On a calm lake with the sun bouncing off the water's ripples, I turned my eyes into ram air intakes as I railed the world’s fastest personal watercraft (PWC).
A few months later, I flew through the air at the famous Crandon Raceway in a purpose-built Yamaha YXZ1000R. And recently, I ripped up the side of what I can only describe as one of the most beautiful mountains I've ever seen on the most powerful production ATV in the world.
None of those experiences took my Editor's Choice Award in 2024.
Sitting down to write this piece forced me to reflect on all the borderline ridiculous things I’ve done since joining the RideApart team in February. Picking just one that stood out above all else seemed unfair until I had an epiphany. I was comparing all of my experiences, rides, and drives directly with one another, asking questions like, "What did I have more fun on, the fastest PWC or the most powerful ATV?"
But that's not the right measure.
The best experiences don't live and die in the moment; they leave a lasting impression on you, even changing the way you move forward with life and see things. I mean, I think a person is the sum of everything they've ever experienced, and by that logic, the thing that's most changed how I see life now versus the start of the year is the California Superbike School.
Unless you're on RideApart by accident, and I doubt you are if you've read this far, you'll probably feel the same way if you attend a two-day course, as I did. But maybe not at first.
A Slow Burn
It took a few months before I could even write the review for my time at the school because the more I rode and drove, the more I benefited from taking the school. This was particularly true on track but also the road. I constantly saw ways to implement and reinforce what I'd learned, and doing so gave me a better understanding of the teachings.
The California Superbike School has undoubtedly played a part in helping me review motorcycles to a higher level and get slick photos like the one below along the way.
My experience at the school had a compounding effect. All I had to do was delve into the wealth of knowledge I'd received and I got better, and as I got better, I could dig into what I'd learned even more. But something else was digging into me, a niggling idea—I have to race.
Putting what I'd learned to use on roads is fantastic, but sometimes painfully reminds me that I'm not on a racetrack pushing as hard as I can. But that's going to change.
Life-Changing
I hope every year that I give my Editor's Choice Award, it'll be for something that changed how I live, like the California Superbike School. But that's unlikely because I don't want to change how I live too much, especially not every year.
After taking the two-day course, I realized that I wanted to be all in on racing and that it's realistically the only way that I can race. I'm an obsessive person by nature, and peeking behind the curtain of motorcycle knowledge at the school showed me how much I didn't know and fueled my thirst to learn. Hence the feeling of needing to be all in.
It might sound cliché or over-the-top to say that the course was life-changing, but when I consider that I'm putting my baby, a 2021 Triumph Street Triple, up for sale to buy a supersport motorcycle and finance a pickup, I'd say it's pretty fair. I don't believe I'd have made such a drastic decision to spend even more time and money on racing if I hadn't done the course.
Now, attending the California Superbike School might not lead you to make the same silly financial decisions because I was already on the road to racing. But if it doesn't make you want to attend way more track days, I'd be extremely surprised.
Even if the California Superbike School didn't leave a lasting impression on me beyond the course, which it did, it gave me a feeling I never imagined I'd experience.
You're a "Real" Racer For Two Days
For two days, I got to feel as close to being a professional racer as I probably ever will.
There's a team around you, who's doing everything they can to help you succeed on track, just like a racer has. You have a stall of the best superbikes in the world lined up, waiting for you to hop on. The tires are fresh and perfectly inflated, and every nut and bolt has been fastened. All you have to do is show up and put in your best effort to go faster.
After each track session, everything is served to you. Your instructor always has helpful advice based on your last run, just like a coach would. There's data on everything from your lap times to how much brake pressure you're giving at any given moment and someone to help you analyze it on a one-to-one basis.
It was a bit overwhelming at the time to let myself be waited on like that. But if I ever went back to do levels three and four of the California Superbike School, I'd lean into what's on offer even more and think of myself as a racer, and let myself live the dream, just for a few more days.
