Adventure motorcycles are all the rage. An off-road course can show if they are right for you

Jeffrey Denomme rides over a log on a sandy trail.Clinton Smout/Supplied

Adventure motorcycles are the SUVs of the motorcycle world and are popular for all the same reasons: their off-road versatility makes them comfortable to ride on asphalt and they have a macho image of go-anywhere exploration and ability.

Adventure bikes, known as ADVs, have long been popular in Europe but really started gaining traction in North America - surpassing road-going touring bikes – after the 2004 documentary Long Way Round featuring actors Ewen McGregor and Charley Boorman. The duo took a pair of BMW R1200 GS motorcycles around the world and romanticized the appeal of far-flung gravel roads.

Today, the GS is the best-selling bike in the BMW lineup, but all mainstream manufacturers offer ADV models, some more rugged than others, with longer suspension, taller seats, wider handlebars and often a more comfortable sitting position.

Invariably, people buy them and start talking about riding to far-away destinations such as Alaska and Labrador. Many online forums offer advice for reaching the Arctic Ocean, or the bottom of South America. The Holy Grail of adventure motorcycling is to ride from one to the other, although few owners have experience riding on the gravel and dirt roads that take them there – and for which these bikes are built. And fewer still want to test their limits by falling off their expensive investments.

Peter Faulkner falls while riding uphill.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail

This is where Clinton Smout comes in, with his SMART (snowmobile, motorcycle, ATV rider training) school, based beside Horseshoe Valley Resort just north of Orillia, Ont.

If you’ve been to a Canadian motorcycle show in the last decade, you’ve probably seen Smout. He also runs the Yamaha Riding Academy and he and his instructors provide small motorcycles to young show-goers to experience the feel of riding a powered bike slowly around a roped-off area. He offers similar instruction at his dirt-field school for adults and kids as young as six years old who’ve never sat on a powered bike before. However, the BMW course at his SMART school is something very different. The riders here are more likely to be 60-plus, with costly gear and easily dented egos.

Peter Faulkner learns how to pick up the bike after falling while riding in sand.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail

“For some people, older riders just coming into it, their first motorcycle is the big GS,” says Smout. “They’ve got some time on their hands maybe and they want to ride the Dempster. So they come here to learn how to do that.”

The Dempster Highway is the 740-kilometre road from Dawson City in the Yukon to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, almost all of which is raised gravel. There are some indigenous communities along the way that are well off the highway and one service centre at the approximate half-way point, at Eagle Plains, which sells gas, food and rooms for the night. Since the road that continues to Tuktoyaktuk opened in 2017, travellers can drive or ride the extra 140 kilometres to reach the Arctic Ocean. In Alaska, the Dalton Highway reaches farther north to Prudhoe Bay on the coast, but the company town is only accessible to visitors with business-related permits.

Jeffrey Denomme rides over sand while standing as part of the course.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail

Smout, who guides tours on the Dempster, says it takes additional skill to ride a motorcycle safely on gravel – a skill he argues makes for safer riding on pavement too, and for safer driving in a car or truck.

“Understanding traction loss, and practising your reactions when the tires break away, will help you whenever the road is slippery,” he says. “That could be from gravel or sand or just rain.”

It can happen when you least expect it, which is when confidence and practice need to kick in.

The SMART course puts everyone on a level playing field by supplying all the required equipment and the use of a new motorcycle. Half a day on a small dirt bike costs $229, while the full, two-day BMW course costs $1,400, plus tax.

Participants are welcome to wear their own gear if they prefer, but the borrowed equipment will take any scuffs and scrapes that might occur over the weekend. Similarly, the motorcycles have indicator lights held on with zip ties and replacement mirrors, to not break if the heavy bike falls over. Which it will almost certainly do in the deep sand of some of the paths that riders will experience.

Peter Faulkner balances on a Spanish Jotagas trials bike while stationary. The bike is specially made for riding tricky courses and does not even have a seat, and its tires are inflated to less than four pounds of pressure.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail

I visited the SMART school with my friend Peter Faulkner, who’s considering buying an adventure motorcycle but considers himself nervous on the road and is unwilling to push his abilities and possibly damage a new bike. We shared the course with Jeffrey Denomme, who rode up from North York on his BMW F850 GS. We had two instructors to look after us – both Smout and Mike Pesdirz are certified as trainers by BMW Motorrad in Germany.

“Probably the biggest thing I learned (during training) was how good the BMW bikes really are,” says Pesdirz (who everyone calls “Pez”). “They made us do things I would never do on my own bike, like [ride at] 70 kilometres an hour on gravel and then hammer the front brake like your life depended on it. The ABS (automated braking system) is just so good.”

Peter Faulkner rides over logs at the off-road course.Mark Richardson/The Globe and Mail

I took Pez’s word for it. Braking a motorcycle on gravel can be terrifying. Also, my own motorcycle isn’t equipped with ABS that prevents the wheels from locking up, so I didn’t want to get used to it. Denomme, however, was happy to practice all the various exercises of the course including standing while riding for better balance, two-fingered clutch control, safe braking in adverse conditions and eyes-up vision. We all fell over when we learned our limits but then got straight back in the saddle. We learned the fundamentals on a closed course and then practised them on lengthy rides on private wooded trails.

Denomme says his biggest lesson was clutch control.

“I’m surprised at the evolution of my ability to be able to feather the clutch and the RPMs in order to be able to get around tight little corners,” he says. “A lot of this is instilling confidence – I didn’t realize what I can and can’t do. Sure, I could go it alone on my own bike without any education and kind of suss it out, but I’m going to put myself at great risk in doing so. I don’t want to go off on my own with this stuff.”

And my buddy Peter? He realized he doesn’t want a big, heavy motorcycle for riding on woodland trails such as the BMW F900 GS he rode on the SMART course, which produces 105 horsepower and weighs 219 kilograms when it’s fully fueled. And after two days on sand and gravel and an afternoon on pavement, he doesn’t want to ride to Tuktoyaktuk.

“I’m glad I didn’t find out about that the hard way. It would have been an expensive mistake,” he told me. “A nice little 175 cc – I think that’ll be the bike for me.”