....and so I'm booked to do their weekend Double Blip training for the weekend of Dec 10/11!
Look out! The Purple Beast/Crazy Canuck is invading the Chattanooga area in December!
Since it'll probably be snowing back home by then, this is likely the last riding I'll get to do till the Spring thaw. Looking forward to it!
In the meantime, I built a hinged ramp to practice holding pressure on. The wheelies are getting a bit more consistent, but still can't hold them for too long. Hopefully, the TTC boys will be able to improve my budding trials skills during a two day session, and that I'll survive the process!
I also managed to get my hands on 5 x four foot diameter large wooden wire spools from a riding friend of mine who works for the phone company. Still haven't figured out quite how to arrange them on my budding obstacle course, but I'm sure I'll come up with something soon. Once I get my hands on some used railway ties, I plan to build a splatter/zap training wall similar to the one they have at the TTC. Maybe this Fall with any luck!
Last weekend I was up north at the cottage with my nephew, Jambo, for the duck hunt season opener and a Moose Hunt Camp trail work weekend. I had brought up the GasGas trials bike. So Jambo and I went out exploring on some of the closer trails once we were done clearing the hunting/logging trails, where I was on an ATV (needed to haul tools and such). Ended up doing some cross-country, bashing our own trails in spots in really tight bush and ended up at the sand pit. I figured we might have some fun there. Boy, was I right about that!
There were nice 10' high steep hill climbs all over the sand pit that we played on....water crossings, great places to do power slide turns in the sand, and even some big rocks to play on with the trials bike. There was one nice rock, a foot and a half high, that I was practicing on....real blast wheelieing the front over the rock and then hopping the back over. I didn't do it perfectly every time, but more often than not, I managed to clear it fine. There are some bigger rocks there (3' high) but that is still beyond my abilities on the GG. Maybe a weekend at the TTC will teach this old dawg some new tricks and give me the skills and confidence to tackle the bigger rocks and other obstacles.
We must have spent an hour in the sand pit just having a hoot. Some big logs there I'll have to clear the brush around for more "obstacle practice". There was one really steep hill climb (way steeper than anything in on our home trails, though only about 10' high), where I would launch off the top in a wheelie...one time I ended up coming off with the front so high, I lost it and had the bike wheelie out from under me...fortunately managed to get on the ground behind the bike and bring it down without dumping it.
Fun practicing there, since the sand is soft enough that if you dump a bike, it doesn't damage anything, and levers don't break. Real blast. So now I have a 2nd bike play area/obstacle course up at the cottage, within a few kms of my place. Yay! I think I'll be hauling up the trials bike more often, now that I know that.
