Jim Hyde's Dual-Sport Off-Road Training Camp

On the twelfth day of my journey, I rode into Castaic, CA and went straight to the Castaic Lagoon to kill a couple of hours before going to the 42 Bar Ranch. Jim Hyde gave us strict orders not to arrive before 5pm on Friday night for our weekend Introduction to Adventure off-road course. After a short nap on the grass next to the lagoon, I got on Hwy 5 North and took the Old Templin Hwy exit near the top of a long steep climb. I followed the road under the highway overpass and took a right onto the crumbling asphalt two lane road. The sign for the Rawhyde Adventure Center was not far up on the left where I encountered my first off-road test of the course. The driveway was a mix of crumbling asphalt, loose gravel and dirt, ruts, twists and turns. At the top of the driveway, was a group of buildings, parked cars and trucks, a tent staked out in the yard and a camouflaged area where a man was directing me to park my BMW next to several other BMWs. The man was waving his arms like he was directing a 747 to park next to the skyway at the airport terminal. I drove in under the camouflage and parked my bike over one of the steel plates used to keep the kickstand from sinking into the dirt. The man introduced himself as Tim and directed me to Jim Hyde to complete my registration for the course. People were coming and going and I wasn't quite sure who was working at the training center and who the other campers were but it didn't really matter. After inflicting more pain to my credit card, as Jim put it, I was given a quick tour of the compound including my sleeping quarters for the weekend which was a cozy cabin with a double sized mattress in the upstairs of a tractor trailer mobile dorm. I unpacked my motorcycle and headed for the bar to meet the coaches and my fellow campers.

The coaches took us from the very basics of handling the motorcycle controls and balancing exercises to more complex maneuvering using counter balance for making tight turns and techniques for getting up and down steep hills. Initially, I was intimidated by the size and power of my motorcycle but by the end of the second day, I was riding on terrain that I would have never believed I could handle. Jim Hyde's training facility is one of a kind, of the best kind.