Bike Skills

A couple of weeks ago I was invited along to a trial of the new Craig Jones Academy. For those that aren’t aware, Craig Jones is an extreme stunt rider, and has started an academy to teach riders the finer arts to bike control. Originally started in Silverstone, this year he has moved the academy an unused part of Throckmorton Airfield near Evesham.

The academy is run in conjunction with West Midlands Police Bike Safe and Extreme Wheelie.

The first part of the day was a welcome to the course and here it was explained that the day wasn’t to teach us stunts but its more about bike balance, and how your body position affects the bikes behaviour and then we were then split into groups.

The first part of the course for our group consisted of the wheelie machine ran by extremewheelie.co.uk.
Very good fun really, if you’ve never seen one, its essentially a bike which has the back tyre on a rolling road and the rear axle bolted down and the front tyre tied to a bungee cord. The idea of the machine is to learn the art of the wheelie, without the broken bike or bruises!
They never showed us how to wheelie, and to be honest, I don’t have much interest in being able to. This was more about once the front wheel is up how do you control the bike. Throttle control, balance points and the importance of the back brake.

Second part of the day, we were out with West Midlands Police BikeSafe team, we had a great time out, there are some superb roads around that area. Overall he was pretty happy with my riding. I keep turning in to early on right hand bends (which I knew already) and I need to keep my speed in check through built-up areas (which I also knew), but overall he was pretty happy. Small world though, it was the same officer who caught me speeding and put my on bikesafe a few years ago. Some things never change.

Third part of the day was with Craig. He was showing us the fine points of balance, slow speed manouvers and hard braking.

Craig went first, I think to show off really.

Next was our turn, he showed us how to ride the bike with the steering in full lock. 360′ turns around cones and tight chicane areas. Manouvers I never thought were possible on my bike. The lean angle were so big I have scrubbed my front and back tyres to their edges! Thats right, the front tyre too!

Sadly, we don’t seem to have many pictures, but never mind.

Towards the end of this part we had a circuit race, people on facebook can see this

https://www.facebook.com/#!/video/video.php?v=405159106730&subj=691106462

I will try and load it to youtube at some point.

Some of you will of met my mate Joe, and here were our times. I won our private battle although we were off a few seconds the IAM riders also on the course.

The final bit of the day was learning about the front brake, and how hard you can actually grab it during an emergency. It also gave everyone a chance at learning balance control if the back wheel lifts.

Although I didn’t get this high, it was good fun. I blame this guys Buell brakes for this! Check out the surprise on Craigs face

Craig and his assistant (can’t remember his name) then showed off, again, this is bike skills at their best.

So then, a trip up the runway to the toilet block…

Then we geared up, and headed back down the runway, my satnav recorded 148mph before I hit the brakes! And off home we went!

Happy days!!!!

Well worth a day out.

if your interested here’s the link:

https://www.bikeskillsacademy.com/index.html