ROYAL ENFIELD SLIDE SCHOOL
Fancy taking on the alien world of the flat-track dirt oval? Royal Enfield has the school for you
’VE ALWAYS PREFERRED tarmac to dirt riding. I was brought up in a household of leather-clad sportsbike fans, where superbikes and Motogp were the only things worth watching and the knee-down was king.
I hadn’t met anyone who had even ridden off-road until my early 20s and have only had a handful of opportunities to try trail riding on large adventure bikes.
Although a completely different discipline and huge fun at lower, safer speeds, I am still yet to have my head turned from the world of high-revving engines, clip-on bars and scraped sliders. Flat-track could very well change that.
My first experience of flat-track came in at the 2018 MCN Festival of Motorcycling at Peterborough Showground, which hosted a weekend of racing action on the site’s speedway circuit. From kids on two-stroke crossers to Hooligan riders on wholly inappropriate muscle cruisers, I spent the weekend transfixed by their sideways antics. The races are short and frantic, with the bikes stripped to the bone with just a rear brake to help you stop. It’s even acceptable to wear leathers!
From that weekend on, I knew I wanted to have a go, but have struggled to carve out the time to attend one of the few established schools across the UK.
To help more people like me, Royal Enfield has set-up a new Slide School for 2021. Run by factory-backed Royal Enfield racer, Gary Birtwistle, the experience travels to tracks all over the country giving customers a taste of the sideways life on a fleet of stripped back A2-compliant 24bhp Himalayan singles.
“I started my training school to try and pass on some of my skills and help the sport grow in the UK,” instructor Gary