Step-by-step rider training and riding itself has grown in popularity in recent times with more people finding excitement in the sport. However, not as much attention is paid to the history of advanced rider training and to the man who is said to have started such training.
While there are many rider training programs that have been in existence for a long while now, the first one-on-one courses that made up advanced training were first put together by a man named Keith Code who, today, has gone on to be one of the greatest and most respected in that lane.
Since 1976, Keith Code has helped train several championship riders from novice level to certified factory racers. The structure and systems used by Keith to achieve this feat are collectively known as the California Superbike School.
Dylan Code & Keith Code at California Superbike School
The California Superbike School founded by Keith Code has achieved unprecedented feats since its inception. Keith established this school with the knowledge he gathered during his time as a young rider. The school offers students training courses and personal coaching assistance to supervise them while they improve on the aspect of their riding they wish to improve upon.
With over 40 years of continuous development of rider training and coaching methods, the California Superbike School has been able to train over 150,000 students to date, some of whom have gone on to win a collective 65 World and National Championships.
How Does the Program at California Superbike School Work?
Keith Code at California Superbike School
Programs that are available in this school offer a step-by-step training method for riders. The complete program comprises about 15 riding drills that address specific areas of interest. These 15 drills are spread across the first 3 levels of the program while the 4th, which doubles as the last level, has over 200 drills.
One of the many challenges faced by riders is their inability to cope with the unknown. Therefore, the primary focus of the California Superbike School program is to address this uncertainty by changing the mindset of riders.
So, when you enrolled in school, attention is paid to your physical understanding of the sport as well as your mental understanding of it. The programs are made for every level of rider, professionals as well as those who ride for leisure.
This school offers courses that are comprehensive in nature and scope explaining in detail the sport of racing. These courses break down the sport into different components based on the categories of riding that exist. This way, riders can have a real and holistic understanding of the courses.
Over time, through this school, Keith has been able to build a community of riders who are not only knowledgeable about the sport but whose passion expands with the understanding of it.
The school offers its courses at 4 different levels. The first level offers students a comprehensive introduction to riding and the necessary skills that are needed to be successful at it. The other 3 levels are built upon this foundation to teach riders about 5 different but precise technical riding skills.
From the first level alone, you find out that you are already blown away and by the time you complete all of the levels, you are just practice time away from being a professional.
During the day superbike school, there is an impressive 3:1 ratio of students to coaches. So, there is a coach attached to every 3 students for the efficiency of training and adequate mentoring. During the school’s 2-day camp the ratio changes to 2:1. Making it one coach per 2 riders.
The coach receives feedback from students after every session of the program. Students can share their personal experiences regarding their strengths and weaknesses with their coaches. This will help the coach determine what area of riding they need to improve to become the professional they have always wanted to be.
Some of the duties of the coaches include following up with and observing students during the session. The coach is also expected to offer practical examples to students after every session and ensure students have a full grasp of them.
Lastly, the coach is expected to have a feedback session with students after every ride to determine how they feel and find out what they have learned from the session. Every staff member is fully committed to making sure the students improve as a rider.
No doubt, the training offered by the California Superbike School is unique and highly rewarding. Two out of every three students who enroll for the level 1 course at the school always return for the second level. The interesting thing about this stat is that they do not always come alone, they tend to bring their friends to join them.
California’s Superbike School over the years has been able to develop a system that not only works for the riders but also the school. The great side of this school is that it remains open to improvement year in and year out.
While there are many other schools all around the world today that have tried to copy the teaching method and system employed in California Superbike School, the feat of being the first to design an advanced rider coaching curriculum is one the school will forever own.
The Advanced Rider Training
Riders always want to go above and beyond. From being a beginner to an intermediate to a professional, there is always a desire for improvement. To match this desire of yours and help you achieve it better and faster, California Superbike School offers advanced rider training.
This advanced training provides a range of courses that addresses various skill levels. If you are a beginner, there is an advanced rider training course that can help you attain the intermediate level. If you are at the intermediate level, there is an advanced training course that helps you achieve the professional level.
The school is made up of a team of professionals who are committed at various levels to helping you achieve your riding goals in the best possible way. What you are going to find interesting about this advanced rider training is the expert feedback that is being provided by professionals.
To give comprehensive feedback and assessment of the improvement of students, the team at California Superbike School is trained to have good observation and communication skills. This school offers this advanced motorcycle training in different parts of the world that you can enroll in today.
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California Superbike School Level 1 Overview:
Level 1 of the school is being referred to as the intro class that sets in motion the machinery that will facilitate the rider’s growth. This level addresses common issues around riding and certain habits that riders need to break if they want to improve their skill.
This level teaches riders that riding is more of an art than it is a sport. There are many things that riders do wrong that impede their development, some of which they are not even aware of.
Here, you will learn how to allow your subconscious to react to the motorcycle’s movement and reaction to the track’s surface. You will learn how you can be relaxed on the bike to play your role while the bike plays its role.
With this way of thinking and body positioning the suspension is harmonized with the steering and throttle inputs. Upon the successful completion of this level, you will learn how to do less work and reduce physical stress while riding. You will also learn how to get into a state of mind that enhances your psychological and physiological response to riding.
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California Superbike School Level 2 Overview:
Level 2 is about vision. As a rider, you need to have maximum peripheral vision. You will learn how to use your peripheral vision and be visually alert all the time. When riding, you must note vision is everything as you can only go as far as your sight can take you.
To drive home the importance of visualization and ensure students grasp it fully, during practice sessions they will provide you with two penny-sized stickers. These stickers are placed on each side of your visor and force you to focus on peripheral vision while riding.
At the end of this session, you will discover that your view widened, and you can see more around you to help prevent yourself from dangerous situations.
They also teach you about being calm and relaxed while riding at any speed. Relaxation is especially important whether you are a professional rider or one who rides for fun as it helps to reduce stress
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California Superbike School Level 3 Overview:
Level 3 focuses more on riding techniques building on the visualization learned in level 2. It is at this level that you will learn about body positioning which is a particularly important aspect to focus on if you want to improve as a rider. With this, you can reduce fatigue and change riding psychology.
As you advanced to level 3, you begin to learn more refined riding techniques which include the hook-turn and the knee-to-knee technique. These techniques help you to keep the bike stable while getting the confidence you need to improve your speed and control while cornering.
This level ends by building a relationship between the mind and the motorcycle. There is a way you can develop your mind to pick up on signals as they happen while riding and adjust accordingly. This will always put you at an advantage safety-wise, improve your riding, and help to reduce stress.
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California Superbike School Level 4 Overview:
Level 4 which is the final level in the California Superbike School is where you get to have a one-on-one training session with your coach. In this session, you can tackle and address any personal riding challenges that you have while improving your riding goals.
At this level, your coach teaches you the importance of setting smaller riding goals and working towards achieving them as this will help you improve better and faster. There is no doubt that you will not remain the same rider you were when you started this training from level 1 when you finally get to level 4.
All through the levels and the training that they offer, your mind, body positioning, and riding technique will all have been improved to make you a better rider.
Riding has helped changed the lives of many people in several ways. While it has helped to give many something to keep up with their leisure time, it has served as a means of livelihood for others. Many riders have been able to live in a resourceful state filled with energy and happiness.
However, if you come out of your comfort zone, you will discover that there is always more to be achieved as a rider and that’s why California Superbike School is here for you. The school aims at making sure you improve and become better as a rider regardless of the level you are starting from.
Keith Code – Founder of California Superbike School:
A lot has been said about California Superbike School and the many programs and courses that are available there. Now, it is time to look at the bio of the
man who is behind such a great establishment and has been able to monitor its growth and continuous improvement over the years.
That man is Keith Code – an American former and successful motorcycle racer and seasoned writer. He is arguably referred to as the most successful on-track motorcycle instructor in the world whose impact has been felt on and off the track.
Keith found moderate success competing in the national Superbike series between 1975 and 1979. These years were the peak years of his career and he was focused on getting as many trophies as he could during this time.
Keith started training riders sometime in 1976 after a brief discussion he had with a friend who suggested the idea to him. At that time Keith was still a popular racer in the Superbike national series. Keith has spent all his life racing, talking, writing, and teaching about racing.
There is little that is known about him aside from racing. While he started with a passion for racing only, Keith has said several times that he did not have a passion for helping other riders as he was focused on himself and his career only at that time.
However, after his friend suggested it to him, his perception about helping others changed and he began to see the need to begin as he could share his ideas and goals for improvement. This is a brief prologue to what eventually formed the foundation upon which Keith Code started his training career.
After training a few riders compared to the many he will later go on to train in life from 1976, Keith began putting a structure around this system and that structure is what turned into the California Superbike School that was established in 1980.
In the last 40 years, Keith Code has committed himself to the continuous development of several methods that are now being used to train riders across the globe. With over 60 world and national racing championships by students who have been trained by him or the school, Keith Code and the California Superbike School are rated as the leading authority in the training field.
With the school operating at over 90 tracks in over 15 countries, Keith has been able to train riders from many different cultures, riding styles, and techniques. This has helped him to continuously improve the school’s already outstanding curriculum.
Considering the many success that Keith Code was able to record with the school, the United States Marine Corps reached out to him in 2006 asking him to design a rider training program that will help them reduce accidents by USMC riders.
Code successfully designed this training program and called it the Advanced Motorcycle Operator School that was adopted by the United States Marine Corps.
This program designed by Code was adopted over 4 years and produced tremendous results. The Corps, with this training program, was able to reduce motorcycle accidents among its riders and it has made the program the gold standard of rider training by Marine safety personnel.
Outside the many wonders that Code has achieved with the California Superbike School, he has also been able to develop different riders training devices like the No Body Steering Bike, the Slide Bike Trainer, and the Panic Braking Trainer.
The Panic Braking Trainer is a device that allows you to experience front wheel lock-up, know when to anticipate it, and how to recover from it when it happens. The Lean and Slide Bike Trainer is a device that helps you learn about body positioning and skills that help riders slide the motorcycle lowering the crashing possibility.
The No Body Steering device teaches you how and why you need to use counter steering.
Another part of Keith Code’s success is his passion for doing research and writing. According to him, he cannot say when exactly he moved from being a racer to being a writer and an instructor, but that is probably one of the greatest transformations of his lifetime.
In his area on the California Superbike School official website, Code has written several articles that have been of immense help to riders from across the globe and there is still much more to come from him.
Today, Keith Code has three books to his name about racing. These books have helped him, and his school develops over 147 individual drills for students that have helped them improve massively over the years. Keith’s ability to research and write has also opened new coaching and rider training avenues to the school every session.
Keith Code is a man on a mission to inspire others and make them better at what they do. To achieve this, he has built a team of dedicated professionals at his schools globally. This team of professionals is always working on developing new training techniques that reflect modern-day realities and can help passionate riders improve their skills.
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Keith Code’s Books:
As a seasoned author and leader in the field of racing, training, and riding, Keith Code has written several books. These books have been able to stand the test of time in relevance and are widely used by motorcyclists across the globe.
Books written by Keith Code include: “Twist of the Wrist” a book he published in 1983; “A Twist of the Wrist 2” which he published in 1997; “Soft Science of Road-racing Motorcycles” which was published in 1998, and “A Gear Higher” that was written and published in 1998.
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Famous Racers Coached or Trained by Keith Code:
Having trained over 150,000 students, The California Superbike School with Keith Code at the helm has been an integral part of the successes achieved by famous racers across the globe. Aside from the 4-level training offered by the California Superbike School, Keith Code also offers personal training to many of the world-renowned racers.
While the list of famous racers that have been trained or coached by Keith Code is endless, some of the popular names include James Roseland, Leon Camier, and Wayne Rainey.
Sponsors of the California Superbike School
AGVSPORT – Official Leathers of the California Superbike School
The AGVSPORT brand is recognized by many motorcycle enthusiasts around the world. AGVSPORT is a brand everyone seems to be familiar with from the AGVSPORT apparel line of from the historical connection AGV Helmets in Italy. It is a legacy brand, been providing motorcycle safety apparel and gear to riders for over 35 years.
The primary core of this brand is providing high performance and value to motorcycle enthusiasts worldwide. AGVSPORT products offer top performance and have often won best-in-class awards from some of the world’s most prestigious Motorcycle Magazines, yet still at an affordable price.
AGVSPORT partners with organizations, companies, and riders across the globe whose passion for motorcycling matches our own. We are passionate about the sport. All the personnel involved in product development at AGV Sports Group are riders and are among the sport’s greatest enthusiasts.
AGVSPORT concentrates on refining and evolving existing product lines to improve fit, comfort, and above all safety. It provides racers and street motorcyclists with everything from custom leather race suits to textile gloves. The entire range of AGVSPORT products is immense and varied. and other riding products.
Do you know what is outstanding about this legacy brand? It offers its products and services to individuals, enthusiasts, and industry professionals. On the issue of partnerships, AGVSPORT is one of the leading partners of the California Superbike School and has been its official leather for over 25 years.
The AGVSPORT brand has provided students at the California Superbike School across all its levels with the products needed to make their riding learning experience worthwhile. This partnership has thrived because of the impressive pricing offered and the quality of products delivered.
With more than 25 years done, AGVSPORT and California Superbike School still seem to have a long and fruitful way to go together.
BMW Motorcycles
BMW is an automobile company that specializes in cars, bikes, and other motorcycles. One of the notable products of this company is the S1000RR superbike that many riders have found amazing and easy to use. This racing bike works well on a public road as much as it does on racetracks.
The good thing about this superbike of BMW Motorcycles is that the company is a major sponsor of California Superbike School and makes this bike available for training purposes in the school.
Dunlop
Another notable sponsor of the California Superbike School is Dunlop. As a company and brand, Dunlop has established itself above other manufacturers for consistency and quality when it comes to tire production. As a rider, you always need that to guarantee your safety.
California superbike school through the sponsorship of Dunlop provides the Dunlop Sportmax Qualifiers on bikes used in the school for practical racing. The partnership between the school and Dunlop has been up for 38 years now and seems to be getting better every year.
Information for this article was partially sourced and researched from the following authoritative Government, educational, corporate, and nonprofit organizations:
California Superbike School Certifies Instructor Coaches With USMCA
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