EMBRACING SAND
Guest: Zak Parrish who rides an Africa Twin 1100 DCT.Episode Summary:Join us on this exciting episode of "Around the Wheel" as we explore the world of adventure motorcycles with our guest, Zak Parrish. Zach shares his journey from riding a 1977 Yamaha 125 Enduro to piloting an Africa Twin 1100 with Dual Clutch Transmission (DCT). His bike is nicknamed the "Lawn Dart" after a learning experience where his bike became planted in sand. Bret and Zak dive into the challenges, techniques and skills needed to ride in deep sand on a heavy adventure bike. Spend an hour listening to the stories and techniques that will help you master riding in loose surfaces as well as some ideas for practicing your skills near home.
Full Transcript:0:00:15 - Bret TkacsWelcome back to Around the Wheel with Bret Tkacs. Today I have Patreon supporter Zak Parrish. Patreon supporter Zak Parrish. Zak Parrish pilots an Africa Twin 1100, Africa Sports and his bike is a DCT model we are going to be diving into not to make a funny out of this, but diving into sand and gravel and really loose surfaces. Zak, what makes Zak so special today is Zak is just like most of you that are listening today. Zak, why don't you give us a little background on how we ended up in today's conversation?0:00:50 - Zak ParrishSomehow I knew you were going to talk about the whole diving into sand thing, but that's a whole other thing. So I started off riding a 1977 Yamaha 125 Enduro that I bought off my next door neighbor for like 50 bucks and rode it until it fell apart and that bike was like the Terminator. It was amazing. As I got older, I eventually decided to get a real motorcycle that I could take on the street and get a license for, and my first one was a Suzuki SV650S a 2005. That thing was fun. Oh my God. It was so good. It was like it's like an F16. It's so nimble and it'll just go wherever you want it to go.But I rode that for seven years and wanted to get something different, but I was still into street bikes. So I got drawn to the Harley Davidson V-Rod. So I had a 2012 big black thing that makes you feel like Batman or Judge Dredd, and I rode that for seven years and then wanted something different yet again and this was about this time last year. And I rode that for seven years and then wanted something different yet again, and this was about this time last year, and I discovered that adventure motorcycles actually existed. I didn't know about them. I'd only been looking at low slung or really fast and powerful things, and I saw the Africa Twin. They had just announced that there was a new one coming with a whole bunch of really cool hot features, so I pre-ordered one of those. I took delivery in April and now here we are.0:02:07 - Bret TkacsWhen we get into talking about sand, there will be things about clutch versus not clutch, and you went with the DCT, which is going to make this a very special conversation. Why did you go for the DCT? You're an experienced rider, so obviously the clutch is not something you're afraid of.0:02:21 - Zak ParrishNo, not at all. In fact I get a lot of satisfaction from, you know, handling the clutch and shifting gears. I started off really just morbid curiosity. I went to the Honda dealership and I just talked to me like hey, I've heard about the Africa Twin and I had only just read about DCT and there's a lot of really mixed opinions on that. So I test rode one and about halfway through my like I don't know 30, 45 minute test ride I was like you know what? This is a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. I totally get why folks eschew them and just want to focus on they want to do all that shifting themselves. That makes perfect sense to me. But there is something to be said for when you just want to get out and you just want to ride around and look at the scenery, not really having to think about that.0:03:05 - Bret TkacsYeah, I don't want to make this just a talk about the DCT specifically, because we could probably have a conversation about that. I love understanding why you wanted to go that way. One of the things I've heard people say about the DCT that I think is so far off the mark is that the DCT is for novice riders or for beginner guys or guys who struggle with the clutch, and that, to me, is the absolute biggest fallacy about that motorcycle and that particular technology out there.0:03:34 - Zak ParrishNow that I own one, I agree with you. I think I went into it thinking that might actually be a thing and that I was handicapping myself. But you come to realize very quickly that it's really just a different way to ride. In fact it has its own very unique challenges, particularly when you get off the pavement and you have to really pay close attention to your throttle inputs, because you don't have that clutch bailout and you can get yourself into a lot of trouble very quickly with just a simple bump in the road that you weren't ready for.0:04:02 - Bret TkacsWhiskey throttling on a DCT really only kind of has one scenario you get to ride it out and whatever happens at the other end.that's the only surprise. But there's definitely yeah, there's no safety valve on that. So that's what we get into body position and the concept that a lot of people know from when I was doing the motor truck series about the weightless rider and how critical and important that is. And I think that's going to segue us into what our primary chat is. You went out and you're in North Carolina and I've been there. There's a lot of sand in North Carolina and you went out and did some riding and discovered that that is a skill set unto its own. So let's kind of dive into this. And what kind of issues are you running into For those that are listening and for you most specifically? Let's see if we can work through those and make you better.0:04:57 - Zak ParrishSand is one of those things that you just don't run into on a street bike. In fact, I'm going to walk that back just a little bit. Once you get really into the core of street riding and you understand what those high traction environments feel on the bike, and then you know hopefully you never have, but in my case, like I, have laid a bike down a few times and your brain and your body and your nervous system builds up this immediate reaction to losing traction on the bike and everything about you just screams oh my God, we're about to die, because you know what that feels like to lose traction and have the bike go down. So sand is one of those things where it's not like gravel, where gravel will kick you over an inch or two and it's a little startling the first couple of times you do it, but that's fine. Sand is just this constant throw. It just constantly moves underneath you and if you're not ready for it or heaven forbid it comes on a turn that you weren't ready for.0:05:52 - Bret TkacsI still haven't quite figured out exactly what the bike wants me to do in those situations. And there's two different situations we're talking about here. So one is on the street. The sand on the street is dangerous and that's what we know as street riders. It's just there's no way getting around that. You need to be vertical, you can't be going through fast with a lot of side angle, you're going to slip. And the other thing that's really scary about sand on the street I do think you're right, this is something that we carry with us when we live the street and we start trying to really do off-road riding, and that is the fact that if we slip on the street not just sand but also gravel the chances of regaining that traction if it's a large patch is fairly small, unless it's just a really kind of a little hop or a little skip where you can hook back up. Once you start sliding you're gone. And I also think this is why, when we get into gravel, people freak out, because a hard pack gravel road to me is far more concerning and far more dangerous than dirt and gravel on a trail, because it's hard packed underneath with loose surface on the top, and if it's thick gravel I'm good with it. It's that thin gravel, just that spattering across the top of a hard packed road, whether it's asphalt or hard pack, that's really dangerous because there isn't a recovery to that. If we're already sliding, we've already made the mistakes and we're paying the penalty now. That's one issue. Getting into the deep sand that's where we start having to change the way we look at the sand and start trusting the machine more.I did a little video on the Bret Tax YouTube channel on rake and trail. For me I was just okay, let's just prove a point. How can I do this? So I rode down the mountain hands off the bike, talking in front of me because that's how I talk best is if my hands move and just talking about rake and trail and how stable the bike is. And I also did it on the freeway at speed, but I chose not to put it into that video. But knowing that that bike is stable and that's one of the things I've started doing over the years is I keep testing and checking my faith in the motorcycle. Because even though we understand the dynamics of it, the rake, the trail, the engineering, that it's all there, that somehow this bike is supposed to stay upright and we're not supposed to fall. We still pretty much have to have some faith because that's kind of invisible to us and I started off by just taking my hands off just slightly off the bars to see how far I would take the hands off and how far I could ride. And that's just on gravel roads initially, or on pavement, and then it was hands out to my side and then it was standing up and hands in the air and I kept kind of evolving my trust how far I can get away from this bike and allow it to ride. And then also on surfaces, hands off, going through gravel, through potholes Well, what about hands off going downhill with big rocks? And so I've kept evolving.As I become comfortable with something, I push the window a little bit farther.
