Ride Smarter, Go Faster: Nick Ienatsch & the Yamaha Champions Riding School

What if the best performance upgrade for your motorcycle... was you?

In this powerful episode of the KIWIMOTO72 Podcast, I sit down with Nick Ienatsch — legendary racer, writer, and founder of the Yamaha Champions Riding School (YCRS) — to explore why rider coaching isn’t just for racers, but for anyone who wants to survive and thrive on the street or the track.

We get into:

• Why most riders plateau (and how to level up)
• The Champions Habits that build speed and safety
• Why trail braking and brake coverage are non-negotiable
• The biggest mistakes new and seasoned riders make
• What real-world bike control actually looks like

This is more than a riding episode — it’s a mindset shift. If you love motorcycles, you can’t afford to miss this conversation.

🎙️ Hosted by KIWIMOTO72
 🔗 For more: @kiwimoto72 | #RideLikeAChampion

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Nick Einoch and His Journey
• 3:03 The Mission of Yamaha Champions Riding School
• 5:53 The Importance of Learning and Evolving
• 8:48 The Role of Focus in Riding
• 12:01 Champion's Habits and Their Impact
• 15:04 The Difference Between Street Riding and Track Riding
• 17:46 Expectations for New Students at the School
• 20:59 The Importance of Open Mindset in Learning
• 24:01 Trail Braking and Riding Techniques
• 29:22 The Importance of Trail Braking
• 30:41 Learned Skills vs. Natural Talent in Riding
• 32:56 Desire and Discipline in Motorcycle Racing
• 34:30 Understanding Trail Braking Techniques
• 37:27 Street Riding Safety and Techniques
• 39:54 The Role of Braking in Cornering
• 42:16 Champions University: A New Approach to Learning
• 44:52 The Risks of Informal Learning in Riding
• 48:45 Building a Great Team of Instructors
• 55:04 The Balance of Street and Track Riding
• 58:00 Learning from Mistakes in Riding
• 1:00:57 The Role of Technology in Riding Safety
• 1:02:52 Street Riding Strategies and Safety
• 1:05:52 The Importance of Gear in Riding
• 1:10:09 Champ School: Training for Riders
• 1:14:01 Mind and Body: The Holistic Approach to Riding
• 1:18:00 The Joy of Riding and Community Engagement

Transcript

0:07

Well, good day everyone. Today we have a very special guest, Nick Einoch. Now, Nick is the founder of the Yamaha Champs Riding School here in the US. Now Nick is a former racer himself, has been involved in coaching almost his entire life. Started out with Freddie Spencer, ex GP champion, world champion. And the rest, as they say, is history over the last 30 plus years. Nick's been a coach. Now, I love having coaches, writers from all walks of life on the channel and on the podcast. And I really hope that you enjoyed this session with Nick and I. It's one of many. There's so much to unpack when it comes to learning how to ride well on the track. I think of this podcast as an introduction to what that school offers and what his school offers both online through the UCAMPS University they have, which is available worldwide and also on the track itself, physically, certainly here in the US. Also a reminder, if you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe, please write some reviews, give some comments. I'd love to see more feedback on the sort of content you like. Any feedback is good feedback, so please keep it coming. It really helps me as I plan out the schedule for this podcast. And also this is not my day job, so I don't have that much time to do this stuff. And so the more feedback I get, the more efficient I can be in bringing you hopefully. that you already enjoy. without further ado, let's head over and have a chat with Nick. Cheers. you As you know, I'm a lifelong learner and have done a lot of coaching in my time. And it's my pleasure today to introduce you to Nick Inoch. And Nick is the founder of the Yamaha Champions Writing School. Welcome Nick. Thank you, nice to be here Angus, thanks for having me on. it's pleasure to have you on. And I've been following your company and your approach for a long time now. And I'm going to have a lot to talk about. I know the listeners have a lot to learn as well. So, so Nick, I'm a student and I've done your school. I've also done some of your private coaching, big fan. Tell me a little bit about yourself and where you come from and how you got onto this. Well, uh important details for motorcyclists is that my dad bought me a dirt bike when I was 12 years old and uh started riding in the gully and I was always riding on the back with him on his bikes. And so he was a motorcycle rider. Thank God. And when I was uh 24, I was muddling along through college and the university of Utah. I was on the six year program. In other words, I was basically skiing in the winter and uh working in a bike shop. So I was an English major working at a bike shop and uh I had this idea to write a letter to Motorcyclist Magazine and I did. a couple months later, more than a couple months later, Art Friedman, the editor at Motorcyclist wrote me back and said, we're looking for someone and send in a resume. so my mother and I, she was also an English major and my mother and I saw that as the, you know, the opportunity, God's hand coming down saying, this is your life. And so, put together this resume that looked like a Suzuki S, you know, and just really went for it and got the job. I actually rode down to uh LA from Salt Lake City on my bike to interview and, you know, went through this huge long interview, got the job and, know, Art Friedman just really plucked me out of obscurity and changed my life. just forever owe him, but that's how it got started. And then, you know, you start these magazines and these guys are so, so good, such good writers. Art Friedman had a resume as a racer, Dexter Ford, Jeff Carr, Brent Ross, all these guys that I started working with. And Art Friedman was also very interested in street survival and riding in LA. I really had this group of people who realized it could be done, it could be done very well. And that kind of started rubbing off on me. And so I started as a street rider and uh ended up meeting Eddie Lawson, really. That's really what helped me. And I met Eddie and Eddie, of was supportive of going racing. So as a 25 year old, I got our first ride to ride in a 24 hour by Dennis Smith at Willow Springs. And that went well. I didn't lose it. This is really the secret to those 24 hours is don't be the rider who loses it for the team. So that's kind of how it got started. And I just saw my path and that's the essence of how it got going. It's funny how those things sort of happen when you least plan it right. And I know there's a lot about your past as a journalist and as a writer, but it's really interesting because I have been doing a little bit of research and we're not going to go into all of that today. One of the things that strikes me is that your mission is very, um it's not Nick centric, it's writer centric and sort of making the world a safer place on the street and the track, which is something I'm looking forward to getting into. And Motorcyclist magazine, I followed that from New Zealand as well as a kid in the 80s and 90s. We're a similar sort of age group. I actually interviewed Zach Courts a few months ago too, who's been around that circle as a journalist, you probably know. And Eddie Lawson was actually on Matt Oxley's podcast not so long ago. So really cool to hear. So it's a great story. Yeah, it is that the idea really was that I learned so much by hanging around with the right people, uh successful people, you people that were good at something and I just learned so much. so I, I never thought to name it my school because I never thought that I was the one who came up with these ideas. And so it's all back to even Sertiz wrote about trail breaking. And so I just felt that if I got a chance to do this, I would do it. And, uh I got, I was number one plate at Willow Springs back in 89 and a guy named Don Spina came up with the idea to run a track day on Friday before the weekend. And he hired me to teach the new riders. And of course I turned around and hired the class champions and number one place at Willow Springs, know, Lance Holtz, Steve Michael, Kent Kinosugu, all these, all these Andy Milton, all these really top racers. So right from the very get-go, I felt that you should bring in the best you have, the best you know, and have them. put their message together in a understandable way. That's great. So it sounds as though um listening, being a listener, um know, learn it all, not to know it all is something that you've sort of been part of your story. And now you are the founder of the school, right? And so, you know, obviously I've seen you on all your videos as the face of much of the content online. I haven't had the opportunity to write if you haven't tracked yet, but what is your role there today and how would you describe sort of the school's mission? If I was to ask you to do that, like in a sentence or two. teach more and less time. That's really, that would be a really good mission statement for us. Teach more and less time. We have uh different programs. We have one day program for street riders. We have two day programs for champ school. You took the grad school. That's two days. So if we can only spend two days with a rider and it's, you know, it's a bit of an effort to come to our school. So if we get two days with you, how could we literally spit you out the other end as a complete rider? not that you are doing everything perfectly, but you understand it perfectly and it's all in your notebook and you have a path and a goal to travel. So teach more and less time. oh That's a big thing. within that simple statement, ah it gets down to delivery, uh order of information, the quality of information, the quality of the drills. And the beautiful thing is that ah it's called the Champions Riding School because it just does pursue what the best doing. So we get to keep evolving. we like you see Bagnaia, uh he's got his butt off in the brake zone, like you should, but he was pinching the gas tank with his inside leg as well. So that was interesting. we started, let's talk about that rather than come in the brake zone with your butt off and your knee out, pinch that fuel tank. That was interesting. So we started messing with that. Of course, the Rossi leg dangle, all the students do the Rossi leg dangle. mean literally everybody, you know, some 70 year old street rider, not Dangle your leg. And so it gives us a chance to evolve with uh the word. And then because I truly believe in hiring people better than you, I have this group of instructors who have free reign to say, hey, let's try this. Hey, let's cut that. Let's mess this. Let's move this around. This took too long. And we just keep evolving and tweaking and. And sometimes we go in the wrong direction, know, Angus, you've done that where you're like, that was the wrong step. We come back to it, but that's, think that's what's getting us where we are is we're not tied to anything. And we, each of these quality people from the staff to the operations people, everybody gets a word in to say something and we get to look at it and tweak it. That's a really great overview. And I suppose as you think about um your role as a racer, a journalist and a coach, I'm guessing that each of these roles, and I know you have a life outside of racing, coaching and writing, but each of these roles, I assume, has sort of influenced your perspective on how people learn to ride well and safely. um Would you say that would be true as well? Yes, it definitely, the journalist thing is interesting. Somebody had said to, uh one of our owners said that one of the reasons a school works well is because I was trained to put thoughts into words and put them on the magazine page in my case, and before that in college. So that was an interesting statement that Lamore Shure said. He's our incredible marketing guy. said, know, Nick has always had to put his thoughts into words on paper. he felt that was a big plus and that makes some sense. Um, the, it's, it's incredible what racing has done for me. It's incredible what racing has done. I, I rather than just be a voice who, who, who might know something. It's someone who got out in there and tried it and failed and succeeded and all those things. So racing has opened doors that I probably don't even know about. I know with Freddie, when I walked up to Freddie in 1997, no, yeah, 97, I was racing it at. at Las Vegas in the 250 Grand Prix race. And he announced the school and I knew him as a journalist, but I didn't know him very well. I just walked right up to him. I introduced myself again. I said, can I send you a resume? Because I believe in this. I was doing the school at Willow and I saw what we could do with the right information. And so the racing, I think if I wasn't a racer, he might well, I'll call you back. But I could walk up to him and say, hey, here's my resume. that's, mean, it's open. amazing amount of doors. So journalism and racing have been fantastic. And the other thing that I believe is important is that I street ride all the time, almost every day. And I have a majority, a variety of bikes and I ride cross country and I just, really street ride and I try to get my racing instructors to street ride. And I know when Chris Paris, he's our lead guy, one of our owners, he's our president, you amazing, amazing racer. But he started street riding and he literally called me up and said, I see what we're doing now. I see why it's covering the break. see why it's breaks to your happy through speed and direction because he went street riding in this completely, completely uncontrolled environment. And now he loves street riding because he basically follows these principles. That's a great topic. Yeah. I, and I want to get into that because I actually think in many ways street writing and a lot of way street writing is actually harder than writing on the track. You know, the, it's a narrow Apex. It's a, it's a shorter turn in. There's just all these things. And one of my favorite YouTube is actually, is one of your employees, um, Canyon chasers. He's a, he's a YCS coach. He does a great job. I should get him on the podcast. Sometimes he does a great job of showing the street stuff. Um, I think it is name, but he's great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he is. He's fantastic. And uh we love him. That's why he's with our team. Moto Jitsu is another one. mean, we had so many names out. But I know Greg and Moto Jitsu has been huge. He's really turned his, his philosophy around uh working with us. And we appreciate that. And I don't to leave names out because so many of these people have jumped in and said, Hey, this message rings true and truth comes through. And that's, that's what we do. The street riding I agree Angus, it might be more difficult in the grand scheme of things than road racing, it's arguable. But one thing that I know that the most listeners here that haven't been on the racetrack, haven't raced especially, they don't realize the level of focus that riders should bring to street riding. Because when I go road riding, street riding with my road race friends, Keith Culver and these guys that work for us, Keith's one of the owners. The level of focus they bring is beyond what most people can imagine. So this is why we start the school with, have a mantra, have something you do. Rossi kneels by his foot peg, Bagnaia rubs his fuel tank, Martin bends over and touches his toes before he walks out of the garage. And Marquez tucks in and everybody has something they do, yet street riders jump on their bikes and go. And so if there are street riders listening, I would encourage you to realize your level of focus is probably not as high as the riders who have gone racing and then street ride because they know uh where that mental uh focus has to be at a very high level. So that would be one of the things I would bring to street riders more frequently. Yeah, you know, it's I have a ritual which I learned from the school myself as well. And I sort of thumped my chest and do a few things. Kiwis are a bit weird like that. with you and you what you talked about focus and I the last few track days I did, I did three track days in a row recently, I've been three and a half thousand calories a day. A lot of people don't realize you actually burn a ton of calories on the track, right? It's not that's actually a very physical sport. But I found it's more physical in my mind now than like physically, because I've learned through the school not to let the bike ride me. And I can, as the old fat guy, I can do a whole track day and not be as tired as the guy that's going maybe faster, but is tired after the second session. it's just kind of, and this is something I want to get into with you is that whole flow state of riding. And um so when you think about the champions habits, then I know that's a core concept of YCRS. And I want to talk a little bit about that because you started getting into a little bit. You have the single champions habits, right? What do you think that means for the everyday street rider to start with? It was a way to say these things really count. These are our priorities. one of the, one of the, and I don't, I don't, I don't need to bring down other, other people that are teaching, but one of the problems I have with new rider training specifically is there's no priorities. How you put up the side stand, which side of the bike you get on is just as important as how you use the brakes and, uh, and if you use the kill switch versus the key and it's all, it's all the same, it's all the same. And, you know, just learn all these things and you'll be a rider. We, we say, no, there's four things. that stand out. And if you can master these four, even if you can master one of them, your safety goes through the roof. And that's why we call it the champion's habits. We call the core curriculum on ChampU, it's the core. It's like really what you need to do. And whether you're riding an adventure bike or, I mean, truly a scooter in traffic, it's these core champion's habits. that was the idea, to put a word on them, put a name on them, that people go, oh, okay, listen up now. Here we go, this is the most important things that we can cover. And as you, as a graduate Angus, you are constantly just reviewing those four things. You're always, if you had a crash, you would get up and review one of the four things that went wrong and would fix the crash literally before you got back to the pits and you'd be wanting to ride again. As opposed to having no priorities and having no real idea of how it all goes, you crash. you do it again and you quit and you leave the sport. we are that champions habits was a chance to say, guys, gals, this is the stuff. Get your ears open. Do these things. Be consistent. Yeah, maybe there's so much to talk about. I'm hoping we can even go over because the champions habits for me, I hadn't been on the track since the late 80s and I turned up on the track again for the first time five years ago. And at the time, I just got a coach at a local school was actually one of Ken Hill's track time when he was at track time. And the coach said to me, Hey Angus, um I know you've been writing on the street for the last 30 years since your last summer track, but I want you to forget about everything you learn on the street right now. For now, we're just going to focus on the track. And I think if you had told me that 30 years ago when I was a kid, I didn't like to listen. I thought I knew everything. um listening and learning and having an open mindset, if I'm just to say I'm a street writer, I've been writing for 30 years and I feel like I want to improve my skills. What should I expect when I turn up to your school? Let's just say the physical school, because I know you do the online school as well. um Should I come in with an open mindset and kind of pretend like I've never written before? Or is that what you want a student to do? do you want to of ground them in what I want from the beginning? Or do you assume a level of skill first? The earlier the better. You've got to be able to let the clutch out, shift it, stop it, those things. So dirt bike riders show up at our school, never ridden a street bike, that's perfect. People that rode as kids and come back to it, that's perfect. So the earlier the better. Literally, if we could get, if you have a son or at your age, a grandson, if you have a kid who wants to come ride a motorcycle, get him to our place, come with them and get them out as soon as possible. So that's a big thing. But it's not so much come out as a student who's never ridden, just come out with an open mind. As long as you can say, ah, I was doing this and I see that this is better. I was getting off my brakes before I steered into the corner, but I feel what happens when I steer into the corner with my brakes on. Okay, that's better. And that's all we ask. If you have an open mind that the school is amazing, the only people we ever don't, well, the only students that really doesn't work for our students who don't show up on their own volition. Their, their brother says, Hey, I got, I got an extra money and I want you to, I'm going to drag you to the school. And I'm okay, whatever. But if you show up with, with desire, if you, which is what Kenny Roberts senior said, the only thing you need is desire. Can I can teach you the rest. If you show up with a desire, it's amazingly good. You, if you really, if you want to just become a better, faster, safer rider, we'll take care of you. So that's the main thing is, is, is having open to learning and hoping to improvement. The ability to say, and this is something that we have a coach named Mark Thompson. He's a retired Marine Corps major, you know, been to Afghanistan a couple of times and just a bad ass. And now he's racing and he's doing really well, but he was just a street rider, just a Harley rider when we met him at the Marine Corps. And Mark Thompson brought us this statement. And I, it may not be his statement, but he's a smart guy. remembers things. He said, if I'm wrong, I want to be wrong for the shortest time possible. And that statement, man, that is golden for someone like you who says, I'm a lifelong learner. If you are a lifelong learner, what you're focused on, especially in our sport, is best practices. So if you are doing something that's not best practices and you come to a place like ours or Ken Hill's coaching, if you hear a better best practice, you've got to say, you know what, I was wrong, I'm changing. And that's a pretty good way to approach the sport. That's a great nugget right there. you know, cause, um, you know, know that Ken talks about the thing that always, I always hear in the back of my head from Ken is our sport has consequences and he's very serious about it. He's one of the most serious dudes ever. We already talked to him and, um, and, and so if you think about like, obviously you guys are one of the world leaders in coaching. There's no, there's no, there's no debate there. And I know you're in the U S today. Um, Are you in any other markets outside of the online university you have live or are just in the US as one on one on the track? We're in the US at this point. We've uh been to Malaysia and we did a really fun, but so we are in the US, but there's a couple of thoughts on that. We went to Malaysia because one of our graduates lived there and he said, we're to go to Sepang. I'm going to arrange it. I'm going to take care of bikes, et cetera, et cetera. So that was how it happened. And it happened quite easily because Rex was his name, great guy, um totally into this obviously. And so he helped fund it and helped have it happen. And then we just flew in and changed people's lives. It was crazy. tried these things, never heard about these things. So it was really, really good. So that's number one. Number two is we would be glad to be in New Zealand if we had a person in New Zealand, a motorcycle rider in New Zealand who wanted to become part of this family and bring it there, then we could arrange that. And we've looked into it a couple of times, but it has to be the right person because if you aren't um If you don't get this right, you hurt people. Like if you tell a brand new rider who isn't trail breaking, isn't using their brakes, if you tell them that's okay, because they're not going very fast, that is a fail. They need to understand that we don't die riding slowly. We die when we get surprised by a corner that is 20 miles an hour tighter than we thought. And all of a sudden, even though we're only going 50 miles an hour, we're 20 miles an hour too fast. And we haven't reached over onto the brake lever when we close the throttle. And now we're half a second or more away from the brake. So it has to be right. It can't just be, you know, it can't be, you're a new rider. You don't have to move your butt. uh Guys, you're doing just fine. No, it has to be coaching. It has to be jump in, fix it, take it to the next level. so that rider, we would tell that rider, listen, as you come off the previous corner and you're taking away lean angle point, you're allowed to add acceleration points. If the bike is straight up and down with zero lean angle points, you can use all 100 points of acceleration. We would encourage that rider to accelerate harder off the corner so that then they need the brakes going to the next corner because the bike is designed to work with brakes on a tip in. And so those are the kind of coaching, that's a specific coaching thing that it had to be, it would have to be right by the person who takes it over in New Zealand. Yeah, that's great. So you've got this consistent set of drills, playbooks approach, and you're starting to get into a little bit of the physics, which I love. And so at a high level, em we're on top of a gyroscope, right? The gyroscope has been as a proven thing in physics. Gyroscope just wants to go in one direction. It's going to stay upright. And so if you start with the gyroscope as your core fundamental, you started leaning a little bit on like, you know, what is trail breaking? Why do we cover the break, especially on the street? um you started leaning into the hundred points of lean, um which is a wonderful thing. If I'm a new rider and I've done the MCS course, know, MSF course, all right, I've got my license, so I've done my half a day at a parking lot. Why is that not enough? I know it seems like an obvious question, but some people ask me that. Well, you know, I've got my course and I'm ready to ride now. um Where should they start? How would you respond to that? I have to begin by saying we are the only MSF tier three school in the world because everybody thinks, he's going to throw rocks at MSF. And we joined them. We had Ray Oaks come to the school a couple of times and we got a tier three designation, the only one in the world. I've got an MSF instructor card. So I don't want to throw rocks at it, but they're in a tough spot because they're doing it on a very small range. they're doing their stops from 18 to 20 miles an hour. I don't know. Last time I went to a corner at 20 miles an hour, I mean, ever, maybe an intersection right-hander. So there's a problem with that. The speeds aren't enough to truly get a feel for it, but also to start to respect it. We do this thing with the Marine Corps that we have them stop from freeway speeds during our Marine Corps training. And they stop from freeway speeds a couple of times and they go, wow, it takes a long time to get those things stopped longer than I thought. and all of sudden their speeds on the street are reduced when they can't see ahead of them. So those are the kinds of things that is problematic for the slow core stuff. Number two, for corners that we break for, corners that we approach at speeds higher than the corner is, and we've got to break for, we must truly learn to pull the brake light on when we're nervous, when we're like, okay, I gotta get slowed for this corner and leave the brake light on past the turn in. leave the brake light on past the turn in. That simple thing will control your speed, of course, further down in the corner, especially a blind corner where you can't see through. You got your brakes on down in there. Number two, it controls your geometry. You control that fork movement, your stroke, get the bike a little more willing to turn. And number three, it loads that front tire when you need it, which is loaded on the front on the brake. And then you trade off that load, braking load for cornering loads called trail braking. We call it brake-assisted steering. If you're there listening to this, I just tell you, that's the way the bike is designed. You've got to learn to do that. You've got to mess with that. You've got to have weight forward going in the corner. So I would teach that. MSF has recently, literally in the last, I think, month, put wording into their documents that say, if your student is trail breaking, it's okay. That's getting there, MSF, but you need to say, for corners you break for, the brake light should stay on through the turn in. To be clear, if your brake light goes off, before you steer, you've got it wrong. Cause now you're unloading the fork, unloading the contact patch of the tire, and then asking your bike to steer. It works when you're, when you're going slow, but that's not why we're crashing. We're not crashing because we're going slow. So that'd be the other one. The third thing would be we've got, we've got street riders. We've got to learn to ride with our fingers on the brake lever. It's called covering the brake. Angus, you were forced to do it for the two days. You know, even you may not have street, know, we, even people who don't street ride, we forced them to, because Road racers, you need to learn to ride through the pits with your finger covering the brake lever. And you know how crowded the pits can be. You're riding like this. Somebody jumps out in front of you. You reach the brake lever. You're late to get to it. You grab it, you stab it, you tip over and you snap off your brake lever in the parking lot or the paddock. You're not hurt, but you just damaged your race bike, et cetera. So we need to learn to ride like this on the street. And that means accelerating on the on ramps, cruising on the freeway like this, breaking into the canyon corner coming off, accelerating between corners. breaking into the canyon corner, coming off, accelerating between the corners. Incorrect is breaking for the canyon corner, coming off and going here and accelerating, because now the deer jumps out in front of you. We call this, Mark Schellinger, one of our senior instructors calls this putting your brakes away. He goes, you're putting your brakes away between corners. And riders, now the deer jumps out or whatever, pick your problem. Pick the problem that puts you in the hospital. We've got to learn to ride street riding like this whole time. And once you master this, We get easy emails, I mean, all the time from students that say, saved my life. Here's what happened. I was riding side by side with my buddy. This happened, my buddy hit the car, whatever it was. I was covering and I braked. So covering the brake is probably the third thing that really, really gets me. And then the thing we alluded to earlier was we've got to prioritize the sport. We've got to realize that there's a lot of things that are very, very minor. I believe they're a waste of time in new rider schools. I believe... It's a waste of time in new rider schools. waste a lot of time. So when we say you you must get trail breaking in the new rider schools. They'll say, dude, we can't do that. We only have two days with these people. We don't have time. don't have boy. waste a lot of time. And I'm, I'm, I've already walked through it with Tim Boucher for the MSF, some of the time wasting. I'm hoping that they continue to evolve because you know, the, the sport, the sport grows when riders are happy and safe. and the sport shrinks when riders scare themselves. Everybody thinks, oh, we crash riders out of the sport and they quit. No, go across the center line a couple of work with the guardrail a couple of times, uh not be able to stop your bike for the orange light that turns orange while you're approaching it a couple of times and you quit. So good riding creates safety, but it also grows your sport. That's really helpful. And just so you know, you asked me earlier if I ride on the street. I do ride almost every day. When I really got back into track again, I just loved track so much I found the street boring. But then I got back, even in Seattle where it rains all the time, ride over time on the street. so, I mean, so much here. And so do you think that riding a motorcycle is a learned sport or is it something you're born with? it's something you just. you just know how to do it out of the out of your mama's stomach kind of thing. Would you feel like it's something that's learned and you have to keep learning it to have the reflexes you're talking about, whether it's, Hey, I'm going to hold onto a corner, but I've done my training and I know what to do here. Or it's how do you think about it? Learned versus God given, I suppose. Learned by far. is learned. We have people show up out of school. We had one guy, Phil Horowitz, and he bought a R6 and he bought Rossi Leathers, Rossi helmet, and he had to have them delivered to his house because he could not ride a motorcycle, but he just fell in love with motorcycling. He 36 year old accountant, right? I just love motorcycle, bought a bike, had to have it delivered, came to our school, and uh he's qualified for four AMA nationals. Now he is, uh, he's teaching. He's a great, great guy. He taught for Ken Phil Horowitz. I don't know if you met him there, but taught for Ken. So I know the name. Yeah. So, I mean, that's a perfect example of a guy that just, and he had what Kenny Roberts senior said, which was desire. He had desire. I want to do this. So it is learned a hundred percent. Now at the level of a Scott Russell, instance, Scott Russell is a great example of someone who, um, had, had enormous desire. had enormous desire to be a racer. He had inherent skills, eyesight, balance, reactions. It's kind of an interesting thing. I don't even mean quick reactions. People mistake that sometimes. Older riders will tell me, my reactions aren't quite what they used to be. And I don't know that it's a quick reaction, it's the correct reaction. That you aren't a grabber, a stabber, you aren't a panicker. So Scott Russell is a perfect example of that where he came out of obscurity. uh He wasn't road racing when he was six years old. He came out of obscurity and said, this is what I want. and he just had the inherent skills that inborn. He had the desire to win, to not lose. I mean, if you're a personality who just cannot lose, that goes a long way in racing because you push yourself so hard. he had fitness, he was a fit person. uh But one of the most important things, he had the discipline to go out and practice and work at this and try things and be that lifelong learner. So he's a great example to me. of someone who had inherent skill plus desire. And I've got some other examples of people who had, who had had inherent skill, but they didn't have the desire. And I don't want to say it's because their upbringing was too soft and they were, had rich parents, but that's part of it. That's right. I mean, that's, that's, that's, I won't say any thoughts, but Scott Russell had none of that. Eddie Lawson had none of that. Freddie had none of that. Freddie and Eddie, for instance, were pushed. pretty hard by their parents. was, you their dad was like, Hey, you didn't win. What's your problem? And that's, there's, there's something to be said for that, that desire to, got to win this thing. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. you know, I'm glad that you're touching on that balance. But I'm also glad you're touching on fundamentals that when I learned to ride in the 80s, I was told, you know, for example, you never break in a corner and all that sort of stuff. So I'm glad that MSF approaching that. actually learned how to trail break properly when I attended your school. I always thought trail breaking was about um setting up for the tip in, but it's actually about direction as well. Right. It's provided. That's what I learned from uh one of the Wyman brothers, it Cody? Cody, he was like, dude, it's about direction. And maybe he would ride up beside me, I was on an RS660. He would come up beside me and he'd go like this. He was like, dude, get on the throttle. He was like, get on the throttle. And I was like, oh, I'm just too worried that I'm not gonna have too much speed heading into the corner. That's because you're not trail breaking properly. And so by the end of the school, I was on the throttle and trail breaking. It's a, you know, if you remember the wording, it's break when you're nervous, right? That's an interesting wording because there'll be corners, street riders and, and, and road racers, but street riders, there'll be corners where you're not going to break for it. You're going 60 miles an hour. The corners, a 50 mile an hour corner, pop a downshift, you're fine. So it's not, it's not rote. It's break when you're nervous. That was a on purpose wording because there'll be times Angus, what you had to do and what riders have to do as you increase your straightaway speed. your nervous will become earlier and earlier. You get on a faster bike, you get nervous earlier. Break then, break then, break into the corner. You over slow the corner, you're okay. You're not hurt. Next lap, next weekend, you'll remember, this is a corner I over broke. I broke too early, too hard and held it too long. I don't need to do that. But that's how you learn and stay safe. And so when you see on our sleeves, faster, safer, that's the process. The process is when you're nervous, go to the brake lever, get in the corner. I'm in too slow. I am not hurt. I get to do it again, as opposed to riders who don't break or for you trying to roll off and match your engine braking with your corner entry, which is very difficult because engine braking isn't adjustable. Front brake, rear brake is adjustable. So that's good that Cody had you accelerate. And now you realized that if the bike is straight up and down, we can be wide open throttle if we plan to break. And if you have that plan to break, everything changes. And I just went street riding with uh Norman and Chade up you know, last week, two days ago up in the mountains, corners I've never seen before, roads I've never been before, but I planned to break because I approached the corner, went to the brake lever and the corner opened, I was fine. This is the brake lever corner tightened, I was fine. So this, this is the game changer. This is what, what is missing in new rider schools. This is what's missing in the approach. And I guess it's perfect. would be perfectly understandable if you got on the internet and said, Hi, my name is Angus. I've been riding. I took the class in the 1980s. I've ridden forever. You should never break in a corner. Always break straight up and down. Because you would feel you had the credentials to say that. Yet, the bikes are designed for weight forward on front brake lever and rear, but weight forward at tip in and that's managed with the brakes. really glad you're touching on this because it gets to the street and track. like at my local track, you know, I did, I've done 22 track days this year. Okay. I, but every time I do that track, I learned something new. Like when your instructor took me out two weeks ago, Don showed me areas on the track that I didn't even know existed. he was like, you're not being patient enough. He's like, but, but then the street for me is the scariest now even is like, I don't know the street as well as the track cause I'm not going around it. hundred times a day. And what you're saying is these corners you don't know, we haven't looked at a track map, you haven't done the prep, you can't just I'm going to get that nugget again, because it's really important. So these corners, you know nothing about what is your drill there when you just help me understand that a bit more. Yep. The, the idea behind street riding is a couple of things, but one is you're riding with your friends. And I wrote the pace years ago, you're riding with your friends, not against your friends. So you establish a leader. Everybody gets in an order. If you're not, if you're not feeling it that day, wave people by you. Um, just you're riding with your friends. If you're riding with a group that is racing and try to drag the knee, get away from them. Cause you will meet their, their, their family at the hospital. And I don't want to be preachy, but I've been doing this a long time. And so if you'll think about the street, have a 30 % safety margin, especially in lean angle. If you'll start to really think about that, if I have got the thing decked off in there and I'm near the limit of grip at lean angle, and then the deer is standing there, I've got to go to the right side of the deer to miss the deer, and I have no break points left over, that's when we get in trouble. So especially on roads we all know really well, I will try to keep that 30 % margin. It's still super quick, it's still super fun, but I've got a little bit of margin in lean angle and One of the ways we get margin and lean angle is be a little slower mid-corner, right? Be a little slower mid-corner. And the best way to be a slower mid-corner is a little bit longer brake lever. Just a little bit longer brake levers. We'll ride quickly, whatever that means. We'll ride quickly on the street, but we'll always try to have a margin in there. And we try to work on that. And sometimes you lose your mind and you have fun. You increase the fun, but that's a big deal. So the thought for the rest of your life, and this should be driving your sports car, your truck, just when you're... coming down towards the corner and you get nervous like, Whoa, I'm not sure what's going on here. Come off the throttle, go to the brake lever in your truck, come off the throttle, go to the brakes. And riders, if you'll think about when we say go to the brakes, almost every student who shows up at our school, that's not acquainted with what we're saying. When they say go to the brakes, they pick up a lot of brake pressure. So they say, well, I can't break that early because every time I touch the brakes, I kill my speed. Well, the best in the world, Scott Russell, the data traces we put on the best riders in the world. And we study the data traces in this particular corner might be initial one, 2 % and then four, six, seven, 9 % into the corner. we get to the slowest, everybody listening, we get to the slowest part of the corner with our brake on. And that's what changes your life. Cause you turn in with your brake on with this lighter brake pressure. If you're not going very fast, lighter brake pressure, longer brake pressure, the bike gets the slowest part of the corner. We release the brakes maximum lean angle, and we drive it out. So if you will, you could do a drill in your next ride. Every time you close your throttle, pick up your brakes. Just automatically. Every time you close the throttle, pick up the brakes. And now all of sudden you go street riding and you come off the, if you have canyons and river roads and fun roads, like I do here in Colorado, you come off the corner, you'll actually accelerate, accelerate because you plan to brake. Accelerate, plan to brake. Accelerate, plan to brake. And that, every time you pull the throttle, you pick up the brake pressure, that helps. And if you'll do a drill before you leave your, which you saw at the school. If you'll just push that bike, your bike back and forth with one or two, three, four points of breaks, five, it stops four, three, two, one, rolls one, one, one, two, three, four, five. That's the feel of the best in the world of, this, of truly Simon Crayfars, people like this, the best world have that touch because they're at 98 points of lean angle. Well, now we go street riding and we're at 98 points of lean angle because it's raining or our tires worn out or it's dirty. your excuses, freezing cold. we. have the ability to pick up one, two points of brakes because we practice it. If everybody gets this idea of trail braking is mandatory, it is mandatory for corners we brake with. And trail braking means you're trailing brake pressure into the corner. One way to define it. Number two, you're trailing off brake pressure as you add the nail. can be front brake, it can be rear brake, but it's trailing brake pressure into the corner. And riders, once you get that one point hand, It'll be a game changer. And the last thing I'll ask, Adam, this is the- is- When, if you will get this idea, going downhill, and I have canyons here, so going downhill, if you will break 100 % more than going uphill, your life starts to change. Uphill, you have the camber pushing the fork into the right positions, uphill. Downhill, it runs away from you. So how we get that fork in the right place, the geometry control in the right place is breaks. 100 % more breaks downhill. that might be an earlier, a little more pressure, but definitely further down in the corner to control that geometry. And you know, when we spoke yesterday, Angus, I told you that we can get these ideas across at a dinner conversation. So people who are listening today and truly are motivated, like I really want to be good at this. I'm tired of scaring myself. I'm tired of not being able to keep up with my group. I'm tired of not enjoying my new motorcycle, right? I went to the Harland shop. I bought the... 131 motor. I really want to enjoy it but I'm scared of it because I cannot have confidence approaching the next corner. It's because you don't plan to brake. You don't plan to use your brakes past the turn in. You don't plan to use your brakes until you're happy with speed and direction. These are so many great nuggets. Now, one of the things I love about what you're doing here is you're very open about your content. You're not sort of hiding it and say, come to our school, we'll get it all. You do your videos, you have the champ you. And so a good place to start. A lot of these nuggets are in the online university, right? Which is like, was it $50 for like lifetime or something like that? Make sure I get it right. Well, I it's 90, but we do have sales now and then. Okay. Yep. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's okay. But that's for a lifetime, right? Or is that Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's yours for life. And you know, Angus, we got to change things, man. We've got to change things. I sat with the MSF Tim Boucher five, six, eight years ago. We got the tier three designation a long time ago, six, eight years maybe. And the ship is not turning like it should. So we decided let's put out a new riders' champu and champu is champions university. Jump online. It's six to eight hours courses. We did a new riders' course to kind of backstop some of the information they'll learn at a new rider school. And then we did a street riding a champion because everybody says, I'm done riding on the street. It's too dangerous. We was like, there's ways to handle this stuff riders. The techniques we put into road racing to be fast on road racing, the small little things we apply to in different ways to the street riding to make you safe. So we did a street riding one. did court techniques. We did a track day one. Have you seen it yet? I haven't seen, yes, I have seen the track day one. Yeah, I have. So, man. Okay. So I, I've spent time in the forums and I, and I want to get into a little bit more about all the different offerings you have, because ChampU is really important. Like I tell everyone here, if you can't afford to go to a track, maybe it's not a track near you to get coaching in person, start with ChampU. There's lots of books and stuff as well, but most people in the modern world go to online. Now, when I go to the forums, YouTube or the paddock, I find a lot of writers go to the paddock or forums for advice. They'll post a photo. Hey, what am I doing wrong for my photo? Or, hey, I want to drag me on my first day, which I have a big problem with personally. It shouldn't be the focus, but anyway. um What are the risks I'm relying on that kind of informal learning? you know, let's just go to the fastest guy at the track or let's post pictures on YouTube and get coaching. What are the risks there? There's a couple. The reason that I don't write very many articles on riding technique any longer is because we did ChampU. And what changed with ChampU is context. We got to start at the beginning, sign up at Racetrack and do tech, right? Bike prep and end up talking about trail breaking in the track day one. So context changed. I couldn't get context in these articles. I would do an article on a breaking while leaned over and people write, you can't do that. That's crazy because we didn't start with the context of putting that load in the tire. If you remember when you first, the first thing we did was say hello and then put that load in that tire. We couldn't start with that. couldn't write a book for every article. So we would do YouTube snippets, which we would say whatever we would say. And people would like it, but now we have context. So Champu takes you from the beginning. to the end of the particular statement, whether it's track riding, whatever else it can be. So that's a big, big thing. So you don't get context when you ask your buddy something or ask it online. You don't get context. You don't know that the person who writes in and says, oh, New Jersey, break it the three board is on an R3 with one cylinder dropped. And the guy who says, break it the one board is on a built R1 and is actually very fast. You just get these... ideas and from that we realize riders this is not a majority rule sport it is a monotonous majority you don't say do you break it the three board yes yes no yes no yes yes yes yes i break it the three board then that is wrong we all do it we all want to do it we all want to get that advice but it's wrong because you got to realize go find the person who is riding the bike you're on well and that means they're they've got a number one two or three number on their bike if they race they're on championships or on podiums They've been doing it well for a long, time. Find the rider who goes very, very quickly for a long time. His bike is not all jacked up. His leathers aren't all jacked up. Talk to that rider and they will have, I'm sure they will have context. They will say, well, you're on an R3, I'm on an R6, but here's what you think. Because when you do this for a long time, well, at a high level, you really have to thought about it. And so those are the people that I would look for if I'm doing that. And riding into forums is a tough thing. I'm on... uh car and bike forums as well. I'm really into cars and man, you get the exact opposite opinion. What thermostat should I run? 160. Oh no, run a 180. Who are you? What have you built? What do you know? Where do you live? uh Do you have AC? I mean, it's all these questions you have that you can't get to. So I'm like you. I'm really hold back from that. And if you all will realize that for a hundred bucks, you can get what we believe is the right message. Yes, right? Yes, that's right. We can believe is the right message because we, this is our whole life. um We work really, really hard on this. And every one of my instructors rides at a high level. A lot of them race. In fact, you know, most of them race, but they ride at a high level when they go street riding, it is inch perfect. It is at a very high pace uh within the speed limit, of course, but It is inch perfect. is no drama, no flirting with the center line. They ride at a very high level when they go dirt bike riding. They're really good at it. So this is a, this is a high level and we've put so much effort into getting it right. You can trust it. And if it's not right, we change it and we tweak it and we get it right. So I would, I would really be watch, watch out who you're asking because everybody's got an opinion, but what is it based on? And we call ourselves the champions riding school. What are the best in the world doing to win championships? It's not that they're going fast, it's they're going consistently fast, and that is the secret. Yeah, I tell you what, it's like you're reading my script because that's actually the next piece I wanted to get to is your team because obviously behind every great leader is a great team. I will sort of add on to what you just said too, in that for me, like I consider myself to a pretty good skier. And I love when I spend a day on the mountain reading the snow conditions, looking where I want to point the skis and get into the bottom of the hill and feeling like, man, that was just perfect flow. And this might sound weird to you, like for me, cause I don't race. Of course I love going fast, but for me it's actually less about going fast. It's more about this corner is the violin, this corner is the bass guitar, this corner of the drums. And it's that flow. And a lot of writers that follow me say to me, you're so annoying because you hit every apex. Like I like to hit every single apex. I love the flow. Even like if you flip the ridge, there's eight A and eight B and a lot of people don't apex eight A. I always apex eight A. um There's the flow, the feeling I get. And then what I found is because I've been grounded in the techniques that I've been taught by the school um is that when I am going really fast, those things just come straight into my head. Like it's almost, it's like automatic. But that feeling of being in flow is great. And so talking about your team, they have obviously their races, the people behind you making the school happen day to day, both on the track and off the track. What do you look for when choosing not just instructors, but folks who represent your company. Yeah. The main, the main one is humility. know that that's to put that at the top, but to, to truly be a good coach instructor in anything, have to be humble enough to give of yourself. You have to give of yourself. have to step up and help people. Every one of my guys, including myself, have been helped hugely by people at the right time in our lives. And it was writing technique help usually where somebody said, know, somebody, mean, Scott Gray one time pulled me something at Willow and I won the national there. You know, it's just, it's just things that they just stick with you. Eddie Lawson, Freddie Spencer, of course, Scott Russell, these, these top level people, when they say, it would say something to help me. that gives you that humility to, to help people. two, once you've raced at a high level, you've been beaten by somebody on a worst bike and you've crashed yourself out of a lead. I've crashed out of two AMA national leads. That's pretty impressive. know, so you remember that. So when you start to really think you're all hot shit, you remember that, you you fell out of the lead at Topeka on the 250. So it grounds you as well. So that's why when you, when you race at a high level, you've, you've realized you're not God's gift to motorcycle riding. The people who feel their God's gift to riding and are really sassy and cocky. I always think, man, that dude needs to go race at a higher level because he is not, he's not at his ass kicked by some guy. Kevin Schwantz hasn't got by him on a flapping bodywork. FJR while he's on FC 750 like me. That keeps you humble. So humility is a big thing. The work ethic is a big thing. We got to put in 100 % all day long because it is expensive to come to our school. It is time consuming. And so we have this customer service idea that everybody gets what they need. And that takes effort. One of our instructors who used to come as a student, he told the students when he said, you think it's hard writing as a student, try it as an instructor. He said that the workload is huge, but it has to be there because these people pay so much. means so much to them, number one. Number two, their life is on the line. Truly, if you aren't showing them how to keep the bike in the lane, if you aren't showing them how to get the bike on apex like you see in Grand Prix, if people are teasing you about apex as Angus, you just need to say, I'm just doing what I've been taught at Grand Prix. that's, mean, apexes are a starting point to safety and speed. So that's fantastic. Those are the thoughts that I have. The instructors, there's a learning pyramid. Have you seen this learning pyramid? Yeah, it's really good. So at the top is hearing it is the worst. And the next one is hearing it and writing it down. And the next one is seeing it done, writing it, whatever. At the base of the pyramid, the best way to learn is to teach. So I tell my instructors this, especially as they come in. to this. I just said it to Dominic Doyle who's starting to work with us. I said, Dom, by you having to figure out how to say this in 10 different ways to get across to a particular student who didn't understand the first nine, it wasn't working, but you find a 10th way to say it, it just improves your writing and your racing. people like Ryan Burke, he agrees. He goes, when I started coaching, my racing level went up another notch. He's already extremely good. So that's a big plus as well, knowing that They, they, they're going to improve their writing, improve their racing is a big thing. But I think his humility is a big one. Work your ass off. I had a guy would show up as an instructor in the morning and day one, he was 130%. He was over the top, everything perfect. And the afternoon he was 60%. I was like, brother, come here, just mellow out in the morning, pick it up in the afternoon, end the day. Like he started the day. Let's give it all. Um, because, and he did, he, he responded really well, but those are the kinds of things that we need. We need hard work. Humility, fitness, fitness is a big thing, fitness and how you express yourself. The fact that you spend as much time working on how you say something as you do your riding on the racetrack. How you say it and how you present it is a big thing. If you think about what we do in this world, we're judged every moment and we judge every moment. You meet someone, you start judging them. so if we have an instructor standing up there and he's severely overweight and and he's not shaved and it just doesn't look right and he's sloppily dressed. We're saying to the students, hey, you're paying a lot of money and we're gonna ask you to trust us with this information, yet the decisions that we're making in our own lives aren't quite right. So that's kind of an interesting, weird deal. But that is part of being an instructor is like being up there and living this life, living this life of, I'm going fast on motorcycle. I'm going fast for a long time on a motorcycle and I've got... I've got these things under control and I'm going to show you how to do this. That's really helpful. I think you're also saying is just sometimes just because you're winning championships and you're the fastest doesn't mean you're a great listener or a great coach. That's certainly a big part of what I'm hearing, but I'm also hearing there's a level of patience around how you coach throughout the day. You're staying consistent throughout the day and not burning out in the morning. um I'm hearing that as well. The hard thing about talking to someone like you is because Not everyone is as focused on the street and the track as you are, because we could have like a whole podcast on the street, a whole podcast on the track. What would you say sort of on that topic is it's interesting that your instructors actually ride on the street. Cause one of the things I noticed is a lot of the guys that I interviewed from Europe, particularly racers in Europe and their contracts, they're not allowed to ride on the street. But I see like Josh Heron, for example, I know he's not a coach, but he's crazy on the street. Like he's like, he's right into it on the street. And so for the coaches that are winning championships today, like I know Cody's competing, um Stefano, um Stefan is competing. There's a lot of, you're all competing. uh How they behave outside of the school and the risks they take outside of a school, it's down to them or is there a level of how you're representing a school whether you're on track or not? How does that work? If you don't mind talking about it, I think you're too bad. Yeah, you know, you're not lighting a bonfire on the paddock with a minivan. Yeah. Yeah, there. It's a little bit unwritten that, you know, let's let let's represent the school all the time. But at the same time, one of the reasons that that we hire these these people is because they have this type A personality, they're out getting life, they're killing it. And they're going to dig in and give it all Isaiah Davis is another one of our racers who street rides. And so So in some ways, we're like, you know, don't be don't be stupid. And you know, we all are we all do things wrong. But there's there's some pressure on that. I try to keep it to a dull roar as far as as far as coat being a dad and all that stuff. It's just, you know, let's let's let's do things right. And the thing about this Angus is there's there's nobody who suffers more when you crash a bike or light a minivan on fire, do want to do all the stupid things than you. There's nobody who does. So everybody's like, this one of your instructors crashed. an instructor bike, are you going to fire him? No, no, no one feels worse about it than he does. You know, he might have to pay a little bit for parts and get things going again, but nobody feels stupider, more embarrassed, more retarded than that rider. So I'm not a big scolder. I don't scold much. I don't, if I scolded, I would have to scold myself 24 hours a day because of the mistakes that I've made and continue to make. So I'm, I'm very forgiving of it, but it gets into something we taught you at the race at the school. It's repeating mistakes to get in trouble. Like if my instructors lit a second minivan on fire because of the brake usage, I would be like, you know what? This is no good. If my instructors continue to crash instructor bike, we'd have to say, you know what? You, you truly aren't riding correctly if you're crashing. Right? So there's, there's, there's road racers, including my instructors who've gone all year, won championships and never fallen down. So. So it's possible to go really, really fast, never fall down. In fact, that's all we teach. That's all we chase. So if the instructor kept crashing an instructor, I was like, you know what? This isn't for you. We won't have you back because you truly aren't riding correctly. How can you be crashing instructor bikes at schools in front of students and say, do as I do? So we would make that all happen and we do. mean, it's fine. uh Keith Culver is one of the owners and he's operations and financial and Chip Spalding is marketing. Great guy. One of the owners, great guy at him. and Chris Paris and me, we're kind of the quartet that run everything and make those kinds of decisions. And then have Lamore Schubert who is our marketing genius who just loves riding and loves track day riding, very good rider as well. And then Josh Siegel, who's our money guy who really put us back on track after Freddie Spencer and he's racing too. So it's a group of this really good group of people. They're all racing, they've all crashed, they've all been beaten by other people. They have a level of... uh of running a business without being all nitpicky and ass-holy. So we hope that that bleeds off on our younger instructors. And usually it does. Usually it goes pretty well. Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting thing, Because writers at that level, everyone has an ego, all humans do, right? Mo says they don't, is lying, but writers are very special people, racers. I Matt Oxley said to me in an interview, Tom, he's like, you got to remember that writers, racers are stone cold killers. We just want to kill everything we see on the track. But a lot of them off the track are not like that at all. I suppose you're trying to get that balance of ego and being that cold hearted killer. Right. Which most races I meet at your level are. And so I've seen that. And so I want to sort of transition a bit to technology. So I have a lot of points of view on this, but you're a professional, so you'll have more of it. Obviously today, motorcycles come with all sorts of rider aids, right? ABS, traction control, cornering IMU. There's people wanting to look at their phones through car play. You know, you've got drivers on the street, all distracted looking at their phones. There's so much today that distracts drivers that I worry that even with all the technology, at the end of the day, we're still more likely to become a statistic than maybe someone driving a car. And so I suppose, you know, does this make rider coaching more important or less important? There's all these aids, I've got all this stuff going on. Like, what's your view on the technology, the pros and cons? Big fan of the AIDS, big fan. mean, I think you should buy a bike with ABS, TC, wheelie control, all that stuff. I really believe in it. In fact, I just followed my own advice. I just sold an FC1 that I had for years and years. It was my track street bike. I just sold it and bought an MT-10 because I wanted TC. I just wanted ABS. The FC1 had none of those and it was fine. And I trained really hard to not have to need them, but I'm a... big fan of them. the, I know Casey Stoner, Eddie Lawson, for instance, they, they denigrate the rider aides as racers. And I can see that point of view, but as street riders get the most you can. And if you want to, if you want to turn it off, you can turn it off, but I would definitely have that. uh The cell phone thing in cars is really a problem. It is just an enormous problem. uh It's, it's probably not fixable. I don't know that, that we can ever. I mean, they're saying not, don't have it in your hand, but now you're looking down at your dashboard to hit the buttons. And it's a really, really tough problem. Our street riding approach uh was what one of the main tenants for our street riding approach on the street riding school was don't be hit with your scene or not seen. So if you're not seen, which is the problem with cell phones when the drivers on, so you're not seen, don't be in the way. Don't just get so good at avoiding blind spots, get so good at predicting traffic on where the cars will be in the next few seconds that you just aren't there. And I mean, that is lane position. That is acceleration, oftentimes rather than just slowing down. That is aggressiveness, not just defensiveness. And so that idea of don't be hit with your seen or unseen, that's a big thing. And that's why we wear all the gear. We wear a yellow helmet. We can do all that stuff. We put the lights on the front of our bikes. We do all those things in hopes that we're seen. But then we try to position ourselves to where we just are never in the way. We see things coming so early that we're never in the way. We position our bike to the right side, in our case, sorry, left side of the car. So when traffic comes up behind us at the stoplight, we can zip up into the, you know, those are the things that we talk about. So for all you that are scared away of street riding, I swear to you, especially if you're road racing or track day riding, you'll look at the street riding champ you and realize there's all these little nuggets in there. that keep you safe, seen or unseen. So that's my approach. In a lot of ways, we whistle through the graveyard. A lot of ways we whistle through a graveyard. We take for granted that a boulder's not gonna roll down the cliff and kill us in the corner. We take for granted that the semi's not gonna come around the corner sideways in our lane. So in a lot of ways we do that. So I have one more thing that I try to do and it's kind of weird, but I... I try not to push time when I'm street riding. And for instance, you pull up to the gas station, you're filling up your gas tank, your glove falls off your gas tank. That's meant to happen. You're meant to take that moment, get off your bike, get your glove, put your glove back on. That's meant to happen because the deer was gonna jump over the guardrail at 24 seconds after 102. And you took that three seconds. So the deer jumps over and you miss it by three seconds. that whole don't push time is a big part of my street riding, certainly the people I ride with. If I am with riders who constantly haul ass on straightaways, which is, you know, so easy and so stupid. Um, and so that's where the cops are with the radar guns. I mean, it also makes the next corner quite difficult. If I'm riders who pound on the street, I'm like, you know what? I got to go to lunch by myself because that's gonna, that's, that's take, that's pushing time in the wrong way. Get on the straightway, cruiser on the straightaway. Who comes in that car? Boom, Have fun in the corners. Next straightaway, cruising, let time reset. Weird thought, but you're nodding your head Angus, because you're in that mode too, huh? It's not weird at all. As you know, I work in technology and I actually helped build some safety technology, uh AI vision cameras for truck drivers. There's a million of these cameras that I helped build and a million trucks around the world that help with a whole lot of things called machine vision AI looking around the highway. And in the industry, they call it digital drunk driving. in the 80s, 90s, know, drunk driving was a problem. Now there's actually a term that's called digital drunk. I was actually, I actually helped lobby Washington state to pass lane filtering because we all get rear ended by people on their phones, right? And you can lane filter and lane split. They're different. As you know, you can lane filter in most parts of the world, but you can't have a U S um, and that's a whole nother topic. It just this all these things being center of the lane, your point, it's a great nugget. You don't want to be sandwiched, right? We could do a whole, I feel like I could get one of your instructors on and do like a whole deep dive on writing skills and techniques. Cause today I wanted to like, I wanted the team and the listeners to hear from you, your philosophy, your school, what you offer. There are so many nuggets there. And one of the things that I think would be good to sort of get your head around now for the listeners is A, you care about the industry, you care about writers. There are parallels between street and track. There are things to avoid in terms of who you listen to. also now touched on gear. You also touched on gear. So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions on gear if that's okay. I was looking at the science around this because I'm all gear over time. Like I have a Vespa, for example. I wear my air vest when I ride my Vespa down the street. Okay. I was looking at the science and you know how a lot of people like to ride in shorts and a t-shirt, which is ridiculous. Or they might ride in a t-shirt because it's so hot. What I've seen in the science is actually, you're not going to be any cooler riding in a t-shirt than you would riding in full gear because you're basically riding in the heats coming right at you and it's like a like a writing in front of a heater. What's your like your view on all gear all the time? It's very religious. I'm an all gear all the time person. um What's what's your view on this one? And yeah, I'm with you and I don't want to preach because you know you everybody makes their choices and you got to pay the consequences That's the problem. You got to pay the consequences and unfortunately when you fall down in a t-shirt oh For whatever reason you fall down in the t-shirt that then the new the first responder Sees you torn up and tells his kids They'll never ride a motorcycle and then tells the neighbors what he saw at the party that he went to This guy fell down on a t-shirt don't ride a motorcycle. So there's a lot of downsides to that insurance rates go up when you when for everybody when you fall down without gear, because you hurt so much more badly. And we run a school where we insist on full leathers on the track, and we'll have riders fall down, get up, fall down at all sorts of speeds off all sorts of bikes, get up and go, dog gone, and I scratch my leathers. But if you can fix my bike, I'll ride again. And we put them right back on the bike uh because of the leather. So the things that I've seen are probably beyond. what most people have seen as far as crashes go. And then the things I've experienced, my own crashes, having the right gear on or the wrong gear, crashing in a cowboy boot and almost breaking my ankle. So those are the kinds of things uh that I've seen. So I'm with you and it's tough. I was talking to Cody Wyman, one of our lead instructors and I said, Cody, do you think everybody has to crash to learn lessons? mean, do you think everybody, we can tell them things, but they have to crash. So this would be advice from... Myself and you and work people been around a long time seen a lot of stuff written a lot of miles I think you've got a million miles on the street uh If you could take advice and shortcut this learning curve all the gear all the time and for instance I've got a supermoto undersuit right which is net is mesh with all the pads I have a house in Las Vegas I wear my supermoto undersuit when I ride in Las Vegas because it's so freaking hot. Yeah, that's some airflow Those are the things that we do uh so I would say all the year all the time look into the gears. know we are a Dynase sponsored group. And one reason is airbag suit, but also their protection, their, their, uh, their protection pieces are a higher level. And I don't memorize all the levels cause it doesn't stick in my brain, but they're a high level. So look into your level of protection, put the gear on. Um, and you know, that whole saying I'd rather sweat than bleed is kind of the way I say when I walk in some places, hot and so he says, man, you got a lot of gear on. I'd rather sweat than bleed. And we laugh. And, it's truly the truth. So if you could take. One bit of preaching is put your gear on every single time you ride. I do, you do, because those accents by definition are not planned. So I'm big on all the gear all the time. Thanks for letting me preach. No, man, look, hey, look, I'm with you. When we learned to ride in the 80s, I learned to ride in the 80s, if you got a 500cc, that was a big bike. And now you've got kids going in and buying like literally very, very high spec motorcycles for relatively cheaper. And I just see them going down the freeways and sneakers and jeans and stuff. And when I was that age, I was like that. No one could tell me anything, but it's a whole other discussion, I suppose. And so for the school, I want to make sure people understand. you've got um A, it's really a very economical entry point that rather than sort of surfing Reddit and YouTube, just go and get the online university for 90 odd US dollars. And you got that for life and you're always updating it. So you can just, hey, I'm not going to ask 50,000 people. I'm going to go to the best in the world and ask them on, on huge champ. Then you go and do the first school. And once you did the first school, which is a day, you can then go and do the graduate school, which is two days. Right. two days. I'm sorry interrupt you. Champ school is two days. That's right. Then you can do the grad school of two days. And then the champ street is one day. And then the champ street is uh very, it's affordable in the grand scheme of life. And it's street gear on your street bike, street tires, no race bikes allowed, no racers allowed. is truly what is building track riders because people come to the track on their street bikes with their street gear, what they learn from us. and they start doing track days because they see, okay, I can do this. In fact, I can actually do it better than most people in the C group who have not been to our school. They'll show up, almost every one of our graduates gets put from the C group to the B group in the first morning because they're doing things correctly, which is what we'll work on. No, that's good. got confused. why the street is one day in two days. And yeah, I remember Cody saying to me now, I'm to give you this t-shirt. It's a champ school t-shirt. You better know that when you're wearing that, you're saying something. So you better be writing well on the chat. I remember him saying that. We're to give you these t-shirts. You better like make sure. So, okay. you've got, and so then, and then when you really start getting into it and if you can afford it, you can. We can hire one of your hired guns for a day and get them to just have one-on-one for training for a day, which is the other option, right? As you start getting maybe a little bit more serious. Yeah, you could even, you could even fly into one of our two tracks, main tracks. have 40 bikes in Arizona and 40 bikes in North Carolina. You can fly in there, jump on one of our bikes, rent our bikes and have a private lesson with one of our lead guys. And one of the things that is fascinating to me, and I've, I've thought about it just recently is I guess I could say, I wouldn't teach anything that I wouldn't believe in. I, you know, I could, and I think probably everybody would say that. Okay. But why, why would Cody Wyman, Isaiah Davis. Robertino, Pietri, Ryan Burke, Stefano Mesa, Emerson, Amaya, you, Michael Haino, Louis. Why would any of them work for me if they had to bite their tongue about something, if it wasn't truly what they were doing and truly what they saw the best in the world doing, they would leave in a second. So I told that to Tino the other day, I said, Tino, I, you know, I just thought about something Robertino, Pietri, you know, Muttetoot. Latin superbike champion, you know what saying? Somebody who's at the top of the world. I said, I really appreciate you wanting to work for us because it gives a stamp of approval to what we're doing. And that was, that's a big thing. And I wanted to tell people that because it's easy to think, those guys are in business. They're trying to make money. They happen to teach school. Okay. No, we're actually, we got to change your life. We got to, you got to realize there's a way to a motorcycle that is magical. to where you jump on your buddy's bike and you ride it better than your buddy because of what you're doing. And that's what we're chasing. You find this flow that you talked about Angus, where it just all comes together. And it's not once every three months. It is every time you ride a motorcycle, commuting to work, you've got this flow because that's what we're trying to chase. There's a whole world out there that is incredible. the two days we have with you, the one day on the Champ Street, that's what we're chasing, getting into that world. getting you on that path of what works. Over here, this doesn't work over here. Over here, this doesn't work. But right in between is magic. Yeah, that's a great way to come close to ending it. cause I want to keep talking, but I think that's a really great way. And I'm going to put obviously links to everything up here and up here. I, forgot, you forgot one thing though. You forgot that you also have champ body. I really enjoyed the yoga that, um, that Chris's wife did. Um, every morning you did yoga and stretch and all of that stuff. And, that was really cool too. So you focus on mind, body and condition on the bike. Yeah. Yeah, it was Jen Paris who did it. She's an incredible yoga expert and also she's taken the school, which really helps. course, Chris Paris is his wife, so she's watched him race. What people don't realize is that Kyle Wyman has a rowing machine in his motorhome and he gets his heartbeat up to where he's racing. Maybe 140 to 160 gets his heartbeat rate up before he gets in his leathers. I he gets muscles pumped up with blood. So everybody who goes to track days and really has a terrible first session. Everybody who leaves their house on a street ride and just doesn't feel the rhythm for the first 10 miles or whatever it is, yet the deer jumps after the second mile. uh Everybody who's having trouble coming and getting on the bike and being in that moment, I'll bet you money is because you don't do anything pre-ride. And so that champion body was a chance for Jen Paris and Chris Paris to really jump together and say, listen, there's a rider fitness level. and has nothing to do with having big arms. Now these are just for show everybody, but there's nothing to with having big arms. It is core fitness. is the ability to stay in the moment mentally longer because your body isn't affecting what you're doing on the motorcycles. Champ body. Yeah. Oh God, there's so many nuggets here. You got so many nuggets. It's funny. I find myself now is, I always used to be a um twin cylinder. I just like twins, right? They're angry, angry twins, Ducati twins, Afrilias, et cetera. And now what I find is I love angriness on the track, like just an angry, like I've got a V2 Panigale, I've got a RS660, and then my little bike's a Ninja 400. But... Um, on the street now, I don't want to be angry, man. I want smoothness. love, really love it in line four. I've got, I got a Kawasaki, um, SX 1000 touring bike and it's just so I kind of ride like, like to ride like a little old man. Cause I don't want to push it on the street. And what for me, having the ability to go to a place like the track and just push it as hard as you can and in a controlled environment means I don't find myself on the street wanting to do it. And, um that's probably a whole nother podcast, but there's an, there's something about. And that means kind of getting old too, but I really love it in life for these days. Although I did ride your MT-09SP. uh You guys had some, I wrote that on the track and that was pretty cool. Yeah, how good is that? Trifle. Yeah. Is yours an SP? You got an empty 10. bought an MT-10, the standard one, and the SP was a little bit more money and I didn't need the electronic suspension and that was the big step up for the SP. I think it's a fantastic bike. I tried to ride one up to school. The 9SP of course has all that stuff. Ohlins stock, that's a really great bike. It's a great bike. So the thing about getting on the racetrack, it's kind of crazy if everybody realizes that track days exist only because you, the rider, comes and takes them. If you go to a track day, call them up, let them know you're brand new. You've never done it before in your whole life. You've got a street bike. What do I need? They'll, they'll guide you. When you show up, they'll give you an instructor. They'll put you through a new rider school. They'll take really, really good care of you. They, they want you there. So people who are track curious at any age on just about any motorcycle. so that that's a big thing. The other thing is I just started, I always mini bike race back in the YSR 50 days. Remember that? us. Do you have one? Yeah. And I also, yeah. So we're on C250 as well. Yeah, yeah. So me and Mitch Bame on these YSR 50s back in the day. Then Michael Hayna called me up a couple months ago and said, hey, I got this old mini bike you want it. So it's a KX 85. So I've been mini bike racing with Rocky Mountain, Rocky Mountain, mini moto. The same feeling that you just said, like when I go to a school, I can't, I can't truly push, push, push, push, because if I make a mistake, even if I run off, it's just not the right look. I'll push up to 98%, but I won't be able to. I try not to push into that a hundred percent because the risks of being stupid are just higher. But I go mini mode racing with these guys or go do track days by myself and I can push. And so there is a big part of that. And for those of you who feel like you're riding a little too fast on the street, do what Angus did. Go to a track, see what fast really means. And you'll go to the street and look around and go, my gosh, there's a telephone pole, a guardrail, a car coming. I mean, it just, it just gets you into that idea. Ride with your friends on the street. leave that 30 % margin because you get to go to the racetrack and let it all hang out. it is, I mean, Sunday night after a track day, how good is that feeling? uh I love waking up at the track in my van and smelling the gas at the end of the day. So, you know, to end a couple of things. First of all, uh anytime you're in Seattle, I have like a lot of motorcycles in the garage. You are welcome to come and stay here and pick any bike you want. I've got like everything for like an MV Agusta, Turismo, Lusso, which is ridiculous to the... Kawasaki or if you want to go out in the right. I actually, think I sent you a lap. I did you probably, you should watch it. You can tell me how bad I was. Um, if you want to come to a track, I just took out the ZX four double R last weekend for the first time. Um, you know, an a group on a small slow bike. Um, I'll send it to you. can tell me how all these things I did wrong. Um, although I had spent a day with Don beforehand. So yeah, and he's great on the ninjas. But before I go, like, what would you like to leave the audience with? Obviously, we're to put notes and links to all your stuff. um We wouldn't have had you on here if we didn't believe in what you're doing. And so this is so much to unpack, um Nick. But what would you like to leave the audience with? Where should they go for more information? Obviously, I'll put links and everything up here. um Yeah, follow the links, champschool.com. uh We say we're in the customer service business that when we happen to ride motorcycles, you're going to show up there and we're going to do our very best to take care of you. So it is, I know it's a little bit intimidating. It's a little bit of money. It's a little bit of effort to be there, but that we understand. We understand. We were there. We were where you were. I meet some instructors or people in the business who just think they were just God's gift. They were born as God's gift to motorcycling. But we remember how hard it is. We know how hard it is. We know how hard it is to do this well, in some ways scary, but intimidating. So we are there for you, 100 % there, and we will do well. if we're not, you gotta go find whoever's in charge and say, hey, I'm not getting what I need here, because uh that's rule number five we have, if you remember, from the school. Rule number five is the students get what they need. And rule number five is instructors only rule. So we will truly do our best. If you get an instructor who's having a bad day and is not doing it, You get the lead guy, get Chris Paris, Cody, Isaiah, grab one of them and say, hey, I'm not getting this, man. This guy's not doing what I need because that's how we are. That's how we are. We're going to just kill it for you because we've been helped in our lives and it helps a lot. And then the second thing is if you're old school body position, if you're old school break line, straight line breaking, if you're old school that you don't understand radius and mile an hours, how they work together, uh we will change your life. It'll be, it'll be. like three to eight seconds a lap uh if you're road racing, but for street riding, it brings back the joy that you always hoped you'd have. You wanted to be a motorcyclist, you wanted to buy a motorcycle, you wanted to have the joy, but you're scared and you're scared because you don't realize what the brakes do for you. You don't realize what the geometry, contact patch, radius, you don't get it. What they do to calm your nerves. And so we will get you into those things. And it's a game changer. I mean, it's truly where people show up and after the school, They'll come up to one of us and say, know what? I have crashed this year. I'm ready to quit. literally put my bike up for sale and my wife said, Hey, go to one more, go to the school, just go to the school. See what you think. He goes, I am now back into it. I'm going to go racing. They start winning championships. And that is the truth. They go from a fifth place guy like Don Williams to a guy who wins championships. Don Williams showed up at a brand new racetrack when he moved to Seattle area and won championships the first year at a track he'd never seen before. So writers, this is the world that's out there waiting for you. And that's the world we provide and it's changed my life. uh And my hope is that it continues to change lives. And Angus, the thought behind having these I Davis's, Chris Paris, Cody Wyman, these young guys completely involved really on a good pay scale on something that will guarantee some future things for them is because it can't. It can't end when I retire. Champ school can't end. And so now we have this young crop coming up and they believe in the message. I get these letters from these uh students that say, Hey Nick, uh I took a school, you didn't make it, but those guys are killing it. And I just want to let you know that whoever is there when you show up is going to give it their best. Cause that's, that's who we've hired. That's who they are. And they want to give back to the sport. Yeah, I can see that 100%. And congratulations, by the way, on the mission, because I know that it's a tough business. It's not a business you sit back and print money in. And I know that there's a belt. There is a balance um between the role of us being highly vulnerable people on the street and on the track, saving lives, making the roads a safer place, but also bringing joy to folks that maybe have lost it. And I think that's a really great way to end. And that's a lot of the reason why I do the podcast. So thank you. We're going to definitely have you back. It would definitely be good to get a few of your people on at some point as well, Nick. was absolute pleasure. Thank you very, very much. Well, I love it. means the world to us Angus. And also, you know, I have to thank you in front of the public too, because Angus sponsors some racers and has sponsored some racers over the years. And that is just a game changer for a kid who gets tire money or whatever you're doing for him and do it. that is truly a given of yourself and giving back to the sport. You're going to help these kids for the rest of their lives and it helps their career and all the things you're doing for us. you know, back at you. Thank you. Plus if you're not a motorcyclist and you're interested and you happen to listen to this, It's an amazing group of people. It is truly outstanding group of people. And I think it's because of the humility of buying the best bike, buying all the parts for it, carbon wheels, yet you can't keep up with some guy on a 45 year old BSA because the guy in the 45 year old BSA knows how to ride the motorcycle. It is so humbling. It is so good. And the people in this industry, to me, motorcycle people are the best people. I tell my friends who run businesses, go find yourself a motorcycle racer and hire. hire that person because they know how to get things done. They know how to be specific in their tasks because in the grand scheme of things, winning racing and winning championships is simply comes down to doing the right things at the right moment, not doing any of the wrong things at the wrong moment. So I really believe that if you aren't a motorcyclist and you're interested, you're gonna find a whole new world of people that are just generally, I mean, pretty much across the board, really cool people. And Angus, I really wanna thank you for being that kind of person. 100 % Nick. Thank you very much. so we're going to end it here next day on because I wanted to say goodbye and all that. Such a pleasure, man. Thank you very much. Thanks. Stay safe, everyone. All right. Thanks. oh you