A tour agency booking planned the following days afternoon with Michael from Israel. A misplaced bag from his flight had brought him to Pattaya, and not being an old bar slug he was looking for some action,
\nI picked him up the following lunch time and chatted him up a bit on the way to Bike Lane about what kind of experience he had for riding off road motorcycles, his reply was zero experience! So I asked what kind of motorcycles had he ridden in the past? His reply that he once tried to ride a scooter but not really!
\nMichael was an absolute beginner, I was apprehensive to say the least.
\nWe were running from rock bottom, first we went through all the controls this is the throttle (go very fast\/go slow) this is the clutch (it will stop you driving off out of control at 80kmph) this is the brake this is the seat and so on\u2026
\nWithin 10 minutes Michael had crashed around 15 times, luckily only on soft sand, things were good.
\n25 minutes in and we were getting there, elbows up nice and square, bottom forward on the seat close to the tank, eyes looking where you want to go, inside leg out near the front wheel round the turns with outside foot weighting the outside peg, left index finger covering the clutch ready for emergency.
\nHe was getting the riding part, but the stopping and starting are also important so we practiced it again and again just to make sure, finally we got him to start smoothly and stop reasonable sharp.
\nGood! It was time to hit the trails\u2026.
\nOnce on the trails things were going well and Michael seemed to be having some fun even if he didn\u2019t smile to much.
\nWe rode a nice and easy loop and stayed safe, mike had a few more small spills but nothing much, in two hours he was transformed into a dirt bike rider, and I\u2019m sure I even saw a bit of a smile when we arrived back at Bike Lane, not sure if it was because he made it back and was still alive,or that he just had fun but it was definitely there.
\nThe software has been downloaded and I\u2019m sure that mike can swing a leg over a motorcycle in the future and feel confident to ride.<\/p>\n
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