One of the world’s leading motorcycle adventure tour companies, Ferris Wheels, has joined with professional motorcycle training company motoDNA to offer adventure rider training for people wanting to attend their tours.
MotoDNA Motorcycle Academy director of coaching Mark McVeigh, who also writes training tips for MotorbikeWriter, says they are “very excited to team up with arguably the most highly respected motorcycle adventure touring company in the world”.
“Mike Ferris has been hands-on developing the training modules used in the motoDNA adventure training program. It’s an exciting time for both companies who will work closely together to offer customers an exciting and safe motorcycle experience.”
Mike says they teamed up with motoDNA because “they have the skills and the syllabus to get the most out of your riding ability”.
“Regardless of your experience or your own self-perceived abilities on a motorcycle, we believe there’s always room for improvement and we encourage all our tour participants to seriously consider brushing up their skills with some professional tuition before embarking on an international motorcycle adventure such as we offer,” he says.
“You’ll be on unfamiliar terrain on probably an unfamiliar bike, in unfamiliar conditions (such as, perhaps, the opposite side of the road). It’s best that your reflexes up are to scratch and that you have the best possible skills in your toolbox for when you might need them in a hurry.”
Mike says they have seen a lot of “unfortunate incidents” in their 20 years of operation and as much as 90% of those can be attributed to an ineffectual braking technique. He advises adventure riders to brush up on their emergency braking technique before embarking on one of his adventures.
He suggests adventure riders attend motoDNA’s Intro to AdventureTraining course for riders who have little or no dirt riding experience.
“Their structured training program teaches the skills for every aspect of off-road Adventure riding using step-by-step techniques that steadily develop skill and confidence,” he says.
Adventure rider techniques covered include body position, braking, clutch and throttle control, turning seated and standing, line choice, cornering, cambers, climbs and descents, turning on hills, picking your bike up, wheelies, logs, rocks, river crossings, luggage packing and weight distribution, even towing another bike.
Adventure rider courses are conducted at motoDNA’s private training centre at Noosa, on the Sunshine Coast. The course is limited to five students per coach and the next course is on July 26 and costs $495.
MotoDNA doesn’t just offer adventure rider training. They also offer track training, road training and even lane-filtering training with an impressive array of hugely talented instructors, including MotoGP winners Chris Vermeulen, Garry McCoy and Kevin Magee.