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RawHyde BMW Offroad AcademyA Little Dirt Won’t Hurtadventure wagon with 100 ponies, fullluggage and fantastic highway ability,all day long. Leave it to BMW to gethooked up with an offroad school with aGS-specific curriculum. Jim Hyde beganthings long before BMW noticed him,but it hasn’t exactly hurt business havingthat lighted BMW roundel sign at theentrance to his desert compound.Jim Hyde set up his high-end, gourmetcatered,deluxe accommodation, off-roadacademy on his family’s 125 acres in thehills north of L.A. Festooned with trailsof different tests and levels of difficulty, hetrains riders in the proper use of the tools ofthe trade: dirt riding, navigation and evenfirst aid. He trains riders for expeditionsand adventures. He even teaches you howRiding off road is major funonce you figure out how tostay upright. That’s what theschool was about – having fun.Will Guyan, words and photosThough I’m a die-hard pavementaficionado, I finally decided tolearn the ups and downs of ridingin the dirt. After all, they say the fun beginswhen the pavement ends. So here I am, inthe midst of the Mojave. I have big knobson the R1200GS beast, and am wobblingat considerable speed in the middle ofNowhere, Southern California, on achallenging, sand-whooped road that goeson and on south of the Trona Pinnacles.You really have only rudimentary controlin this stuff. You just have to keep the thingroughly pointed, grip the bars loosely andyour throttle steady, or you’ll go down—that’s the nature of sand, you see. And ifyou bump into a Joshua tree, you sufferits poisonous bite! Ah, the desert. Whata delightful way to ride (someone else’s)$20,000 dirtbike.I’m here because I’ve graduated fromthe RawHyde BMW Offroad Academy,and am a credentialed dirt artist now.This Mojave Desert endurance ride isthe test of all the skills taught us. And,somewhat to my surprise, I did learn alot. I can hear Pat Moriarty saying “That’sbecause you didn’t know anything goingin.” True, I’m a pavement-preferred rider.I trust my tires as much as I trust mygirlfriend. But in the dirt, I was a wobblymoron at best. I am self-taught; that isto say, I’m stiff and tense because I don’tknow technically how to ride in the dirt.But now someone skilled has shown mehow. Now I’m ready for anything. You’dbe surprised just how easy it is once youlearn the few dirty rules.I didn’t grow up with dirtbikes, like mykids did. Neither did most of the riders(boys and girls from 25 to 75) at thisoff-road school, sponsored by BMW. Wewere mostly aboard heavy flat-twin GSdirtbikes approaching 600 pounds. But ifyou’re going to slide down a rutted, rockytrail on your valve cover and crash bar, it’salways better if you’re doing it on a rentedbike. Conveniently, RawHyde rents themwith lovely TKC-80 knobbies installed,quite reasonably, and doesn’t charge forscratches. It expects the bikes to fall down;this is dirt riding. My unit was the 2010dohc R1200GS, a symphony of low-slungbalance on grippy tractor tires that workedjust swell on Kern River gorge asphalt andJawbone Canyon gravel, thank you.Back to dirt school. Beginning simply,the instructors had us standing next toour bikes, walking them around usingthrottle and clutch, using the bike’snatural balance point. Strange. Then wewalked 360 degrees around the machine,no stand deployed, with just one hand onit. Hey, it wants to remain upright! It’shard for a sport rider to get some of theseconcepts down, but they actually work.Two days of excellent dirt instructionand practice cemented the deal. Oneinstructor said, “learn to love the sand,because you can’t completely conquer it.”I don’t love sand, but I can endure it now,and so can you, on a large, comfortableMarch 2011 | 13 | CityBike.com