I attended the Off Road 101 class at the Straddleline ORV Park in McCleary. My instructors were Fletch and Greg. We had about 15 students, 3 of which were women, including myself. Almost everyone had ... Read More
I attended the Off Road 101 class at the Straddleline ORV Park in McCleary. My instructors were Fletch and Greg. We had about 15 students, 3 of which were women, including myself. Almost everyone had prior street bike experience, and several came to class on motorcycles. I just started riding dirt bikes on trails this summer and have only been out about 4-5 times. Prior to that, I had never ridden a motorcycle.Overall, the class was fantastic. Some of it was stuff I knew already, like standing up is better. But they really go into all the tiny details of standing positioning, and then you get the chance to practice and apply it. Some of it was stuff I didn't know, like proper body positioning while turning. Again lots of time to practice. Other skills covered were clutch/throttle control, braking, going over obstacles, and hill climbs and descents.The two things I didn't like are small enough not to change my 5 star review, but worth mentioning. Almost everyone there rented bikes provided by PSSOR. I brought my own bike, a new to me CRF150R that I had only ridden on once since buying it (I was a riding an XR100 prior). Greg insisted that I use their 150F which I did at first. Then I switched back to my bike after the first segment. I really struggled on my bike because kick staring it is a pain, it hates going slow and everything we were doing was under 15mph, and I just didn't have good throttle and clutch control on it. I do wonder if I would have started the day on my bike, if I would have gotten a better feel for it during the segment on clutch/throttle control... Eventually I switched back to the 150F so I could practice the skills without stressing over the bike. All of that to say: the class is set up for electric start bikes that like to putt and chug along at very low speeds. So if you have a bike that wants to scream, make sure you are really confident on it before heading into class, or rent theirs. The last thing was regarding Greg's pulling out another female student to be the example for all the body positioning stuff. The first time, it was cute/funny, because he knew her from a previous class and was just picking on her in a light-hearted way. But he kept doing it all day, and it started irritating me a bit. He never asked her, "Can I pull you and your bike out into the center so everyone can stare at you while I tell you to move your butt over to the side as we demonstrate body positioning?" He would just pull her out and do it. And I never asked her, maybe she was fine with it, but it just seemed really misogynisitc and put a bad taste in my mouth. I did think they both were excellent instructors and I wouldn't hesitate to take a class from them again. But if Greg pulls my bike out with me sitting on it to be his example without asking me first, I'm slamming on the brakes or just hopping off the bike. Read Less