Lee Parks’ Total Performance Advanced Riding Clinic

Man I hate waking up early on weekends. :glare: On Saturday and Sunday I want to wake up when I wake up, without benefit of a #$&% alarm clock. So if I do wake early to an alarm clock on a weekend, it’s got to be for a damn good reason.

Going on a local motorcycle ride is rarely a damn good reason. Not for me anyway. Five days a week I wake up early to an alarm clock and get to go on a motorcycle ride. Sure, it’s just to work, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t fun, exhilarating even. Some might say death-defying. In any event, it’s a great way to start the day. But not on weekends.

Now, waking up early for a road trip, that’s something different. Road trips are special. For a road trip I’ll even get up as early as 7:00, like I did going to Colorado last summer for NAFO. Hell, I might even get up at 6:30 for a road trip.

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Yesterday morning was Saturday, and my alarm clock went off at 05:25 AM. (I recommend the classical station, BTW.) That’s earlier than I get up to go to work, earlier even than Old Michael gets up, and we all know how early old people get up. And if you’re reaaaaaaaly old, so old that your avatar is “Old Michael,” well then you get up freakin’ early. And if on top of it you’re as ugly as Old Michael, well then, you know, you’re just pretty damned ugly. (I know that’s an ugly thing to say, Ugly Old Michael. So, sorry. The truth hurts.)

Old Michael's Alarm Clock:



So at precisely 5:25, Moondoglioogle’s Pepperincini concerto or some such intermingles with my intermingling of (or is it with?) Scarlett Johansson to snatch me from her dreamy grasp (or was it grasp me away from her dreamy…. Never mind).

Sigh....



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“F**k it’s early,” I mumbled to myself as I planted my feet on the ground next to the bed and buried my face in my hands. “This had better be good.” I stepped over Fang, the dear, who was sleeping off her evening’s dance with the gin bottle, and crept across the dark room into the shower.

What had better be good, the “this,” was Lee Parks’ Total Performance Advanced Riding Clinic in San Mateo. For me, improving my riding skills and, hopefully, my survivability probability out on the street, is more than a pretty good reason to get up early. It’s a great reason. I had to be there by 7:30, an hour’s ride away.

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After a hearty breakfast, some coffee, my usual back exercises, and a quick once-around the weight bench to limber up for what I knew would be a long day on the bike, I suited up and hit the road by 6:30.

The sky was just freshening, and although I knew the temps would be in the 80s by the afternoon, this morning it was about 50 degrees and overcast as I left the house. So I was bundled up with my heated vest and winter gloves. I pulled away well rested, well fed, caffeinated, limber, frustrated, and toasty. It promised to be a good day. (That sure was a shame about Scarlett.)

Traffic was light out on the freeways, so the feejer naturally wanted to cruise at triple digits. But I kept a tight rein on her for fear of cops, and cruised between 70 and 80 MPH. At that speed I felt like I could get off the bike and run circles around it.

When I got to the venue I spotted a knot of motorcycles and riders in one corner of a vast parking lot. I pulled up and immediately spotted a Black Beauty—a 2008 FJR. Then I spotted and recognized the rider, who spotted me at the same time. It was Chris from the Sacramento area (actually it's John, but he goes by Chris. :blink: All I know is that, at the end of the day, he walked away with the certificate for some guy named John).

We had met on an earlier ride. (Here's a picture of Chris on that ride. He's the one in the middle with the not-a-do-rag black hat.) John Chris, you don't happen to remember your handle, do you???)

This was great!—I’d have a friend to share the experience with after all, since Uuuuuugly Oooold Michael had to back out at the last minute the night before. Not that I was at all bitter about that. I understood. Because as John Lennon famously said, life’s what happens when your busy making plans to let your buddy down. :glare:

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TBC....

Hans you are a harsh one..........

Which month do we get part 2 in?

R

I have been trying very hard lately to be charitable to our fellow motorcycle brothers and sisters who ride Harley-Davidsons. This fact must be distinctly understood or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

As it turned out, the Arlen Ness Bike Show was being held at the San Mateo Convention Center the same day as our Lee Parks Total Control clinic. It seems Arlen Ness draws more Harley riders than a free chrome-all-your-shit give-away.

Unfortunately, one side of our practice range shared a fence with the two-lane, 50-yard driveway leading from the street to the booths where the bikes lined up to pay their $5 parking fee for the Ness show.

We were on the range or in the nearby classroom for 12 hours (8 to 8). So what that meant for us on the practice range was that for the first six hours we had to listen to the constant ear-splitting blapping of the hundreds of Harleys (15 or 20 at a time) pulling into the venue, inching toward the booths: “Look at me! Look at me!” Given the advanced skills we were learning, all those ape-hangers looked even more ridiculous than they normally do.

And for the second six hours we had to listen to them leaving, lined up along the same driveway they came in on while waiting for the signal to turn green. Naturally they all had to blap their throttles while waiting. And of course, when the signal turned and they hit the road, they all had to rev those engines to maximum noise level along the straightaway leading away from the center. I pitied the poor people in the houses along that route, opposite a feeble sound wall, trying to have a peaceful Saturday.

So as we waited our turns to go through the drills, we watched and heard the Harley riders pull in and out just yards away. Mostly we saw skid lids, t-shirts, plenty of shorts, and clown-white tennis shoes. Most of the men wore goatees and serious, unsmiling faces. The women looked the same, sitting stoically behind their men, their ample bottoms overflowing seats hardly wide enough to hold a beer while wrenching. Some wore high-heels. Everyone looked bored.

The worst was seeing kids on the back with dad, wearing an oversized or undersized helmet, and wearing shorts and a t-shirt just like daddy. At one point I waved at a little boy curiously looking back over his shoulder at our strange, colorful bikes. He raised his hand in the two-fingers for two-wheels wave, and I gave it right back to him.

All day long we watched and heard them come and go in loud waves, in packs really, each pack looking indistinguishable from the previous. Maybe it was really all just the same group of people going back and forth all day like a bunch of Hollywood extras.

By the late afternoon, with the thermometers on our dashboards reading 95 degrees, feeling physically and mentally fatigued from the long day and the drills and the sitting in line on a hot idling bike in our full-face helmets and full gear waiting our turn, the endless brapping just became intolerable. We shook our heads in anger and disbelief; and we shook them in futile attempts to dislodge the noise like trapped water. But it never stopped. In a gesture of protest I pressed my hands into either side of my helmet.

Occasionally someone on a Harley would point over at us, followed by a smile or a laugh. (During the day I overheard someone who was walking past our parked bikes next to the classroom say into a cell phone something about being over by all the “rice rockets.” That made me wonder if a BMW or a Moto Guzzi was a rice rocket.)

Many times Lee Parks and his two instructors had to pause during an explanation because we could not hear and they could not yell loud enough to make themselves heard. At one point, speaking again after one such pause, Lee shook his head and said, “Total Control can’t help stupid.”

Believe me when I say, in all honesty, I really had been trying to be charitable in my thoughts and comments about Harley riders. That they are not all posers. That some even know how to ride their motorcycles. That they don’t all look and dress the same…. But after yesterday I'm through with charitable.

It is thus with all due respect to my two buddies who are highly skilled, conscientious Harley riders, and that one rider-coach on a Harley I met at StreetMasters who did a remarkable U-turn on his bagger, that I now say to all those Harley bad-asses out there: “F**k you. You’re a bunch of clowns, every freak carbon-copy one of you."



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TBC...

James Burleigh said:

I have been trying very hard lately to be charitable to our fellow motorcycle brothers and sisters who ride Harley-Davidsons. This fact must be distinctly understood or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

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And how do you really feel ????????????????????????

Sorta fits in with at comment we (FJR, Vstar 1300 and 'Wind) got Saturday afternoon at the Chevron on the lake side of the intersection of Hwy 50 and 89 (South Lake Tahoe), from a more than slightly overweight (slightly ??? I think not!! ), "I'd never ride one of those bikes! Only Harley's make enough noise that car will hear ya......... "

:clapping:

Nice rant! I can't stand noise pollution of any sort, and those folks are just about the #1 cause....

So how was the actual class? Inquiring minds want to know!!

James Burleigh said:

Occasionally someone on a Harley would point over at us, followed by a smile or a laugh. (During the day I overheard someone who was walking past our parked bikes next to the classroom say into a cell phone something about being over by all the “rice rockets.” That made me wonder if a BMW or a Moto Guzzi was a rice rocket.)
TBC...

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Must be a Kalifornia thing. In a blue 'Stitch on my Feej, I usually hear the HarleyClones (yes, it's one word) utter things like:

"Hey, it's Papa Smurf."

or

"Look, the blue Power Ranger."

Nice Job Jimmy B

...but let's hear more about the class!~!

All right, let's cut to the chase here, just so long as everyone's clear how I feel about alarm clocks and Harley riders. :glare:



This narrative is going to be a little more stream of consciousness....

Two thumbs way up for Lee Parks Total Control Riding Clinic!



Lee Parks was at our clinic (he doesn't teach at all of them), and he does a great job of explaining his riding philosophy in the classroom and of moving us through drills on the range. He's probably got some good instructors, but if you can get Lee, do it. He owns the material and can explain it three ways to Sunday (I don't mean own as in copyright).

As you can see from my signature, I've taken several skills courses. Moreover, I've read all the more famous literature, including all of Hough (several times), Hahn, and Pridmore, not to mention of course Lee's book. So I've heard about, read, and practiced a lot of theory and techniques. With that as background, let me say that I came away from Total Control with new information, new understanding, and new riding techniques that I will / have put immediately into practice.

Also, Lee said that after his class we would understand more about suspension set up than 90% of riders. For the first time ever, I understand suspension and how to set it up. (Let's get a tech day in NorCal and get everyone's pre-load and rebound dampening set up. But you're on your own for compression dampening.)



The drills are not easy. Lee requires that you have experience before you take his class. For good reason. If you're afraid to lean your bike over, don't take this class! Once you've gotten comfortable leaning your bike over, come to this class and learn how to do it properly. There were one or two riders in our class who just couldn't get it. In fact, they looked like novices, requiring some momentum before bringing their feet onto the pegs, and wobbling around. As a result, they sucked away from the rest of us time with the instructors and time in the drills, because the instructors spent more time talking to them after their runs and having them go around again in front of the next rider.

On the other side of the spectrum was a prick who talked too much and too loud, laughed too much and too loud, thought he was the best rider there, and had the audacity at the end of the day to tell the group who he thought were the most improved riders. What a prick. But I thought Lee handled him well.

The best part of the class was when Lee jumped on several of the bikes one at a time and took them out to show how to lean way off into a circle and just let the bike do all the work. One of the bikes was Chris's black '08. It was a treat watching Lee position his body aggressively off to the side he was going to turn into, knee out, and drop the bike way over on its side. He then literally scrapped a peg all the way as he did several tight, perfect, unwavering circles as though he were tied by a rope to the center of the circle. Amazing to see such facility with a motorcycle! (Hint: It's not so much about leaning the bike as getting your body moved off the bike. The whole point is to lean off so the bike doesn't have to. If you scrape a peg, you're blowing it, because you don't have any reserve lean angle.)



Then he showed us how to counter-lean for slow-speed U-turns. And as he did those tight turns in front of us while leaning counter to the turn he one at a time took each hand and each foot off the control or peg to demonstrate that none of them had any work to do once you got going--yes, including his throttle hand. Dude's a magician. :blink:

In the classroom I like his comparison of the vision habits of predators vs. prey. Predators are focused and targeted, not taking their eyes off their prey. Humans are natural predators. But on a bike, we become prey to autos. Prey have a different type of vision: broad, ever-moving, never fixed, alert to predators from any location.

I also like the way he talked about how it's okay to make mistakes because that's how we learn, but it's not okay to get down on yourself. On the range you can get away with it, but when you're on the road, if you do something stupid and start chastising yourself, you are no longer engaged in what you're doing. That was good advice for me, since I can tend to dwell on a stupid or dangerous maneuver I might have done while riding. Learn from it and move on.

I also learned a new way to hold my throttle so I can constantly engage the brake, rolling both on and off simultaneously. I was still going with the MSF-recommended down angle of the wrist when engaging the throttle.

The video on this page gives a good overview. Also, you are allowed to bring your pillion at no additional cost.

Jb

Really good overview of his class. I took the ERC a couple years ago and it was a waste, IMO. Park's sounds like the next step, the only other thing I have done was one of Doc Wong's rides / seminars.

So when are we riding? You need to practice (I bet Lee said that too) and I need to see what I'm missing. I promise not to learn anything you paid to learn at your class, that just wouldn't be right.

Thanks for the write up. I'm now thinking of taking this course on July 16, 2009 in Johnson City, TN. Lee Parks is teaching it.

James Burleigh said:

Also, you are allowed to bring your pillion at no additional cost.
Jb

Click to expand...

JB,

Does he encourage you to have your pillion on the back during the on-track training? Or do they just come along and watch during classroom sessions?

We did this in Stayin' Safe because I ride two up about 50% of the time with wifey on the back. LOTS of help as she could hear what the instructor was saying while we were riding.

Sounds like you learned mucho, mi amigo.

1. Waking up early is fun, watching the sun rise is cool

2. Spending time with your favorite Harley Davidson buds is really, really cool, and doo-rags re cheap to buy

3. Touching your knees to the asphalt is much easier if you are 6'5" long-legged-galut

4. Listening to the beautiful music made by Harley's is truly better than banging Scarlett or listening to foo-foo music

5. Secretly listening too and wanting a new Harley Davidson is inappropriate at a rice rocket convention....

dcarver said:

watching the sun rise is cool

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Gonna have to go with JB on this one.

Sunrise is a good definition of taking something on faith, i.e. don't have to see it to know it happened.

It was dark when I went to bed, it was light when I got up. Sun must have risen!

(That said, it's pretty damn dark in the winter, and right after DST change, when I get up on workdays. :angry: )

Way to go JB! Now you have to pass it on to the rest of us -- kinda like the Top Gun graduate. :clapping:

CHRIS_D said:

Thanks for the write up. I'm now thinking of taking this course on July 16, 2009 in Johnson City, TN. Lee Parks is teaching it.

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You know come to think about it what I really need is a Dual Sport class!!!! :dribble: :dribble: :dribble:

dcarver said:

3. Touching your knees to the asphalt is much easier if you are 6'5" long-legged-galut stud.

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Fixed it for ya, Donny-Boy....

And that reminds me. I should have included you on my "with due respects to" list of serious motorcyclists who ride Harleys.... :huh:

BwanaDik said:

James Burleigh said:

Also, you are allowed to bring your pillion at no additional cost.
Jb

Click to expand...

JB,

Does he encourage you to have your pillion on the back during the on-track training? Or do they just come along and watch during classroom sessions?

Click to expand...

On the back. But not sure that draggin' the knee part works so well with a passenger. :blink:

Ric in Sac said:

Way to go JB! Now you have to pass it on to the rest of us -- kinda like the Top Gun graduate. :clapping:

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I'm there. Let's start with a suspension set-up day. Um, at my house....

"Fang, honey, can I have some friends over today to play motorcycles?"