BIKES: Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic

Take a look inside Kane County Event’s Center riding clinic...

Ken "Hawkeye" Glassman | Posted July 12, 2011 Charlotte, NC

Spend a day at the Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic. (Photo: Ken Glassman)

For most motorcycle riders, safety is an important issue. We know riding can be dangerous, so we usually concern ourselves with things like helmets, armored or padded riding gear, and trying to make ourselves more conspicuous to those we share the road with. We also emphasize training ourselves to be “street smart”, which means constantly scanning for potentially dangerous hazards on the road, such as cars pulling out of driveways or side roads, vehicles turning left in front of us, potholes or debris on the pavement, and inattentive or distracted drivers.

All of the above are important factors in raising our safety factor while riding on the street, but the fact still remains that nearly half of all motorcycle accidents are single vehicle accidents. That means that rider error caused the accident and no other vehicles were involved. And most of the single vehicle motorcycle accidents are a result of the rider simply riding off the road in a turn and crashing. So it stands to reason, that improving ones riding skills is a huge part of the puzzle to remain safe, secure, and accident free. That’s where the Total Control Advanced Riding Clinics fits into the mix.

(Photo: Ken Glassman)

The clinics and teaching methods were developed by Lee Parks, the author of the best selling book, “Total Control – High Performance Street Riding Techniques.” This is a book I loan out to friends often. Parks developed these techniques from years of experience in road racing – he was a WERA national road race champion in 2001 – as well as through his experience testing motorcycles as the Editor of Motorcycle Consumer News. Lee’s success in the sport of motorcycling has inspired him to want to give back to the sport, so he developed his courses to help train riders so that they can enjoy motorcycling more and enhance their ability to ride well and to ride more safely.

With a huge staff of instructors who he trained personally, these courses are offered at venues around the country. I had the pleasure of taking a course recently at the Kane County Event’s Center in Geneva, IL. It was an eye opening experience for me, and for the rest of the class of 15 students.

(Photo: Ken Glassman)

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard riders proudly boast, “I’ve been riding for 10 years, and I know how to ride a motorcycle.” Or, “I don’t need any rider training, I grew up on bikes and I know how to handle one.” Yet, as we went around the classroom introducing ourselves to each other at the beginning of the class, the riding experience ranged from 4 or 5 years, up to 35 or 40 years of experience, and every student wanted to be there to improve his or her skills and knew that there was more that they could learn, and benefit from. And when it came time to do the drills and skills on the range, despite the long experience levels in the class, not a single student (especially me) was able to do them proficiently from the start. So the lesson I took from that is that we ALL can still learn a lot about riding a motorcycle, and by continuing to learn and get better at certain skills, we’ll all be better and safer riders.

(Photo: Ken Glassman)

The course is a 9 hour day, (with 45 minutes for lunch) and is split fairly evenly between inside classroom theory, and then live range riding time to practice the skill or drill that we learned about inside. Students came on cruiser bikes, sport tourers, and big tourers, and sport bikes. The huge parking lot allows for speeds of 15 to 25 miles per hour, but they translate to faster speeds used on the road, or even on a race track. The course is not for beginning riders, but for experienced riders who can benefit from the advanced techniques being taught. The main overriding goal is to learn how to better control your motorcycle with smooth use of the throttle and brakes to control how the suspension works, and to increase traction in turns by using correct body position and techniques so the rider doesn’t use up all the available traction before the turn is safely executed.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ken "Hawkeye" Glassman

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