I’m going to go off kilter for a second now – have you heard
of the I2I Motorcycle Academy, based in North Yorkshire?
They are responsible for an innovative variety of new
motorcycle training courses, intended to appeal to all riders including those
that might not be convinced about conventional training packages. These fun and
educational courses are run all over the country.
The MC1 and MC3 courses concentrate on exploding some common
motorcycle myths understanding the physics of motorcycling and how to use these
forces to your advantage. There will be exercises to increase self belief &
confidence in the bike to remove such things as panic braking and learning how
to easily control a 'tank slapper'. These are run at an airfield in a
controlled environment, and you use your own bike.
They really are brilliant – I have completed the first one here
in Norfolk, and I must say it was very well organised, the team involved all
the participants; asking us for experiences we’d had on bikes which influenced
the riding style we had, then showing us why in most cases the things we
thought would happen actually couldn’t due to simple physics! Mind boggling!
Different exercises were demonstrated on two different types
of bike, and afterwards we had a go ourselves, on our own machinery. I won’t
spoil any of it for you, but although it did scare a few of us at first, we
soon realised that our bikes were capable of much more extreme stuff than we
could throw at them! I can brake harder and safer, corner quicker and overall
have so much more control and confidence than ever before…
The MC2 course is run up in the Yorkshire Dales, and is
taken on KTM off road machinery. I did this 1 day course in October 2010
(pictured left and below) and loved every minute of it, even though I’d never
ridden a motocross bike or done any off-roading!
It was fairly expensive to do, but considering all the
equipment is included in the price (bike loan and all the Wulf Sport kit I’m
wearing in the photos) it’s good value. It concentrates on the basic skills of
MC1, but in a more extreme environment. Yes, I fell off a lot and got covered
in mud, but I really learnt a lot including how to safely transfer weight to
maximise grip, do jumps and land safely afterwards, control skids and do
powerslides. Awesome stuff!
The MC4 course is also run up in Yorkshire on an airfield,
and is conducted on supermotards. The skills are roughly similar to that of
MC2, but tested on tarmac on high performance bikes.
Recently the guys at i2i have started doing tutored
trackdays all over the country, which look like great fun.
i2i MCA have a new website that you can book onto directly. You
can view photos and a full breakdown for every course they do. You can also
make payments through their secure payments page on www.i2imca.com
©Angela Freeman