RIDER SKILLS: Why Slow Speed Training Isn't Enough
Adventure Rider Radio - A Motorcycle Podcast
Canoe West Media
4.9 • 915 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Slow-speed skills matter — especially on heavy adventure motorcycles. But if that’s where your training stops, there are real situations where it starts working against you. Because sometimes control doesn’t come from crawling — it comes from the right momentum at the right time. Clinton Smout from SMART Performance Centre joins us to talk about what happens when the trail gets rough and the bike needs to do what it’s designed to do: move. We explore how stability changes with motion, how traction and momentum work together in real terrain, and why timing — with throttle, clutch, and body position — is what separates bouncing through from riding cleanly through.
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| 0:00.0 | Today on rider skills, we're challenging that default assumption that shows up in almost every rider |
| 0:06.2 | training conversation, that slow speed equals control. It's where almost all rider training |
| 0:13.3 | spends most of its time. Slow speed skills matter, of course, especially on heavy adventure bikes, |
| 0:19.4 | but if that's where your training stops, |
| 0:21.2 | there's real situation where it's going to start working against you. Because sometimes |
| 0:26.4 | control doesn't come from crawling. It comes from the right momentum at the right time. |
| 0:33.6 | Clinton's smout from Smart Performance Center joins me to talk about what happens on the trail when it gets rough and the bike needs to do what it's designed to do. |
| 0:41.9 | Move. |
| 0:42.8 | We get into how stability changes with motion, how traction and momentum work together in real terrain, and why timing with your clutch, your throttle, your body position is what separates bouncing through something |
| 0:55.5 | to riding clean through. I'm Jim Martin. This is Adventure Rider Radio. Stay with us. We got a good one for you. |
| 1:06.0 | Hi, I'm Sam Manico. |
| 1:07.5 | I'm Sam. Most advanced, Simon Pavey. Alge Paird, Jason Snell Charlie Bowman, |
| 1:11.4 | Simon Thomas, |
| 1:12.1 | Lisa Jarvis, |
| 1:13.2 | Jimie Lewis, |
| 1:13.6 | Lowe's, |
| 1:14.1 | Graham Jarvis, |
| 1:15.1 | Presbyte, |
| 1:15.6 | Nick Vander, |
| 1:16.2 | Justin Vinn, |
| 1:17.0 | Tiffany Coates, |
| 1:17.8 | Herbert Schatz, |
... |
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