Life: MOTORCYCLE at the enduro course

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Life: MOTORCYCLE at the enduro course
Jahn

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Life: MOTORCYCLE at the enduro course

MOTORRAD editor at the enduro course
Grounded in the dirt

Driving off-road properly – you should learn that at the off-road camp in Villars-sous-ecot, France. Led by top-class motorsport experts and the MOTORRAD action team, beginners and experts should try themselves there. Among them: a previous autodidact who finally wanted to be tested.

Thorsten Dentges

05/08/2013

I’ve always been driving off-road. I never learned. In any case, never really. As an avowed universal dilettante, I got through so far. Logical, it always worked somehow, but this rumgemurkse should finally come to an end. So now: Enduro course. Press the start button, engage first gear, briefly accelerate (sounds bossy), drive off, second gear, the ramp comes – and my body tension goes. I cucumber over the edge of the step like a wet sandbag, oh yes, accelerating helps. But too late: miserably I struggle up the rest of the driveway. Try again. But now … so … well … shame … shame – again just limp fiddling.

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Grounded in the dirt

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Didi Lacher, six-time German motocross champion, comes up to me. And with Teacher Lacher there is nothing to laugh about: “Hey you, not so latschy! “My pride is hurt, but unfortunately it is telling the truth, nothing but the truth. As an off-road trainer, the man has taught motorsport authorities such as Michael Schumacher and Jutta Kleinschmidt in the subject of “perfect off-road driving”. It can’t be his fault, and I understood the theory, too, but further attempts to master the damned steep ramp in textbook style also fail. Am i a hopeless case? A misguided autodidact? Dirty through years of bungling? Self-doubts loom in me like dark storm clouds. Particularly bitter: Master Lacher is currently demonstrating how to do it. As if stuck to the moped with glue, the man seems to be made of a single muscle.

A crescendo of deafening four-bar sounds follows


Life: MOTORCYCLE at the enduro course


Jahn

Lifted off: The editor slowly loses contact with the floor. Teacher and enduro professional Markus Kehr takes note of it benevolently.

The professional provides material and simply pounds up the slope, jumps meters over the step, only to then really pick up speed. Impressive. Didi passed me on to Steffi Laier: Basic training, improving my driving posture. Alright Steffi, “The Rock Bitch” (self-titled), is one of the fastest off-road women in the world (four-time MX world champion).

The 27-year-old German does not seem to have invented smiling or big speeches. Soberly, she gives the men in the group brief instructions on cornering. They whisper like school boys, harhar, we can just about manage that bit of curve, right? Steffi says she will do the exercise once. This is followed by a crescendo of deafening four-bar sounds, you can see the “Rock Bitch” flying over the jumping hill, the machine across, the front wheel turned cool, a clean landing, followed by a 15-meter set, and then milled and curled them as if they were Rails around the corner. We look at each other, wow, what was that? Ahem, that’s how it should look like with us?

Right now I feel like Evel Knievel and Superman together


Life: MOTORCYCLE at the enduro course


Jahn

The star and the bungler: multiple XM world champion Joel Smets (right in the picture) drives MOTORRAD editor Thorsten Dentges on during the tree stump rehearsal.

But it doesn’t, although we are at least in the advanced group: Gerolle, Gestakse, Rumumpel. A few radius trips later the picture improves. The braking point is right, the sitting posture is right, the rhythm is right.

I sum up: learned a lot quickly. Time to venture into the dark Enduro forest. It goes steeply upwards over tree stumps, wet rocks and roots, downwards steeply through the undergrowth over slippery leaves. Until Joel Smets, the Belgian motocross legend, lets us stop on a terrifying steep descent in the middle of the slide. He courageously throws his body in front of the front wheels as a moving stop sign. What does he want to check? Total vehicle control.

And his enthusiasm is infectious, the participants begin to push their own limits. At the moment I feel as energetic and energetic as Evel Knievel and Superman do together. Yeah, I’m climbing, I’m climbing relentlessly – I’m almost flying … And then I’m flying there. Because suddenly this disgusting root system throws itself in the way, brings me out of step, I get too far in reserve, panic too frantically pull the gas and hey presto – away. The machine also flies, namely without me through the forest, branches crack, and the KTM latches between two trees. F *** !!! What now? I crouch on the slope like a doused poodle and start the rescue.

Life: MOTORCYCLE at the enduro course

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Life: MOTORCYCLE at the enduro course


Jahn

Professionals to touch; Experts like the German enduro champion Marcus Kehr (without helmet) always have a few valuable tips ready.

Fortunately, everything is still there for me, but the rear of the machine is a bit bent. Grrr, I idiot! I meekly sort myself back to the beginners.

Back to the link. Jump training is on the schedule and enduro champion Markus Kehr is doing the gymnastics: It looks so relaxed how the professional sniffs away a ten-meter table with a few meters run-up and a courageous thrust, man! Can’t everyone do that? Yes, but be careful! Don’t overestimate yourself. Because arrogance comes before the fall, and in this case falling definitely hurts – these were my last thoughts as I approach the vaulting table.

Enduro courses at the MOTORRAD action team

First gear, up and down, yeah – after all: both wheels in the air. Nice little hop. Kehr encourages me: “Take a higher gear and a little more speed!” Okay, if he says that, first gear – that – second gear – sti-mmm-eeen !!! Hurray, I’m high in the air, I fly, I glide, it feels great, like as a child in the carousel, like the first time on a motorcycle. And it feels like an eternity. Landing clean, done!

I get off and run to the teacher: “How far, how far?” The champ: “Not bad, about five and a half meters.” Well, others can do that without a motorcycle. But whatever? This exercise did my self-confidence tremendously. I spend the rest of the day in the forest. The machine becomes my best friend. Stones, trunks and roots smile nicely at me. Every path, no matter how narrow, opens with a “Warm welcome”. I’ll be back next year. Let’s see what the expert group can do…

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