Ladies offroad training

Last Saturday Marianne had her first offroad training organized by Paul and Maaike (Motortoursentracks.nl)! Here's her report:

It was a women only day so the boys had to enjoy themselves. There were 6 women for the course, 2 on a Transalp and 4 with a BMW. The first lesson was how to make a turn on a sandy road. Standing on our motorbikes we had to make the turn. Soon everybody got the hang of it, so they made it a bit more difficult; a corrugated S bend. It took us a bit more practice to make a smooth turn. Lesson 3: braking, only using the rear brake we had to bring our motorbikes to a halt. Being a bit foolish I forgot the clutch until the bike started to stutter I suddenly remembered I had a clutch… Fortunately I wasn’t the only one that forgot it! Then we made a short trip because it was lunch time, but before we could arrive on the lunch destination we had to pass a really soft sandy road. So we stopped and received some instructions on how to pass this road. When I arrived at the other end they had a surprise in store, go back over the same road so I had to pass it again. Of course at the end we had to be on the other side so passed it for the third time. The third time was definitely the hardest. Because the road had been crossed for about 12 times, which loosened up the sand pretty much. And after somebody fell it only got worse.
After a very nice (and heavy) lunch the lessons continued. We went into the pit. In the forest a large pit had been formed with different tracks that we could ride up and down. My first try wasn’t very successful. I couldn’t decided whether to take the left or right track so I ended up in the middle where a lot of big bumps were. Another less fortunate attempt, a big bump appeared and I wasn’t sure if I could drive over it. So I slowed down and I got stuck on top of the bump. The bash plate hit the top of the bump and immobilized the motorbike. Finally I took a track with a small ramp at the end. I got a little overconfident and went a bit too fast, the jump was great but I landed near a tree. The only thing I could think of was brake as hard as possible and so I dropped the bike. After the pit we went home, of course riding dirt tracks.
I was a bit disappointed the day was already over, I had so much fun driving in the pit and on the dirt roads! Just like the Saturday before (Unstoppable GS Challenge) where we also crossed water and gravel roads. I cannot wait for the next allroad event to come up, so I can practice some more!