Dylan Code: Running the World's Largest Motorcycle Coaching School

Dylan Code runs California Superbike School, the largest motorcycle coaching operation in the world. He is the son of Keith Code, who founded CSS and wrote the books that defined modern motorcycle riding technique.

In this episode, Dylan talks about the origins of the school, how it has grown into a global operation, and what the coaching philosophy looks like today. We cover how CSS develops its coaches, what students can expect from a school day, and where Dylan sees motorcycle education heading.

This is Part 1 of our California Superbike School Coach Series, which includes follow-up interviews with James Toohey, Johnny Haynes, and Cobie Fair.

Transcript

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Speaker 2 (00:06.072)
California Superbike School have been around for almost 50 years. The school was founded by Keith Code back in the early 80s and they literally invented the category of professional training on the track for non-professional riders. It turns out that during that time, 112 of their graduates have gone on to win national.

and international competitions. Their instructors have trained over 162,000 students across 62 different countries and during that time have covered 8 million miles of track through their training. Think about that for a moment. That's a lot of data. was exposed to Keefe Codes training in 1988 when I read his book, A Twist of the Wrist, one of the first really great fundamental books written about how a motorcycle is written.

and the inputs required to ride a motorcycle safely. When I moved to the US, I started doing their schools. I've done 50 of their schools now, 50 days over the last five years. And when I first started riding on the track, I turned up with 30 plus years of street experience and I thought I knew a thing or two. But it wasn't until I started learning all the mistakes I'd been making over those years that I really started to find myself to be a much better rider on the street and on the track. So...

If you have a learner's mindset and you want to learn how to ride really well, I really encourage you to do a school. There's a lot of really great schools out there. I've never come across a bad one. California Superbike School invented the category. It's no secret that I'm a fanboy of the school. They're a great team. I've learned a huge amount. Dylan Code is Keith's son and Dylan is continuing the family tradition as one of the leaders of the school. So we're going to have a chat to Dylan, learn a little bit about the school and a little bit about Dylan and

and how he got into this industry and has continued to grow the legacy that his father Keith has built. Now Keith is also still very involved in the school. In fact, in the 50 schools that I've done, Keith has only ever missed one, which is amazing. And I've been fortunate enough to build a relationship with Keith and get to know him over the years as well. They're a great team. They're the best in the business. So if you want to learn more. Well, hey everyone, it's no secret that I'm a huge fan of having a learner's mindset.

Speaker 2 (02:24.27)
And I'm a huge fan of coaching. And I'm an even bigger fan of these guys, because if it wasn't for these guys, this old man would probably never have made the progress on the track I've made since I started riding on the track at the age of 47. And so in that light, I want to introduce Dylan Code. Hey, Dylan. Very well, thank you. And Dylan runs the California Superbike School along with his team of amazing people. And of course,

Hey, how you doing?

Speaker 2 (02:52.534)
with the mentorship over the years of his dad, Keith Code, who literally invented the industry of training on the track. And so I'm just super pumped to have you here, Dylan. We were talking earlier and I've done 52 schools or 52 days with your school now. And it's been an absolute honor. So great to meet you and see you again.

Yeah, thanks. Thanks. It's good to be here. And then you all gave me a little bit of an idea of the questions that you wanted to ask. And they sound good. So I'm interested in getting on with it. Yeah.

Sure. know, it's funny, whenever I see you, I still have this memory of you get to a point in my school where you personally start taking a bit more of an interest in the writers. And I think you started sneaking up on me the track and surprising me. And I'd like just see this like bullet of a blue suit go by. Then you'd grab me and say, man, you're like way too slow into those corners. You got to like move around more. And so it's like every time I see you now, I just had this vision of you going past me. So, so Dylan, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Tell me about like, I know you have had a career in a few different areas, but I want to get into that, how you got into the schooling side of things and into coaching like your dad. But tell me a little about yourself and who you are and what you do for the school.

I guess as far as history goes, my dad opened the school in 1980, so was 10 years old. that sort of quickly escalated. essentially, you you have this idea of, I'm not sure if you are familiar with it, Red Ocean, Blue Ocean. Red Ocean is a marketplace where there's a lot of competitors, et cetera. Blue Ocean is you're going out and doing something pretty much.

Speaker 1 (04:35.31)
totally new and untried. while track training wasn't entirely new in 1980, this whole idea of the arrive and ride thing was so someone could just show up in their street clothes and then we'd outfit them out head to toe, give them bike, give them some instruction. And then they'd go out and ride and then they'd walk away happy. So that was a totally new thing. it tended and it escalated pretty quickly. We were the California Superbike School, still are, but we...

We're in Southern California and then we went up to Laguna Seca at the end of the year. And then after that in 1981, right after that, we went to Daytona and then we started following the AMA motorcycle racing series around the U S and doing schools after those events. So that's of course, what's known today as Moto America at a 10 years old. was just a happy go lucky kid, you know, fourth grader. And I'd always been in the motorcycles. My dad had been racing and we didn't really have the opportunity to go ride very often.

because we lived right in the middle of Hollywood. I'm in the heart of Hollywood and it's just not a place to go riding. And plus we were, for lack of a better word, pretty strapped for cash, especially in the early days. When you're a racer, you typically don't have lots of endless cash around you and you spend everything on your effort. Anyway, he pivoted over to doing the school.

And then I started writing shortly after that. And then I started racing at 13 and then worked at the school the whole time, whether it was just a basic job. And then my roles of course increased when I was 18, I went off and did a bunch of other things. And you know, was, I did tile setting and I did a marketing and I did sales and I did a bunch of other stuff. But I came back in 2005 full time and I've been here since obviously. So it's about 20, I have to add it up, but I 26 years, 27 years now.

That's great. I didn't know that. And for most of your writing through that time from the age of 10, I know that Hollywood's super urban place, but was most of your writing been on the track? Did you write on the street through that or on dirt?

Speaker 1 (06:37.646)
Yeah. So I rode dirt bikes and then I started riding on the track. Back then there wasn't, there were no youth racing programs and there really weren't any youth racing bikes. They had the little tiny, tiny, tiny pocket bikes, but there, was no racing program. So I started racing, uh, when I was 13, so I was 1983 and they actually had a, it wasn't quite a full-size bike because Saki came out with this thing called the AR 50, which is 50 CC single street bike.

They, that was kind of like a sort of a side show. You know, they, had, think a two or three lap race at, the club races, which I was able to do. And then I moved over to the 125 CC GP bikes and started racing those. was definitely the youngest person in the paddock by far. They're just, they just weren't many kids. And so I just raced with all the grownups and, of course I had a huge power to weight advantage on those bikes.

I'm sure. Yeah, and it was actually it's an interesting topic I want to touch on later is sort of the state of sort of talent in the US and programs to help them grow because I think you touched on a really good point there. And so obviously, like all kids, we look out to our dads and you saw your dad and you saw what he was doing at that younger age.

Who were your heroes outside of obviously we all love our dads. there the heroes that you looked up to in the motorcycling world?

Sure. Sure. I had heroes, but I guess to backtrack, cause I didn't answer your question fully earlier. I started riding on the street the day I turned 15 and a half, the day back then there was no social media. And if you wanted to hang out with your friends, you had to go actually see them face to face. a lot of it had to do with, you know, driving from one place to another. And I commuted pretty much every day on my motorcycle. had a KLR six 50 at that time, it was a KLR 600 back then anyway.

Speaker 1 (08:34.162)
I did a lot of riding on the street and prior to that, I used to ride my bicycle to and from school. So I had a certain amount of street experience of just how to manage traffic or be not so visible. Anyway, I, I rode quite a bit on the street and in LA lane splitting saves you a lot of time. So it was really, I almost really a necessity if you wanted to get around in any, in any decent amount of time.

In any case, that's more of my early history of riding motorcycles. And yes, of course I did some racing. And when I grew up, I still remember it's one of these early memories, these indelible memories that you have on certain topics. But I remember going up to Laguna Seca and seeing all of the greats at that time, racing Kenny Roberts, Yvonne Duhamel, Gary Scott on their TZ750s. And we were in what's now Rainy Corner.

watching them go by and I just remember seeing these flashes of color going, wow, that's amazing. And we were there just as spectators. Interestingly, maybe not so ironically, the next year my father raced in the super bike race up there and got second in the very first super bike race at Lugana Seca when that class just started. But my heroes were Kenny Roberts was my main hero. And I also really liked Skip Axlund. He was another racer who raced the TZ 750 and did really well. And then

After that, especially in the eighties, became, we were at the races all the time. So I became friendly with pretty much all the racers in the paddock. I was a younger kid, so they kind of tolerated me and I would run around and just chat with them. So they weren't necessarily idols. They weren't necessarily friends either, but I just got to know them on a more friendly, maybe not intimate basis, but I just grew to like the racer culture.

Maybe some of his stuff really is in the blood then, It's one thing to be immersed in it, it's another thing to actually pursue it. Is there a time that you kind of realized that, this is gonna be a lifelong love affair? Where?

Speaker 1 (10:34.766)
It, I'm just kind of one of those kids. guess it was very typical of your, your generation X because I'm pretty much solid in the middle of generation X growing up on Hollywood. just liked all the things that boys liked. I liked, I liked fireworks. I love fireworks. I love things that went boom. Uh, I shot my first gun at four years old and I got, got my first gun that was my property when I was 11 and, uh, I got my first, uh, pistol at my 357 Magnum when I was 15 and I.

I'd always loved guns. I loved bicycles. I loved skateboards. I loved motorcycles. Just anything that was kind of fast, dangerous, loud, any of that stuff, I just absolutely loved and went after it. So it wasn't really like I needed any encouragement. And of course it's in stark contrast to what you might see today with kids that tend to just hang out at home and they've got their face in a screen or whatever.

I understand that because there was a period where I was really into video games, but it cost money back then. It was quarters every time. But I've always been into that type of stuff.

You and I share that for sure. That's great. So, you know, I first read Keith's book in 19, it was his first book in 1986. And in those days as a young guy, I didn't listen to anyone. I believed I knew everything and I read the book, it was really great. But then, you know, I thought I knew everything. Are you growing up with someone so profoundly involved in coaching and racing? You know, was there a time when he pulled you aside as a student? Was it just something that...

you kind of learn from osmosis and watching him and his team.

Speaker 1 (12:11.758)
He took me racing and I didn't really have much experience, right? I just started going racing. It was interesting because we're all very familiar with having a plan when you go out on a track and you would have me go over my plan. I had to narrate the entire track in every little detail. The results were, pretty quick and we were able to go pretty fast, at least on the junior classes that I was running in the like the 125 class, very close to lap record, pretty much right off the bat.

but he definitely coached me hands on and intensively. And I didn't really have a problem with that. never really had like any sort of a stranger relationship with my father where we didn't necessarily get along or anything like that. We were kind of like just pals. And of course I listened to whatever he had to say. And maybe I was a bit younger, you know, before that puberty band where you don't want to listen to your parents kind of thing. But...

We formed a good working relationship early on as far as being the, you know, the teacher and the pupil.

That's great. And so you mentioned you started working for the school full time in 2005. Is that right?

Yeah, but it was basically 1980 to 88 and then 2005.

Speaker 2 (13:28.066)
Got it, right. So you really, like anyone else at the school, any career, you really start at the bottom and work your way up and improve yourself through that, which I can definitely see when I attend the schools, just the unity of the team, which is actually something I want to touch on too, because it's more to life than just a school. Like it's the team that comes together. And so I'm curious for you, you know, there's obviously been a transition in leadership.

over the years with you at the helm and the rest of your team and Kobe and others. How has it evolved, do think, particularly in the last, I know 20 years sounds like a long time, but particularly in the last 20 years, this new millennium compared to the 20 years before that in the early 80s?

say, yeah, the last 20 years have been pretty interesting as far as the evolution of the school goes. let's say your casual observer might read the books and say, okay, that's what the Superbike School is. it's like, well, okay, it's changed quite a bit since then. guess we've come up, or at least I myself personally have come up through a bunch of different levels. You talk about the Dunning-Kruger effect where people that don't really know much think they know a lot, et cetera.

And I've gone through a lot of false highs and false lows and it's kind of imposter syndrome of thinking that, you know, we really got a great program. We really know what's going on. And then you uncover more information. You figure out that, you know, maybe you're a bit of a fraud or you don't know what you're talking about. And then you come to a middle ground and you say, well, it's not that bad, but there's, there's more information that we need. So the evolution is, has definitely gone more in the area of technical.

and really uncovering what's going on at a physics level with the bike. And there's been a bit of a transition over the years, just in many different areas where authority is not really coming from an individual, but coming from the data. So if someone says, okay, I'm a good rider, therefore listen to me. People are not doing that so much anymore. They're going, well, that's good for you, but what's the science that explains that?

Speaker 1 (15:37.772)
And I guess the analogy I give is that if someone is, let's say, really muscle bound and fit and they say, okay, this is my regimen. This is what I eat. These are the exercises I do. You'd say, okay, that's fine. And that's good for most people with their, but nowadays people are more of like, okay, what is the chemistry behind this? What does the body need and why? And then what intervals if these are my particular goals, et cetera, et cetera.

So we've been moving further and further into the technical side of things. The good thing and also the problem is, is whenever you answer a question, sort of a basic technical question about riding a motorcycle, usually two or three more questions spring up and then you get those answered and then two or three more questions spring up from those two or three more questions and you see it starts to branch out and then it can start getting really confusing. And then there's a certain point where they all start to reconnect, start to reconnect, right? Start to, and then.

you're able to at least wrap your arms around certain elements of writing. And I think that's kind of where we're at right now is that out of a sea of possibilities, et cetera, things are starting, dots are being connected. And then I have to figure out how can I explain that to somebody who asked me some straightforward question? Is it wrong to, and then you fill in the blank about some sort of technique and you're like, well, that is a, it's a very involved question. know, is it, is.

Is it true that you can't do this or something about steering or something about throttle, et cetera? And the, answers are, are, we're finding are far more nuanced, but I'm, I've been working really hard to try and distill it down to the most important basic elements so that they can be explained succinctly and in a way that actually makes that rider better or least solve some of their mystery.

Yeah, that's really helpful because my senses, when I've seen you talk, I see like a physicist in you and I see a scientist in you because you've talked about so many different things from like how a gyroscope works to how the human eyes work and how they're not programmed to work at a certain speed. And the thing that I've always been impressed with is I have 10 million questions, but you will always say Angus, we're focusing on one thing. Why is it that the school, I know you focus on a lot of things, but

Speaker 2 (17:46.572)
On the student journey, the school brings you along this journey of one thing at a time. There a lot of other classes in life trying to throw a lot at you. It doesn't matter whether it's writing or learning how to build a house or something. You have a very focused methodology there.

Yeah, there's a, there's a sort of a funnel, a fundamental reason behind that. And it's actually connected to this concept of professional coach, so professional coach, someone who's really, really good. They're going to look at somebody and they're going to be able to quickly assess, let's say across a series of, of skills. If we were to take a rider and separate them, let's just say a dozen core skills. And I'm not saying there are a dozen, but let's just say there were.

we look at their performance on each one and then we'd find the one that's lower than the rest. That's the one that we would go after. Now there might be something that's pretty good with them. We're not going to necessarily try and make that even better. In the same way a physical trainer would first assess the person that they're training and they'd want to find the one muscle that's or area that is much, much lower than the rest and make a more balanced athlete. So that's really what we're trying to do with riders.

is take that one thing that is much weaker than the rest and improve that. So then the person is saying, well, what about my body position? What about this? And what about that? And we'll go, okay, we can definitely get to that, but this thing needs attention first. This is where you really have to be, you have to be good because sometimes it seems like it's a chicken and egg thing. This is really, really suffering. And so is that they both look bad, but which one, if you improve my idea actually by default improve the other one.

And that's where it takes a lot of skill, but it just takes a lot of experience of understanding a lot of case studies. And I guess that's one of the main advantages we have as the California Superbike School. We're the world's largest track school in the world, right? I said it twice. Anyway, we've got our branches in Europe and also in Asia and Australia.

Speaker 1 (19:47.31)
And we've got a lot of people coming through. So we've got a lot of, a lot of individual case studies that we can actually draw more information from. And that's, that's really, it's, it's so much deeper than I actually originally thought it was going to be, let's say 20 years ago. say, okay, this is the formula let's go. But the further we go, the more, like I said, the more questions come up. like I said, dots, dots are connecting, but I certainly couldn't say that we've got this whole area tape, taped down and dialed in.

We still, we still scratch our heads, but, but we, we know that we're able to, to get a really good product with most students in a very short period of time. So anyway, that one thing at a time approach really comes down to just find the weakest thing and fix that. On the other hand, we've got in cognitive science, they're telling us that a human can only put their attention on one thing at a time, but humans apparently are very good at switching between tasks. Right? So if we've got a.

key or important central task that we want to put someone's attention on, then let's do that. Knowing that while they're paying attention to one element of their writing, they're still going to have their attention bouncing around on all the other things that's required just to go around a corner. So if you just keep on layering one more and more things on top of that person, they just don't have the bandwidth to deal with it, especially if they're going at an interesting pace.

That's a pretty long way in explaining exactly why it would be a one thing at a time approach.

No, look, look, there's so much to unpack here. And so what I'm going to try and do here is as a student, someone that's benefited, I'm going to like ask you to sort of walk me through, because I know there's four levels, but what I've learned is that really there's like hundreds of levels, but the more you do it. And I found I did the four levels, but then I found every other time I did it, you're like just unpacking more and more. And the more schools you attend, the more personal it gets.

Speaker 2 (21:45.998)
I personally just, you know, 25 years, I had 30 years of riding on the street before I joined my school. I Kobe, he said to me, your coach, your head of coaching said, at the time he was, I think, yeah, but you've probably been riding the wrong way. So put all of that aside and be open to feedback. When you turn to, help me understand those four levels. So like for someone that's never maybe even had coaching before, I know you require people to have a certain level of skill. They can't come in if they don't know how to ride, at least change gear and go around a few corners.

Would you walk us through like the typical? Yeah. The program.

So if we were, so there's four levels and if we were to pigeonhole or reduce each level down to just one word, we'd say level one would be controls. So we talk about throttle, steering, rider input, relaxing in the bars, things like that. And then level two would mainly concern itself with vision or eyes. And then level three mainly concerns itself with body or body position related things. With that being said, we talk about body position stuff.

In all three levels, all three of the beginning levels. And we talk about vision in, in the first level as well. So they're, they do overlap, but the primary focus for the first three levels are one controls two eyes, three body. Then level four is a complete completely unique program tailored to that student. So they'll go out and ride with their coach. The coach will see what they see. They'll sit down after the ride. They'll discuss the ride and the coach will make a recommendation on.

where to go for the next ride. And then that student will take that recommendation and sit down with a level four consultant and they'll further discuss that and perhaps maybe clear up a few things or allow them to ask and answer more questions and then send them back out. And then the level four consultant makes sure that the coach knows what the conclusion of their discussion was and then they go out. it's a very, it's very much like the way that we would coach a racer, someone who's actually, you

Speaker 1 (23:42.254)
devoted racer. It's more on specifically what that person needs. doesn't necessarily follow an exact format or curriculum plan. The number of tools and remedies we have available that we employ in level four is about 200. So there's 200 additional exercises and remedies for different situations that riders come into. we're coming up with new ones as time progresses, but we've been able to come up with the main problems that riders are.

coming up with, but then you can't necessarily say, problem A has solution A connected to it. They're nuanced and there's, there's different ways to, actually resolve certain situations depending on what the coach sees. So.

feel like there's so much unpack because as you know, I'm a software person. And when I hear you talk, I'm like, okay, you've got, you you're coming up to almost 50 years in business, which is amazing. You've got all this data and you've probably created, there's probably a thousand different personas of types of writers that you've come, you've worked with over the years and you could say, well, you you remind me of 50 other writers that have had this problem and they've all had the common. And I suppose bringing that together takes more than just the insight, it takes a team and

I wanted to drill into that a bit because I do a lot of track days now, I'm 25 this year. I was too scared to go to a normal track day before I did your school. So I started just doing your school rather than just turning up. And quite often I'll meet very competitive racers who coach and they're really good people. But just because they're really fast in competition doesn't necessarily mean they're a great coach. And one of the things that I've seen with your team is they ask amazing questions. It's clearly they've been taught how to ask really good questions.

They're very fast. I put them up against anyone. Like what is it that makes a great coach? And what is your, you obviously have a high bar for someone who wants to coach, but help me think that through. Cause for me on the outside looking at it feels like a very big differentiator for you guys.

Speaker 1 (25:39.688)
Yeah, the coach selection process. it's definitely, it has its own sort of almost technology to it. But if we were to just break it down to the obvious simple elements, first and foremost, and maybe people aren't necessarily thinking about this is you have to get somebody who actually likes seeing other people improve. And that's not everyone. We all know people or perhaps have been in that position ourselves where we want, we want to be the top of the heap and

anyone else who approaches this is viewed really as a competitor or the competition. There are also other people that really do like to see and help other people improve. So that's the key thing that needs to be present before we even go anywhere. Because you could have a really fast guy and they just like to go out and they like to impress people and show them how much better they can be by writing really well. But there's a difference between that.

and actually trying to get into that person's world and turn, you know, push the right buttons and turn the right knobs to really cause them to improve. So there's that. They need to be a good communicator and they also need to be able to follow instructions. Some, some people are really good on their own. They've devised their own way of doing things and that's great, but they don't really work well within a structured format. That would be, I guess, derogatorily could just say that they.

You know, they're a bit of a lone wolf and they don't like to, they don't like to follow instructions. They just want to do their own thing. And we can't run an organization with people like that. It's just, it's just not, not possible. Now they, you could probably find people like that, that might do really good one-on-one coaching and that would be great. But what they miss is the entire machine, the organization behind it. I'll have some people just to go off on a little bit of a tangent. Sometimes I'll have a student say, Hey, do you guys do.

You guys do private coaching. And yeah, we can do that. But you know, the costs start to escalate. So where do you want to do it? Oh, you want to do it your local track. Well, that means you need to fly the coach out. Then you need to pay for his track day fee, let's say, provide him with a motorcycle and tires and his time and flying there and coming back. And then the numbers start getting huge. Or they can come to a two day camp where the coach student ratio is one coach to two students and they have an entire

Speaker 1 (28:00.128)
infrastructure, they've got a mechanic there, they've got student services that will give you an Advil if you've got sore neck, you've got someone who's doing video review, you've got all these different elements taken care of in the background for you, so you have that real machine behind you, which is great. In any case, the coaches, need to be good communicators, they need to work well with other people within the culture of the group, and they just need to be able to follow instruction.

Yeah, yeah, I see that. it's great that you mentioned the team and you also mentioned just everything goes into it. Because for me, again, it's a big differentiator. The last time I was at the Ridge with you guys, which is in Washington state, as you know, it was over 100 degrees. I kind of messed up and I was dehydrated and feeling dizzy. And you guys said everything. I mean, just it was incredible how you provided salt tablets, potassium, all these things. But you also provide bikes, right? We haven't touched on that. So

As long as I've been doing this school, you've had BMWs, know you Kawasaki's before that. And you also have tires and Alpinestar sponsorships and vests and everything you could ever want. Tell me about the bikes you provide. Can you bring your own bike or do you have to use your bike?

It's either or you can bring your own bike, which is great because if you want to train, it's nice to train on your own bike. Cause that's the one you're familiar with. That's the one you're going to ride. So there's an argument in favor of that. Uh, perhaps you're considering getting a sport bike. Perhaps you just want to be able to do something on a, on a top notch piece of equipment. In this case, we've got the BMW S 1000 double Rs. So that's also another, another argument in favor of that, or if someone is.

flying in, let's just say, for example, during the fall and spring, we'll do schools at Vegas. So someone just flies in, they come to the school and then they leave. And all they really did is like, maybe they just brought their, their riding gear, but they didn't even need that. We started off with Kawasaki in 1980. It took a lot of convincing from my dad to get them to sponsor us because it was such a new.

Speaker 1 (30:01.486)
thing. No one had really ever done anything like that before. It had been done in the car world, but it was just far enough away from that base to really be seriously considered. Yeah, guess the element of risk, et cetera, when you get in a car, there's a lot less risk than on a motorcycle and so on. So like, who's going to actually put their name in the

and actually go. So anyway, we were with Kawasaki starting in 1980, a really, really great relationship and interesting to point out the first 10 years of our relationship with them, we had no contract. There was nothing in riding. It was just handshake, old school handshake. That's really the state of the industry back then. And also interesting was the motorcycle industry was experiencing a really, really nice boom from

maybe the late sixties all the way up through 1980, really, really nice trajectory. You're on any Sunday and Honda's, and entering into the marketplace with, with their marketing that, that worked really well and positioned them against the biker gangs, et cetera, et cetera. Right, right, right. What ended up happening from 1980 on is that's actually the motorcycle industry was on a long downtrend and you would think that it would have been hard to.

Nice disguise you made on a Honda, wasn't it?

Speaker 1 (31:21.314)
get support just because the industry wasn't doing so well during that period. But it was a good move on Kawasaki's part because it got people on their motorcycles and it popularized riding, at least for the people that attended our schools. And we maintained that relationship with Kawasaki until 2000. It was like a soft ending. What ended up happening was the global financial crisis hit. And Kawasaki Motors Corporation is, their motorcycle,

company, right? But most people don't realize that Kawasaki Motor Corporation is under Kawasaki Heavy Industries, KHI. KHI is a gigantic company in Japan. And motorcycles at that point was a single digit percentage of the company. Very, very small. It's almost like a hobby. If you go to some of the New York subways and you look and you can see a little plate that says Kawasaki, they make subways, they make huge

boats, make gigantic earth movers. Anyway, the people running KHI are savvy. Let's just put it that way. And they knew what was going on with the global financial crisis. Word went down to America and basically what they started doing is just pulling their flippers in and shutting all their programs down. And we were getting all these cryptic messages from the leadership at Kawasaki at that time, like basically don't count on us kind of thing. And they sent us the pink slip for the trailers that we had, which was really nice of them.

rather than asking from back, because I don't think they could have used them anyway. And they signed those over to us and we're going like, what's happening here? Because we have been with them since 1980, almost 30 years. And then we found out they were firing everyone in the race department. they basically just, the US motorcycles down to bare bones, like it was just a skeleton crew left. We went and we talked to...

our contact at that time at Honda. And he said, it's, world war nine here. It's just, it's dead bodies everywhere as far as what's going on. And they had a big percentage of market and it was going down. So they, they really were losing big time. And we went around to all these different manufacturers, like hat in hand, trying to figure out what we're going to do about our sponsorship. And it became increasingly clear that our options were

Speaker 1 (33:41.026)
Being whittled down to basically nothing to where we wouldn't even have an OE sponsor for motorcycles and would have to be something where we just, just go to a dealership and buy them or something. And then run our school. You know, we didn't really know. And it was in 2008 when we were not a beginning of 2009. were at the very end anyway, beginning of eight beginning of nine. We were at a motorcycle show. My dad and I were there.

The one in Long Beach, the big one that used to happen every year. We were roaming around trying to figure out what we're going to do about things, but we needed some sponsors for a few different things. So my dad walked up to, we needed a break sponsor. He walked up to a booth where they were displaying and said, okay, so what do think about sponsoring our school? And the guy goes, yeah, yeah, we can do that. Okay, good. This is what we need. All right, yeah, no problem. Just here's my email.

That's how, that was the pitch. It was amazing. He could just walk up to someone and have a five minute conversation and you've got like a done deal. It's really interesting to see that happen. And not that he's like, got a silver tongue, but I think just everyone knew it's Keith Code. He's a straight shooter. been in the, you know, he'll deliver what he says, et cetera. So anyway, we went around and we were just about to leave. dad said, let's go. And I said, wait a minute. There's this other part we didn't go to of the show.

And the BMW display was way over there and we walked over to it and we're just sort of looking around. And then I saw the prototype of the S 1000 in a clap, the last case. And we had seen a press release or a rumor release about the BMW is coming out with a super bike, which was very strange because BMW has always been your dad's motorcycle.

Yeah, it was for, yeah, it's for guys with great hair and scraggly beards and, ex hippies or whatever. Anyway, they, it was definitely, it's definitely not known as a sport bike company in any way, or form. But I saw that bike and I went, wow, there's how about that? It's a super bike. Cause we had been using 600s at the school and he looked, my dad looked at it and cocked his head and was like, maybe. And then up walked the director of marketing for BMW North America, who we knew from.

Speaker 1 (35:57.102)
our, our relationship. My dad opened up a wheelie school and it was sponsored by triumph. So I was like, learn how to wheelie. Yeah. It was like a fun thing. Right. And, and, it had since, you know, it closed down a few years after that, but anyway, we had been doing that and we were sponsored by triumph and the marketing director of triumph guy named Todd Anderson, he stopped working there and started working at BMW. So he walks up and we, and we say hello. And then, so we already know him, but you already have a.

No idea.

Speaker 1 (36:26.12)
working relationship in another area. And my dad said something along the lines of, do you think about us using those bikes at our school? And he said, yeah, I think that here's my card and, or an email. So we went, right, that could be something. My dad emailed him and said, this is our current deal with Kawasaki. This is what we're just asking for the same thing.

He goes, okay, let me meet you, meet up with you guys when you're in New Jersey, because we were doing schools. We do schools twice a year in New Jersey and BMW's headquarters over on the East coast, because that's closer to Germany. Whereas the West coast are all the like Japanese, know, because they're closer to Japan. Yeah, and that's where the bikes come into that port, etc, etc. Anyway, so he comes out to this.

We scheduled him to come out to the school. So he comes out to the school and then sits down with my dad for like an hour and a half. And they're talking, talking. I see them talking. So what I found out happened was they talked about everything on the Sun, and Stars except for the deal. then the guy from BMW taught, he's like, all right, I got to go. And my dad's like, okay, I'll see you later. And he said, yeah, one last thing was kind of like a Colombo moment. goes, one last thing, what kind of BMW car do you want?

If you're an official partner, they give you

I think I saw it in Vegas once, your dad drove down there.

Speaker 1 (37:54.856)
Yeah, they loan it. It's like a perk, which is really cool. It makes you feel it's super special. What ensued was our relationship with BMW started in 2010 and then it's been going strong all the way through. And the people that work there, their corporate environment is more grown up, more, I guess some people describe it as collegiate, but it's people that are smart and care and understand and get it. so it's been really nice working with BMW.

And we had no idea whether or the bike was going to be any good. So we went into this, it was a blind date with the bike. I mean, we saw the bike, we didn't know if it was any good, right? It could look like a sport bike, but not actually feel like one. So we were a bit concerned. They came by at the end, towards the end of 2009, brought a production prototype, which we got to ride. And no one had ridden it except for one person. Where did you ride it? I rode it at Streets of Willow Springs. And it was a...

an interesting version. was a very first version. It was that acid green color and it didn't have any electronic aids on it. Like the ECU, I'm not sure whether even it had like the basic sort of firmware that's always there that you can't override, but it was very direct. It was like a fire breathing dragon. It had so much power. You know, you've got all these traction control, et cetera, et cetera. It had none of that on it.

It was incredibly, incredibly, I wouldn't say violent, but really close to it. It was a fire breathing dragon because even today, if you put a bike in race mode, it still has lots of nanny controls over to keep you from going out of control. But this thing was absolutely raw, but I loved it. It felt great. said, this is cool. And, and then we, we took delivery of our fleet when we were at, we, we did a,

dealer lunch in Florida. And then we started. anyway, it turns out the bike was great and the electronic aids were fantastic. And we've got a great bike to train people with. that's.

Speaker 2 (39:56.44)
That's a great story because on the face of it, people might think, gee, we're putting students on leader bikes, these fast bikes. But I think you mentioned some data to me once that actually they're safer than the other bikes you've trained on over the years. Is that right? Or is this accidents?

Yeah, we were worried about people getting out of control and grabbing a handful of a 1000 CC sport bike and then the bike getting away from them. But we learned a few things. A, the electronics really help people's fear factor. Well, it comes down to the cognitive bias of loss aversion. People are more afraid of losing something. They are gaining something when it comes to going fast. Their fear will override their, their enthusiasm 99 times out of a hundred. Yeah. You get a few people that, that are a bit.

Dumb.

Yeah, okay. Yeah.

But, but for the most part, they are not, the bike scares them before they do something weird. With the electronics controls, you put it in rain mode, the thing feels like a, like a, you know, twin cylinder. It feels like an SV650 and you can just basically dial in what, who do you want to date tonight? You know?

Speaker 2 (40:51.726)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:05.41)
first day on the track ever was with you guys and it was raining actually at the Ridge. And I remember being absolutely shit scared. But I want to put on a thread a little bit about riders because I'm curious, we've talked about coaches, we've talked about the technology, we've talked about clearly the business you're in, it's a tough business. It's a hard business. You've got to go out there and graph and do the deals and yeah, you've got all this reputation, but every day is like day one.

I'm curious, like, of all, what makes a great student? You know, and what makes a student not so great? I feel like often students turn up, well, I've paid all this money, I'm gonna magic wand, and I'm gonna be awesome. And it certainly wasn't the case with me. But my goal was to make A group. This season, I finally do, I'm doing A group for the first time. It took me almost five years to get to a point where I could do that. I'm actually passing people in A group, which feels cool, but like,

That's all honestly thanks to you guys. And like what, in your view, what makes a great student and what makes a not so great student, if that makes sense, sort of.

think it's probably the typical things that anyone else could come up with. But first of all, most of the people that show up to our school are already good students. They're willing to take the time off, pay the money, and go to a school. So they've already kind of edited themselves down to, there's not a bunch of boneheads at bike night, right? With a bike put together with stolen parts. This is different. And so...

the number of people that we get that show up that are hard to deal with is very, very small. And yeah, every once in a while, basically you'll have someone who wants their biases confirmed. They came to basically have whatever they consider to be true, restated for them so that they can feel right and validated in their view of things. in many cases, yeah, we can confirm some of that, but in some cases they've got certain ideas that

Speaker 1 (43:06.914)
You know, the science basically says, it's just actually isn't, isn't true. I think a bad student would probably be somebody who just came distracted and is, yeah, this is just basically not, not there for the right reasons. Like I said, to have their biases confirmed, but it's just, it's just so, it's so small. some people just have bad attitudes and you never really know what the right solution is because sometimes, you know, you,

pull the person aside and say, bro, you knock this off, man. This is not cool what you're doing. And then at the end of the day, they'll come up and say, you know what? I really needed that. I needed that because yeah, I was in a bad place and I just need someone to set me straight. But there are other people where that's the worst thing. You you say something like that to them and then they're going to go on every review site and say how horrible one star review. I absolutely horrible. This, these people were mean to me. okay, fine.

We just don't have to deal with that that often. It really is. It's such an exception. It's such an outlier. mean, it's going to be like one out of a thousand people. And even then I tell my, my coaches, there are no failed students, only failed coaches. You have to figure out how to reach that person. You have to figure out how to solve whatever problems they, they came at our front door with. And despite that fact, cause it's really easy to blame the student.

But the fact of the matter is, like I say, if you have that viewpoint, there are no failed students, only failed coaches, then you suddenly, that the viewpoint changes, the viewpoint shifts.

That's really interesting. I suppose there was this old adage that the customer is always right. And I think in your business, that's definitely not the case. And I keep saying, like, if I had have started in your school 20 years earlier, I wouldn't have been a good student because I thought I knew everything. that's really helpful, though, that you had that perspective. Now, this is a hard one for someone like you because I've gotten to know you, I think, pretty well over the last few years. you know, you always want to focus on one thing, but...

Speaker 2 (45:04.684)
Like, is it easy to boil down like in all the data you have the most common mistakes like if there were two or three themes of the most common mistakes you see from writers? You know, I'd love to know like, I mean, I you have thousands, you have hundreds of drills, but are there...

Yeah, are you talking about mistakes or deficiencies? can go into both.

Yeah, maybe just like, yeah, at pop level of both. Yeah.

So mistakes, probably one of the most common mistakes we see is A, over slowing for a corner, which is not bad at all. Right. The mistake following that is rolling the throttle on too early, beating the throttle in while they're still leaning the bike over. Now there are going to be some, circumstances where that would be acceptable. Most specifically going from a very slow corner to a, and flipping it over to a much faster corner. You wouldn't, that wouldn't be a problem, but if let's just say it's a corner you have to slow down for.

So you're slowing down for the corner, you're, you're, off the throttle, you're breaking and we find a rider will, will over slow. And then they'll go, Oh, and then they start feeding the throttle and concurrent with leaning the bike over or, or while they're finishing to set the bike down on its line. And that puts a dual stress on the, on the contact patch, specifically the rear where it's getting a forward thrust that's increasing and a lateral thrust that's also increasing and it's easy to lose traction. So that would be.

Speaker 1 (46:26.35)
one of the biggest mistakes. then, but I'm, also wanted to cite where it came from. It came from a pretty innocent error, right? As far as deficiency goes, I would say, well, in my opinion, the most important control on a motorcycle, if we had to pick one would be the handlebars. Is that if you had a motorcycle that didn't have brakes, didn't have a throttle, didn't have a motor, you could still push it to the top of a hill and coast it down. But without the handlebars, no riding will occur.

it ain't gonna happen, right. So if you look at the little bicycles they train kids on, the balance bikes, they only have one control, the handlebars, that's it. And it's the, there are so many nuances to a steering technique, angle of hands, which hand is pressuring? Is one hand pushing and the other one's pulling? Is one hand pushing, the other one's pushing? Are they pushing down versus forward? Are they pushing down and forward? There's a lot of different elements to that. But a lot of people, when it comes to steering, they,

might be doing it perfectly and then adding three or four things into the mix that actually shouldn't be there. So when we're correcting people on their steering, it's usually a subtractive activity where we say, okay, you're perfect, except for you're doing five more things that need to be gotten rid of. But I would say the biggest deficiency is in the area of steering, being able to accurately steer it, being able to steer it at the right rate for the scenario. For example, some long

arcing entry corners. For example, let's say the carousel over at your local track at the ridge is not really a quick turn in scenario. But if we're going from that turn one, two combination into turn three, we need to be able to get the bike turned quickly enough. So can the rider get the bike turned as quickly or as slowly as as the conditions or the circumstances demand. And quite often they'll just apply one turn in rate to

all scenarios or they end up fighting themselves. And I remember listening to a student who came to the school and he said, man, this is amazing. I'm having so much fun. I did a track day. So, you know, as a guy that just went out and did a track day, you know, first time he said, I felt like I was wrestling a bear when he was out on track, just felt like I wrestling a bear. And now it's just absolutely, you know, effort. Well, I wouldn't say effortless, but you know, really, really low effort. It's great to be able to, to provide a such a stark contrast in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (48:50.786)
But a big part of that is just steering technique and understanding all the different elements associated with it.

Yeah, that flow state is incredible. I find that I think a lot of people who don't motorcycle, they realize it is quite a physical sport and it's very physical. But I found I'm way less tired now. Like I did five track days in a row this year, literally in a row and three of them, four of them or a few. And your skills are intense. You got to get off the bike, you got to go and get your training and get, there's no like sitting around waiting.

I'm way less tired now because I feel like I'm riding the bike and the bike's not riding me. I learned that from you guys. and you see folks who are new after a couple of sessions are exhausted, right? Cause they're fighting the bear. And so I know we don't have much time, but I want to flip it a bit more because don't be humble. You've coached some pretty, pretty famous people over the years. know, Rocco Landers is a motor America, race there and a bunch of others.

Like tell me tell me tell me a little bit about those guys like you're some folks you've coached over the years that probably people have heard of yeah

sure. You're talking about the racers at the top level. Yeah, I guess I have a hard time really boasting about it because someone comes through the school and then they go on and they do really well. And it's really hard for us to say, well, yeah, we did that. And it brings me back to that quote from John F. Kennedy, a victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan. Yeah. So when,

Speaker 2 (49:59.192)
Yeah, pro wrestlers, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:21.312)
It's a great one.

When something great happens, everyone's like, okay, I was behind that person. I knew him, I taught him everything I knew. So it's really hard to do that, but it's really nice to be part of that person's journey. And there's no telling how significant you were in their development, but there've been quite a few racers along the way. I was Joe Roberts' first coach when he was a little puppy. Yeah, great.

Yeah. Josh Heron came to the school. just won the motor America super bike championship, but, know, he obviously came to us already a good rider. So were we able to, influence him in, in ways that, that he was able to bring, bring his game up. you'd probably have to ask him, but, know, and perhaps we even end up learning quite a bit from, from the, the riders that come to us, you know, just as much as, as they learned from us.

We learned from them as well, but there've been, there's been a pretty long list, especially with our, our foreign branches. We've got, there's a kid named Santa ages who's racing in moto two now. he came from our, our Australian branch and he won the European motor to championship a couple of years ago. And, you know, going back to Wayne Rainey was, know, he, went. Yeah. won three world championships and Jake's key, one.

Yeah. We've got some pictures.

Speaker 1 (51:51.406)
the Formula USA Championship. My dad also trained a couple people who then became trainers. Lee Parks is pretty well known. And of course, it's one of my dad's students from way back in the day. And of course, Nick Einoche, who started the Yamaha school, he's one of my dad's students. I remember when Nick first came to our school, was the 600 Ninja first got released. So it was 1986, I think.

just a sort of bright eyed bushy tailed kid out of college that, you know, starting his whole career in motor journalism. And there's been, it's a long list of people. I guess something that we're proud of is my, my dad, he worked with these guys directly. He was able to successfully transition someone from one discipline to another. So Doug Chandler came to, Wayne Rainey came to us, a flat tracker, and he became a road racer.

and he won two Superbike Championships, three World Championships. Bubba Showbert, one of the most successful flat trackers ever. My dad coached him and then he was able to win, at that point, the premier class was Superbikes. They had Formula One for a certain period, but Superbikes. And Bubba Showbert's one of the very few people with a Grand Slam, Grand Slam meaning they've every type of racing within the AMA.

a flat track road race. you have to run a short track, a TT, a half mile, a mile and a road race. And I think there's only like five people that have gotten the full grand slam. Nikki Hayden was one race away from being able to do it. He never won a mile race, but he won everything else. So there's Bubba Showbert. American Honda hired my dad to train a guy, a motocrosser named Steve Wise. And Steve Wise went on to win Superbike races. And so Doug Chandler.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:47.522)
Doug Chandler, Grand Slam winner as well. And my dad worked very, very closely with him at training him. So we've actually been good at taking someone who was outside the discipline and then turning them into a top level rider. And I guess that's probably what we're known for is bringing somebody. There have been a number of races we brought from the very, very bottom, just new to it all the way up to some level of success, whether that's local, regional or national or international.

But I love how humble you are because you're saying, look, everyone's career has people that touch them in different ways along the journey. And you feel like you've been part of those touches for a lot of people. that's super humble. And I love that. And it sounds as though as an industry, I've got a few more questions, hopefully, if you can go over a little bit, just because it sounds like as an industry, you'll get on pretty well too. Because I go to the local tracks and I've got my CSS hat on and I've got a Yamaha Champ school hat as well, but I've done a lot more CSS schools.

It would be very religious camps like, well, you know, those guys are 40 years old and blah, blah, blah. But it sounds as though you all kind of get on pretty well. I it's competitive. I interviewed Ken Hill the other day, for example. It was competitive, but you guys don't have, you know, there's pretty good respect out there in the paddock,

Yeah, well, speaking of Ken Hill, whenever, like if I happen to be at the races and then he sees me, you know, we just, you know, two magnets, we snap together and we talk shop and that type of thing. And I think there's a certain amount of respect that we have for each other. And perhaps we view things a little bit differently, but we, you know, it's kind of like an agree to disagree type thing. In the industry, the industry is, and you touched upon this much earlier, but

The economics is such that no one's going to get rich doing this. You're just not going, there's not a lot of money to be made. There is in commercial real estate and, and, you know, high finance and all that type of thing. And that's where you're to find the best minds, the most amazing people, thinkers, et cetera. But in this industry, it's just not going to attract these people just because there's no huge payoff and big.

Speaker 1 (55:54.178)
you know, a big exit plan where someone's just going to walk away with millions. So really is a lifestyle type business, but the economists are such that it's very, very prohibitive to get into it. Anyone who has any business sense, all they have to do is just sit down and run the numbers. wouldn't take very long. And we get this all the time from students of ours who are smart and do run their own businesses. They look around, they count up the staff. We got 22 staff at an event. They know they all have to be fed.

They all know that they have to be transported, et cetera, paid, two semis with all the fuel and all of the regulations that pin you down on what you can and can't do, and the office and the accounting and maintaining the fleet and getting tires, all this. It just goes on and on. It's a very, very, very, very difficult business to do. And as a matter of fact, we wouldn't be able to do it today if we didn't already have amortized a lot of the capital costs.

Or would just be stupid. just have to find someone with really deep pockets. It's just like, take my money, I don't care. I just want to school.

I see that. Yeah. see this as a business owner. I see that myself. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a really, really tough business. It's very small for that reason. And then of course it's somewhat niche. So of course it's going to be competitive because there's only so many people to train. So you kind of want to say, don't go with them, go with us, we're better.

Speaker 2 (57:20.782)
Yeah, yeah, no for sure for sure. It's very it's a very religious, you know, when I say religious I mean this passion around different organizations and but the fundamentals of writing don't really change too much. It's that Physics is still a physics and you um, I got one last question and it really revolves Well, I want you to talk a little bit about how to get hold of a school and all that stuff Which will I'm put lots of stuff up here and here but um

Yeah, the physics are still the physics.

Speaker 2 (57:46.988)
You touched on American motorsport, you touched on some of the American greats that have come through. know, I interviewed Kayla Yakov, not so long ago, who's very impressive. I've interviewed Misty Hearst, know, Misty, one of your coaches. And Mallory Dobbs, who's racing in the World Superbike Women's

Very impressive.

Speaker 1 (58:01.548)
mess.

Speaker 1 (58:05.774)
Yeah, I don't know her, but her trajectory has been really good. She's legit.

Yeah, she is. also interviewed, Cormac Buchanan the other day, who comes from a very small town on the bottom of the South Island, New Zealand, who graduated from the Red Bull rookies cup and is now racing. And those two babies kids, but it strikes me a bit of a U S, something's happened in the last, I don't know what's happened, but it feels like we're not competing on the global scale. we use, mean, I, Joe Roberts is motor too, and you've got up and comments, but do you have a sense of what's what, what happened there? Was it the AMA, the spending and motor America getting so I don't know, like

What's going on with talent in the US?

You have to go back quite a few years because it really starts at the go-kart track with the little kids. That's where it starts. And, and Joe was, on that, that wave that started before the global financial crisis, not to say that that's like the, know, the, the one event that, defines the motorcycle industry. just happened to also come up with us, but, after the global financial crisis, youth racing just.

went way down, the parents were like, no, we're not doing anything right now. We're going to regroup. We're going to get safe. But then there was a resurgence and then sort of a petered out. And so I have a feeling that it just goes in waves. The culture of America is not necessarily a motorcycle racing centric, like nothing close to what they have in Italy or Spain. And the way I view, especially youth racing is I don't encourage it.

Speaker 1 (59:32.43)
It's the same way I look at riding motorcycles. I don't encourage people to ride motorcycles. You know, we're a school and I look at it as we give junkies clean needles. It's dangerous, right? And I'm not going to be responsible for like saying, come on, come on, ride a motorcycle, ride a motorcycle. You love it. It's going to be fun. Because when you ride on the street, if you get in a motorcycle accident, you're something like 40 times more likely to be killed. So it's a big decision people have to make and they have to make that on their own. And the parents have to make that on their own.

And that's why I'm not necessarily all about beating the drums super hard. A really sensible, efficient mechanism needs to be there to carry them through if they so desire. It definitely needs to be there. And there are a lot of things in place right now, or they're falling into place with John Hopkins to facilitate that right now. It's just that they have to make their decision. And of course, a lot of people want to come up with rules that govern how kids are.

I guess administered and racing and what you can and can't do on that type of thing. And I understand that. And that's, I think that's a conversation for the parents and the, and the organizing bodies. So that's a whole nother. It's a nother podcast, but I do know one thing, some of the best days of my entire life were going racing with my dad. Absolutely. Without a doubt.

Yeah, it's how I know a podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54.292)
And you just can't explain that. It's not like going to a little league game. It's just nothing close to it. Not even close. And only people that have done it will really understand that. And the community, especially with the kids, the way they get along and the bonds that are struck and the maturity that you have, you finished first, second or third, you got a trophy. Otherwise, no, you got nothing. You didn't try hard enough. You didn't train hard enough. You weren't good enough or whatever. But people learn.

the kids learn a lot of early life lessons and, and humility, et cetera. And no matter how good you are, especially in America, just go over to go over to Spain and then you'll, then you'll find out what good really is. Yeah.

No, mean, look, our sport has consequences, right? And again, I keep coming back to how humble you are. Like I've done, I've been to a bunch of different schools in different cities with you and I see how hard you guys work. You guys break your ass off. it's, and I know there's a lot of satisfaction outside of the, it's not, you know, it's more to life than just the money, but you still have to feed yourselves. And, know, I just, again, I'm humbled to spend time with you. We've spent time together over the last 50 or so days I've done, but

I you've got a great team. I personally, if you can teach an old fat man like me to do a close to two minute lap at the ridge and that now, then anyone could get fast. I really appreciate spending time with you. how would you like folks to engage with your schools globally? I know you're on all the socials.

Is there any sort of, I'm going to pull the links at the top and stuff, but is there any sort of closing thoughts you have for all the eager students out there?

Speaker 1 (01:02:41.314)
Well, if you're interested in doing a school, probably the one place you want to go to would be our website and our schedule page. Cause the schedule page tells you what you need to know. It tells you where we are doing the schools, how much it costs and what the date is. And once you have those three pieces of information, then you've got, you know, most of what you need to know. And of course you can always call the office and we've got office man's Monday through Friday, nine to five, you know, with, with real life people that answer the phone and they'll, and they'll,

answer your specific questions. We've got a pretty good FAQs on our website as well. In case for those people that just have a bunch of different questions about details, but I just say go to the website, check it out. Whatever you choose to do with regard to your writing, if you are choosing to improve or taking actions to improve in whatever way you can, then I always encourage just any path of improvement, whether it's reading book or you can watch, there's a lot of

crazy stuff out on YouTube, but there's also a lot of good stuff too.

Yes, you reminded me of one last big thing about school is I don't know how your coaches do it, but they have amazing memories, know, incredible memories. You know, I had Chris last time and he was like, man, last year, you were doing this at that corner. And like, and like, how I don't know, I don't know how they remember all this stuff, because they coach so many students.

That's easy. Yeah. You just have to be memorable. No, actually there is something that's a whole other thing. When I started coaching on track, was one of these, I had to really strain to create all these new neural pathways that they go out and ride with the student, remember all these different points about them and record them. Because if it's a single day school, it's a one to three coach ratio, coach-student ratio.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26.302)
in three groups, that's nine people. So you have to remember nine riders, their strengths, their weaknesses, what they want to work on, what you want them to work on, et cetera. And it was really, really mentally taxing. You get good at it though. You actually, you just get good at it and it takes a while, but you can actually develop an amazing skill to keep track of all that. And that's another thing that makes, the coaches really, really, admirable people for, what they can do in that.

That's interesting that you picked that up because from a student's point of view, they just go out and ride and then they talk to the coach afterwards, but they don't take a broader view of, what else is this person having to manage and juggle throughout the day?

because you know I and this is not a negative comment it's more of a I think it took me a lot of schools before one of your writers your coaches said man you're like you're doing really well but you guys are pretty hard on us too for a reason but like that made me feel good you're still hard on me you still give me the same shit about everything it's the same thing too slow I'm too slow into I set up too early and I'm too slow into the corners but you always tell me

Well, think, you could, you could frame that in a more positive way. say, okay, your line's great. Now you can just add speed. All right. That would be like a more positive framing of that. Yeah.

That's what you said.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44.878)
I'm going to put video, I've already put video of some of the schools I did. I did some passing drills of Lyle that I've put up on my channel. I've done a of a bunch of things, but mate, I'm going to stop recording and say goodbye properly. But thank you. So absolute honor. And please give my love to Keith. He's a, he's a wonderful man and I have a deep, deep level of respect for you. Yeah, no worries.