I met up with acquaintances I've made in the past years, and under a blazing Colorado sunny sky, sweated a wee bit from the heat. I would like to extend my admiration to one of the riders, Digger. Not only was he competing, but he also led us through the opening ceremony prayer and played the National Anthem on his trumpet! Job well done Sir.
source: Schomp Honda, see link to full set of pics at end of this posting.
Bob Ucman, the instructor I recently had in the abbreviated
Civilian Top Gun Rider course, was the event judge.
I arrived in time to set up for the Cruiser/Bagger Competition. The course is a seeming maze of orange traffic cones. The riders have to negotiate the different portions of the course, weaving their large motorcycles through tight circles, curves, corners and other narrow paths. All this while trying to do it in the shortest time possible, and without touching, much less knocking over, the traffic ones that comprise the maze.
Negotiating a 20 foot diameter circle, twice.
In the Coriolis circle maze, the narrow lanes direct a rider into
ever narrower circles.
The winner in the Cruiser/Bagger Category. Not a bad way
to earn yourself $1000!
Then, the folks of T3RG Motorcycle Schools, took some time to reorganize the course obstacles for the next category of riders: Sport Bikes! The course had its obstacles but the riders were encouraged to do it as fast as possible.
Riders enter the Coriolis circle, barely slowing down from
the speed run from the previous obstacle
The sport bike competition didn't take as long as the cruiser/bagger competition even though I believe it was the same number of competitors. I guess those guys on the sport bikes were really moving through the course!
The winner of the Sport Bike competition,
also taking home $1000!
Here's a compilation of video I shot throughout the day, it should give you an idea of the skill and talent involved with some of these riders. I was told by one of the instructor/judges that the young guys on the sport bikes hadn't taken formal training, it was just talent. Can you imagine what they could do with training?!
Bob Ucman asked me to mention that T3RG is teaching one more Civilian Top Gun Rider class October 11 and 12 coming up! I'd mentioned before I'd participated in this class, and you can come out of this course with the skills you saw in the videos.
Link to the T3RG Motorcycle School: LINK.
Bob Ucman asked me to mention that T3RG is teaching one more Civilian Top Gun Rider class October 11 and 12 coming up! I'd mentioned before I'd participated in this class, and you can come out of this course with the skills you saw in the videos.
Link to the T3RG Motorcycle School: LINK.
The K pathway you see at the end of the Bagger's video is part of the K and R cone obstacles, in memory of Kevin Ratzell, former Motor Police officer, and past lead instructor of Civilian Top Gun course and events. Kevin passed away in this spring of this year, his family and friends were out in force during this event, he shall be missed.
Link to Schomp Media set of photos of this event on Facebook: LINK
4 comments:
Pretty impressive riding especially the cruisers and the baggers. In the first video, you could see the whole bike shift left when parts hit the ground hard enough to lose traction.
Great stuff Dom.
Whenever I see people doing this I tip my hat.
With all those cones, I'd get confused and couldn't follow the route. Sensory overload.
Amazing skills! I wish I had half of it...
RichardM, these riders were very good right? I'd like to think that with serious practice and the skills I picked up from T3RG's Civilian Top Gun Rider course, I could also look that good...though not on a bagger, instead, on my R80!
Trobairitz, a very enjoyable event to be sure, and yes, all those cones can be quite confusing....they do teach you to ignore the cones in the training course, but it's tough.
SonjaM, I bet you could pick up the skills easily enough....just a matter of training and practice. The one lady competitor was pretty impressive.
Post a Comment