Two weeks ago I attended American Supercamp. I'm here to report that this was more fun than any other rider training I've ever done.

The class was held at a place called Vail Equestrian Center, near Toledo OH. It was an indoor horse riding arena. There was a large rectangular riding space with a dirt floor, and bleachers along one side. Nothing fancy, but plenty of space.

They provide the motorcycles and any gear that you need. The motorcycles are Honda XR100 dirt bikes. They're all alike. Remembering my experience with the MSF bikes, I was relieved to find that these bikes were all in perfect condition, with no quirks to learn. It truly did not matter which bike you got, because they were all good. They also had a trailer full of gear, and you could just go in there and they would lend you whatever you needed; the gear was in good condition and plentiful. I brought my own helmet and gloves but I used their gear for everything else.

The class started out with a little orientation talk. Danny told us a bit about the history and mission of the school, then had everyone in the class introduce themselves and explain why they were there. I told him I was there because my friend Mo Draper said it was the funnest thing you could do with your clothes on. He said "Ohhhh, you know the Drapers? Have you met his father? Ol' T-Bone Draper?" I said I had, and he started telling the class, "This guy is 70 years old, and he kept stuffing people on the inside. We couldn't get him to stop, he wouldn't listen. Totally into it. A mad man!"

One of the guys sitting near me introduced himself as an MSF instructor. Danny said they wouldn't hold that against him. This turned out to be a recurring theme. A lot of the things you learn elsewhere, are wrong for this type of riding. There's no countersteering, for instance. You almost never use the front brake, instead you use the rear brake even as it makes the rear lose traction and slide - a controlled slide of that type is not undesirable. Instead of putting your body to the inside to reduce the lean angles needed, you push the bike down and keep your body upright. The racing line is different. The goal is to make the turns shorter and tighter so you can make the straightaways longer. You sit as far forward as you can, practically on the tank, and slouch, hunching your back and rolling your shoulders. In the turns you take your inside foot off the peg and put it on the ground.

One thing they stressed in this orientation talk, was that it was OK to crash. In fact they made a big point of challenging us to break their bikes. The bikes have upgraded handlebars that are nearly impossible to bend, and they have a whole truckload of clutch levers and other parts. Push your limits, it's OK, because crashing is good for you.

They handed out clipboards with diagrams showing the racing line, and dividing the turns into several sections, where we were to focus on a particular thing in each section. Sometimes they even went out and drew lines on the track, marking the sections where we were to be on the throttle, on the brake, cranking our heads backwards to look through the turn, etc.

They had originally scheduled two classes, one for racers and one for non-racers. But they hadn't had enough sign-ups, so they had combined the two. They divided us into three groups, which is what they always do, but if they'd had two classes the groups would have been much closer in ability levels. As it was, they had one group for racers, one for the more competitive non-racers, and one for people like me. :-) I actually enjoyed the chance to see how the racers do it. It was startling to see that the average age in the racer group, was about 15 years old. All these young boys, and they were crazy competitive! So crazy that they would stop them periodically, make them get off their bikes and do pushups, just to slow them down.

So anyway, for the first exercise, they made a little tiny oval out in the middle of the big horse riding ring. Just two cones, and we were to ride around and around them. I got on the little bike for the first time and was terrified. I had to kick start it. Eep! I never kickstarted anything in my life and I had no idea how. But it took them about ten seconds to show me, and it roared to life on the first try. Whew! Then it was time to ride out on the bike. This bike felt so foreign, I felt like a complete fool. For a moment I really regretted signing up for this. This was not my home. I was going to be exposed as an impostor. The guys running the school were hollering at me to get moving, go faster, etc, and I was tempted to just leave. What was I doing here? But I kept going, and before I knew it, I was able to adapt to the bike. By the end of the session I felt much happier, and I never felt so out of place again.

That first moment was the low point of the weekend, I think. I was always the kid picked last in gym class, and every riding school I attend has moments where I want to fall back on the tricks I used to survive high school gym. "Sorry, I can't play, I forgot to bring my gym clothes." Finding excuses to not get out there, hanging back to avoid engaging, etc. I'm physically stupid, I know it, and just getting out there is huge. I always feel like a loser, an obstacle to the other students. But here I am, and I want to learn. I may be the slowest student, but I'm persistent. I've sought out a lot of rider education over the years, and I have to say that this class felt the least hostile to me, as a physically stupid person, of any course I've ever taken. The only way anyone can fail, is to refuse to try, because it doesn't matter if you crash. The instructors are enthusiastic and encouraging, and the environment is like a rubber room full of charming chaos; you can go bonkers without any consequences at all. And unlike the track schools, they didn't mind that I am a slow learner. They just kept pushing me, without ever seeming at all impatient. And I learned tons.

So you ride around the oval. The racing line resembles the late apexes you use on the racetrack, but the turns are very different. You shorten and sharpen the turn, get it over with so you can nail it back into the next straightaway. As a street rider, I would manage my traction pie by not letting the turn tighten so much, but for this, you just want to get the bike leaned over hard, fast, spin through that turn, and then bring it back up fast so you can nail it. Suppose you're doing it right, and you're trying to pass someone who is doing it more like a street rider. You are outside them, coming into the turn. You make your turn really quick and tight, outside and behind them, and then you can go straight while they are still turning, and pass them on the inside at the turn exit, because you're straight and on the gas while they are still leaned over and turning.

Round and round the tiny oval we went. At one point they videotaped us, and it was really helpful. I was able to see that I was slowing down way too soon, and that I needed to stay on it as I went deeper into the turn. Once I saw that, I started to feel like less of an obstacle out there, I started to keep up with my group.

After lunch they started wetting down the track, and we got to slide around in the mud, still doing more of the same stuff. It got faster and more fun. Then they had us do donuts! We learned to slide the bike in a circle with one foot on the ground and we just pivoted around it until we got dizzy, then we would switch and go around the other way. It was a blast!

We'd go around the oval counterclockwise for half the session, then clockwise for the other half of the session. There was a lot of body positioning stuff, you sit on the side of the seat, outside elbow up, inside arm straight, elbows practically in front of the bars. This was great, but I started to worry about how one would learn to switch sides, since we only ever went in one direction at a time. I must have been learning how to do it, or I wouldn't have had room in my brain to wonder about that. And whaddya know, just as I was starting to wonder about it, they reconfigured the track, using much more of the ring. The new track layout was a U shape. Going counterclockwise, you'd turn left, left, left, RIGHT! left, left, and so on. The transition was very challenging, and when I finally crashed, that was where I did it. But it was OK, I got up laughing. This is just how you crash at American Supercamp. There's no drama at all, you just crash, laugh, get up and ride on.

At one point they set up a cone weave on one of the long straights, and we got to practice switching left to right even more. I could have done this cone weave a lot more, I could feel myself learning with every pass. It was really challenging, and really good for me to do it.

They also had an exercise where they had us line up at one end of the arena, and one by one we would ride in a straight line, accelerate as hard as possible, then brake as hard as we could the minute we passed a cone. They had the door open at the end, so if you failed to stop, you would just go outside, no big deal. After two passes like this, they had us hook a turn as we were braking, turn as sharp as we could, and ride back between a couple of tires and cones. This exercise seemed purpose built for people to lose traction and slide sideways, and people did. People crashed but that's OK, no one was hurt, they all got up laughing. We all got faster and more agile with it.

Early on the second day, I was slow and stiff, and one of the instructors came running out and hopped on my bike behind me. He had me put my hands on top of his, my feet on top of his, scoot way forward onto the tank, and we went flying around that track, sometimes practically riding sideways. Who knew that an XR100 would carry two people and go that fast, lean over that far? And when I was alone on the bike again I discovered something else. Did you know that you can ride right over tires and orange cones on an XR100, and it hardly upsets it at all? Easy! Those bikes are amazing.

In the email they sent us to tell us how to prepare for the class, they said we should do leg lunges. And in the orientation they told us to expect our legs to ache. Other people reported that this did happen to them. But for me, the place I really felt it was in my forearms. I really had a death grip on the bars, the first day, and that night I really knew it. The second day, I was able to consciously relax my hands, and I didn't feel so sore that night. I also amassed quite a collection of bruises, which purpled beautifully the following week, but they've faded now. I wish the class were longer than just the two days. I think I was just barely getting physically adapted to it when it ended.

Anyway, it was worth every penny and I intend to go again as soon as possible.

I'm posting this in several communities that I belong to. Apologies to anyone who is seeing it more than once.