Cruising down the freeway, I clicked into 6th gear and noted that the day was warming up nicely. It felt amazing. And not just because the salty breeze was creating another Southern California moment. It was also the final day of instructing an intensive four-week police motor academy in Ventura.

This final day’s training segment would be an unofficial “city survival” induction, where I go off-script and show my eager ducklings the real-world complexities of working enforcement on a motor. In other words, I expose them to as many things as I can dream up before buttoning up their raincoats, kissing them on the cheek, and sending them out into the storm. 

After a short briefing, with a Starbucks venti skinny iced caramel macchiato coursing through my bloodstream, I led them through slippery hiking paths, rain-rutted fire roads, steep off-cambers, stairs, beach sand, railroad tracks, rocky hill climbs, and anything else I could manage. After four hours of on-bike training, we successfully navigated the delicate but sublime incline of the In-N-Out Burger parking lot. In the end nobody got hurt, and the BMW crash bars worked aces.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies, especially when my flock tried to navigate steep incline U-turns. Observing from the sidelines, I noticed they were dealing with two primary issues: 1) Fear: the steep inclines promised that their motorcycles would skate to the bottom of the hill if they even lightly kissed the deck, so they mentally locked up, and 2) Technique: they believed that in order to avoid crashing, they had to slip the clutch, counterbalance, drop the bike over, lock the bars, keep their speed up, and get their head and eyes around. In other words, they made it way harder than it needed to be.

After witnessing a few underwear emergencies, I hit the pause button on the Hindenburg debacle and imparted a little hillside riding hack that made the process much easier. Since you weren’t on hand to watch the demonstration, I thought now would be a good time to walk you through it so you can learn how to perform effortless U-turns on steep inclines. Ready?

First, find a steep incline such as a wide public driveway, alleyway, service road, or similar – just make sure it’s free of vehicular traffic during our science lab. Park safely on the hill, dismount, and stand next to your bike. While standing in place, balanced and comfortable, slowly rotate 360 degrees, taking short pauses at each point on the compass. Notice that as you stand, you have no momentum, yet you remain perfectly balanced on the hill without needing to transfer your weight to regain any stability. Also notice that your body’s angle or center line in relation to the incline of the hill does not shift, regardless of the direction you face on the incline.

Next, walk in a 30-foot circle on the hill. Notice that as your position and orientation changes from walking uphill, downhill, and sideways, you never fall up, fall down, or lose your balance on the incline. In other words, your body’s balance point, or center line, remains consistent and intact regardless of momentum or direction of travel.

The important point here – which applies to riding your motorcycle – is that because your body’s equilibrium works to keep you vertical and balanced no matter which direction you are facing, you can go, stop, turn, and move freely and effortlessly on the incline without requiring massive lean angles and oodles of forward motion. Less lean angle means no scary bike drops due to miscalculating weight transfer, clutch control, momentum, and 10 other complicated but unnecessary things while attempting the U-turn. In the words of Greg Brady, pretty far out, right?

Now let me be clear: Nothing changes once we get on the motorcycle. Your motorcycle, like you, has an equilibrium of sorts, a balance point or center line that enables it to remain perfectly balanced on a hill when it’s straight up and down, regardless of the incline it encounters or the direction it faces. And in the same way you make subtle adjustments to remain perfectly balanced while standing on your feet, you will make those subtle adjustments on the bike. Now let’s pump some helium into this leviathan and get her airborne…but no smoking please.

Here’s your first drill: Ride your motorcycle relaxed and easy, in 1st gear, up the incline. When you feel comfortable, I want you to initiate a turning movement and stop at a 90-degree angle, or perpendicular, to the roadway – like you are starting to turn into the Frosty Queen but you stopped short of the driveway entrance.

The rules are as follows: 1) you must keep your body’s mass in line with the motorcycle’s mass (no shifting body weight to one side or the other in the cockpit), and 2) at no time during the turning movement are you allowed to introduce any lean angle to the motorcycle. Remember, just like when you walked around on the hill and remained straight up and down, you must do the same on the bike. After a calm and uneventful pause on the hill, remain perfectly upright and balanced, turn the bars downhill without leaning over, and take off down the hill. Hey, I love Frosty Queen too, but we’re training here…

Here are a few keys to your success. Keep in mind your feet will not be equal distance from the ground as you sit on the hill in the 90-degree position due to the incline, so use the high side of the roadway to plant your foot and rest the other on the peg. Also, resist the urge to lean your bike towards the downhill when you take off from the 90-degree position. This will only serve to make the bike fall over toward the downhill and require you to chase it by engaging the clutch and adding power. Always keep everything straight up and down. Rinse and repeat.

Once you get comfortable riding into the 90-degree position, stopping, then completing the U-turn without any lean angle, start turning around without stopping at all. You may find yourself wanting to carry more speed now that we’re executing a full U-turn, but added momentum can force a lean angle that we don’t want. Instead, resist the urge, go slow and smooth, and concentrate on always keeping the bike upright. Yes, I’m beating a dead horse here, but by keeping the bike balanced and upright, we don’t need speed (or lean angle) in our turning process to remain comfortable and in control, which is why this works so well. 

And that’s it. If you can walk, you can execute this technique. For a visual example, go to Police Motor Training with Quinn Redeker on YouTube and find “Motorcycle U-Turns on Steep Hills – Easy as Walking.”   

For more information on Total Control Training and available clinics, go to the Total Control website. Quinn wears Lee Parks Design gloves exclusively. Find Quinn at Police Motor Training.

See all Motor School with Quinn Redeker articles here.

The post Motor School with Quinn Redeker: As Easy As Walking appeared first on Rider Magazine.

Source: RiderMagazine.com