Mongo Nation

We take a ride on the BMW R1200 GS and the F 800 GS motorcycles.

Words by Eugene Faynberg

By Eugene Faynberg

Most of the world’s roads are unpaved, so why limit yourself to the freeways and boulevards?  This is the core philosophy at Jim Hyde’s Rawhyde Adventures (bmwoffroadacademy.com) training facility.

CraveOnline recently got an opportunity to attend a “hands-on” adventure rider training session at RawHyde Adventures just north of Los Angeles.  After getting through the first obstacle – the driveway – Jim Hyde met us at the front of his top of the line training facility.  With chase trucks, RVs loaded with food and camping supplies, and a dozen or more BMW GS motorcycles parked under camouflage netting, it quickly became obvious that this was going to be more than just a ride.  Once everyone from our training group was geared up, we received an introduction to the dual-sport lifestyle.

Initially, I thought it was a joke when our first lesson was not on how to ride in the dirt, but instead how to properly pickup the bike when you fall.  Later in the day, this skill turned out to be very useful.  Taking a spill on your new adventure machine is inevitable and more than a few people wiped out in the first couple of hours.  Starting with basic dirt riding drills on my borrowed BMW R 1200 GS, our training group eventually worked our way up to riding short trails around the facility.

The BMW GS models are immensely powerful, well-balanced, and rugged.  My 1200 GS was even equipped with heated hand grips and ABS.  If you’re coming from a sport bike background like me, this motorcycle will open up another world of riding.  The GS is a go anywhere bike that can take you through the Mojave desert, unpaved fire roads, byways, but can also tear it up in the canyons or even during a trackday at a racetrack.  I have actually seen a guy on a GS that passes sport bikers like they’re standing still on Mulholland Highway in Malibu. Read the rest of this entry →

Cutting edge or edge of your patience?

By Jeremy Azevedo

One thing that I dislike about racing games is that they tend to always be about “underground” street racing or high-performance track racing.

Not since Midway’s “Super Off Road” have I played a really decent dirt track racer. I’m sure that there have been many, but Baja: Edge of Control is the first I’ve played in quite some time that wasn’t a bare-bones arcade-y affair or an overly technical simulation.

Baja: EOC starts out a little mixed… The difficulty seems incredibly unreasonable at first, and there is no information given about the various cars that you have to choose from other than what they are called and what paint jobs are available. There isn’t really anything resembling a tutorial, and even on the easiest setting the other cars on the track blow you away by a wide margin. Even after upgrading my car to it’s maximum potential, I still struggled to place in the early races. And then something just clicked. Once I got the hang of managing my speed around turns, popping the clutch for an acceleration boost after a powerslide and pre-loading my shocks before a jump, it was a whole new game. What I’m saying is that the learning curve is a real motherf**ker. Read the rest of this entry →