Is the Harley-Davidson Riding Academy Good for ADV Riders?

I met my wife, Melissa, when she asked me to take her for a motorcycle ride. The rest is history. After riding with me for a while, she wanted to start riding her own bike. She got a Kawasaki KLR650S, perfect for both pavement and the dirt county roads crisscrossing northwest Arkansas, including the one we live on. Of course, the other piece of the puzzle is rider training. The only Basic RiderCourse we could find on the MSF website within 100 miles was held at Pig Trail Harley-Davidson in Rogers, AR. More than one million riders have taken the Harley-Davidson Riding Academy over the years, so it is certainly a reputable organization. But how would they handle someone who has not just a desire but a need to ride dirt, as well as someone who already owns a KLR and is not a prospective Pan America owner? We signed her up for the course and decided to find out.

How Does It Compare to the MSF Basic RiderCourse?

Accreditation is important. After all, many states accept successful completion of the MSF Basic RiderCourse in lieu of their own written and/or skills test, so Harley-Davidson’s version has to measure up. Fortunately, this is not a concern. The Harley-Davidson Riding Academy New Rider Course is the MSF course. They use MSF RiderCoaches and teach exactly the same curriculum, at least when it comes to the classroom and riding skills. When you graduate from the Riding Academy, you get an MSF certificate of completion in addition to anything else your individual class may provide. For training and licensing purposes, they are one and the same.

However, there is certainly a Harley-Davidson slant to everything. Only a fraction of the New Rider Course book is MSF material. It covers essential info such as T-CLOCS, FINE-C, and especially SEE (the MSF loves their acronyms), as well as a few other points about safety and riding gear. Most of it, though, is inspirational photos and indoctrination into the Harley-Davidson culture. It’s a brilliant bit of marketing, especially to the enormous number of prospective riders already partial to the brand. During part of the classroom portion of the course, which took place at the dealer, they brought everyone downstairs to the showroom and encouraged them to sit on any bikes they wanted to. There’s no better way to get someone interested in your motorcycles than to say, “Go ahead, try one.”

Will I Be Shunned for Riding a Non-Harley?

No, absolutely not. Melissa was completely honest about already owning a KLR and not being interested in another bike. Indeed, the only Harley-Davidson that would be appropriate for her needs would be Pan America. Although it’s a great motorcycle, it is not one that I would not recommend for a beginner. (If only there were a midsize “baby” Pan America…) She was welcomed into the class, with only a little good-natured ribbing that they’d get her on a Harley-Davidson someday.

Aside from the book, the class itself was extremely agnostic when it came to makes and models. Talking with some of the students, I learned that some already owned a Harley, one owned a Suzuki Bandit, and another was interested in a Kawasaki Ninja 500. One of the instructors had many good things to say about Melissa’s KLR650S. So don’t worry if you’re not interested in riding a Harley-Davidson. Their Riding Academy isn’t worried, so why should you be?

What Bikes Do You Use?

After the Street 500 was discontinued, the smallest Harley-Davidson you can buy is the Nightster. At 481 pounds, it’s not exactly tiny. This is another example of how the Harley-Davidson Riding Academy used its enormous corporate backing to do what no other training school could. They brought over the X350 from China, made a few minor modifications, and called it the X350 RA, which literally stands for “Riding Academy.” It is not for sale, not certified for street use; it is exclusively a Riding Academy training bike. The instructors said it has speed and rev limiters that prevent it from going any faster than it needs to on the range. I never saw anyone hit those limiters, so at least they won’t hold you back in class. It has enormous wing-like crash bars to protect it from being dropped over and over and over again. They also bang into the knees of riders with even moderate-length legs, like Melissa, who had some bruises afterward. The rear set footpegs are interesting, as no Harley-Davidson you can buy uses them. After the class, it took a bit of work for Melissa to get used to her KLR’s mid-controls. But the bikes are small, lightweight, and appear to be easy to ride.

How Does the Cost Compare to Other Options?

 

The New Rider Course costs $350 at Pig Trail Harley-Davidson, but the price may vary depending on your location. For example, the same course costs $375 at Rock City Harley-Davidson in Little Rock. In comparison, the MSF Basic RiderCourse at the Motorcycle Safety and Training Center in Fort Smith, AR costs $250. These were the only courses I found in Arkansas on the MSF website. Another independent class offered by Crowder College in Neosho, Missouri, costs $225.

While the Riding Academy is more expensive, I also found that getting Melissa enrolled in a class there was much easier, mainly because they simply offer more class dates. When she first called Pig Trail Harley-Davidson looking for information, they offered to get her in within a couple of weeks. When we finally registered her in August, the soonest available date on the website was November, but another phone call got her bumped up to a canceled slot over Labor Day weekend at the beginning of September. My previous experience has been that if you don’t book a class first thing in the spring when registration opens, you won’t be able to get into one for the rest of the year. Every class is different, but that is clearly not the case with the Harley-Davidson Riding Academy.

What About Dirt?

Any aspiring ADV rider is going to want to get some training and practice on dirt as well as on pavement. Whether you take it through Harley-Davidson or elsewhere, this is not what the Basic RiderCourse is for. It teaches basic motorcycle control on paved surfaces. The closest it gets to teaching dirt skills is the exercise where you ride over a piece of wood. The skills they teach for crossing an obstacle are correct, regardless of what surface you’re riding on, but that’s about as far as it gets.

If you want to learn how to ride dirt specifically, the MSF offers an AdventureBike RiderCourse, while the Harley-Davidson Riding Academy also offers an Adventure Motorcycle Training Course. Numerous other schools offer dirt rider training. None of these are available in our area, so I’m trying to teach Melissa the basics as best I can on my own. Our helmet communicators are proving invaluable, enabling me to give her advice while we ride to help her learn the different set of skills she needs for dirt roads. At this point, though, she mainly needs experience, regardless of road surface.

What if you grew up riding or racing dirt bikes and just want to get your license for the street? You may struggle a bit. There was one student in the class who I could tell was already an experienced dirt rider just from watching him. He had quite a bit of trouble in the beginning, as the instructors had to constantly tell him to use four fingers on the levers and not to cover them. Covering the levers with two fingers is a great dirt riding technique, but the MSF wants you to ride their way and will try to train these techniques out of you. I’d recommend just stashing them in your back pocket, riding their way to pass the course, and then choosing whichever technique you prefer afterward. I should also point out that this particular student who struggled in the beginning not only passed the course but was the only rider in this class to score 100 percent on the skills test.