"After one lesson with you I took my first 1st place. Your style of teaching realy works!!"
Brian Lopez
"After spending time with Terry and doing a few lessons I am now at the top of my class. He has taught me so much about MX it is unbelievable."
Jake Scully
"Look at what you gave me.....my very first holeshot!!!!! Thank you sooo much!!!!"
Amanda, Racing Beginner
"After my first hour with Terry he had identified 2 major flaws in my riding technique. 2 laps later I felt like I was making progress again so I could ride faster. Being comfortable on the bike makes all the difference in the world."
Kris, Racing Beginner
"I had a great time on Saturday and I learned alot. I went out to carnegie and practiced the things you taught me. I was able to pass every one out there on a 85 or under and some slow, old guys too. and I was able to clear two jumps that I couldn't be before because I could get into the power bandwith using the clutch, I can jump almost twice as far and I have more throttle control. thanks I can't wait till my next lesson."
Sincerely Jon Smith
Our 15 year old daughter, Amanda Kutchera, started racing in June,2003. She had not had any training or lessons racing a motorcycle. After her racing for about 4 months, she had a major crash. Prior to the crash, we felt the time was coming for her to start considering lessons because she was going alot faster than when she started. We knew we did not have the tools to take her to the next level that she obviously seemed ready for. Once her crash happened, we immediately began our search for a good pro in our area. Our nephew was taking lessons from a Motorcross Pro by the name of Terry Bostard. We immediately scheduled lessons weekly. Our daughter LOVES Terry. His training techniques have given Amanda the confidence and skills which have increased her lap times making her extremely competitive in her class. His positive energy and excitement for what you are learning makes the lessons so enjoyable and yet he definately pushes her to that perfect point of pressure that you need for motorcross racing. Now our 8 year old son Michael has started lessons with Terry, and let me tell you, one lesson on his 50cc KTM and Michael is in first place with the Mutant Motor Sports Series in the 50 beginner class. Terry Bostard is a big impact in our lives with our kids racing and all the lessons, we owe our confidence we take to the track, to Terry. WE LOVE YOU TERRY!!!
-The Kutchera Family
My son and I had our first MX classes with Terry Bostard last weekend at Club Moto -- what an eye-opener! I'd posted in an earlier thread that I'd update TT after our first classes, so here's some info and my impressions.
Terry gives a 2-hour free intro MX lesson the first Saturday of each month at Club Moto (see the link below) and he also gives private lessons as his schedule allows. He's generally booked a couple weeks in advance. Group lessons are really only for groups of riders that he's worked with before, and who want to work on the same things in the group lesson.
So my son and I signed up for 4 hours of individual lessons, and berkeboy went first for 2 hours, and then I went second for the last 2 hours. Except for the part where I got worn out after about an hour and a half, so Energizer Bunny berkeboy took the last 30 minutes for me. Man, it is so much more tiring to ride drills and focus on one part of the track at a time. When you ride a track, there are places where you can relax a little and catch your breath. But Terry would have us work on one set of turns over and over while we practiced a skill (like braking and shifting while standing and sitting into the turn, etc.). You just don't get much time to relax, unless there's a jump in the part of the track you're practicing on.
Anyway, we started the lessons with Terry looking over our bikes and helping us tune up the position of the controls. He explained why you should have the levers up more level with the bars, instead of angling down. It's a little harder on your wrists, but he showed us how we should be holding the handgrips for maximum control in the bumps. I'd never understood the combination of high elbows and high levers before, but now it kind of makes sense. We went over the attack/balanced position with the bikes on stands, and talked about balance transitions for accel/decel. Then we talked about foot position on the pegs, and Terry asked to see the bottoms of our boots. You couldn't really see anything on our soles to tell where we ride on the pegs, so Terry turned his boot over and Holy Cow! There were torn out divots in the middle of his soles that must have been like 3/8" deep! I asked Terry later in the day how long he'd had those boots, and he said "about 3 months" !!
Terry explained that when he starts working with riders like us, he focuses on standing, balance, turns and line choice, braking, and shifting. And learning to do all of those together at various parts of the track. He took berkeboy out and let him ride a few laps, and then took him to a set of corners to work on standing, braking and cornering. With my help watching out for other riders, Terry would have him ride the set of turns over and over (with a shortcut where I was standing to get him back to the set of turns), and then Terry would pull him off and give him some pointers and things to try. Then he'd move to a different set of turns and work on variations. You could see a big difference in my son's riding by the end of the first 2 hours. Neither of us were any good with our rear brake going into MX turns before, but now he was actually getting a lot smoother braking in, sitting and riding the Bostard line through turns. Pretty cool to watch.
After a break, it was my turn. Terry had me ride around some so he could watch, and then he pulled me over to talk about what he was seeing. Basically I wasn't using the rear brake much at all, and my balance was off through most transitions. To emphasize the balance thing, Terry had me ride a few laps standing the whole way. The object is to learn to balance yourself on the pegs as you brake, turn, accelerate and jump, and to stay balanced through the transitions for all of those things. Boy, was I a dork! In addition to seeing how much I need to work on my balance transitions, I discovered that I basically couldn't shift while I was standing, at least not easily and naturally. Oops! As we worked more on transitions from standing/braking to sitting and turning, I also discovered that my right boot toe was sticking on the brake lever as I tried to scoot it sideways off the lever. Come to find out that my Tech-6 boots have little holes in the bottom of the metal toe piece! How stupid! The serrations on the brake lever catch on the holes, so you basically have to lift your foot up to get your toe off the lever. Dumb. So I'm going to make something smooth to cover the right toe piece and use a couple other cool tips from Terry to make it so I can just slide my toe off at the end of braking. I could use this as an excuse to get better boots, but I think I'll save the cash for more MX lessons with Terry -- much better payback!
So like I said, I got worn out good by the end of about 90 minutes, and let Terry work more with berkeboy. Wow, we sure got a lot out of these first lessons, and after we practice all of this for a month or two, we plan to take another set of private lessons from Terry. He teaches mostly at Club Moto and Sand Hill in the Livermore area. If you're in the NorCal area and want to improve your riding a LOT (at any level), I highly recommend Terry Bostard. He's especially good with kids, and he coaches a number of the local fast guys.
Terry said that he now has a 2nd pro rider helping him with the monthly free intro MX lessons at Club Moto, so I think we'll try to make the next one on April 3rd. Terry also said that there's a special treat for the June 5th class -- he mentioned the name of a guest pro racer who was going to be helping (maybe Rodney Smith, or another GNCC racer, but I forget the name -- sorry). We'll definitely try to make that one.
BTW, one of the biggest treats of the day is getting to watch Terry ride. He was the CMC Northern California pro champ for several years back in the mid-80s, and he is incredibly fast and smooth. When he would demonstrate how to ride a set of corners for each of our drills, his CRF450 looked like it just plain had "happy feet" underneath him. Way cool to watch. And at the end of our lessons, he did some hot laps of the big track, and you could just see the crowd at the track sit back and watch how it's supposed to be done. Relaxed, smooth, flowing, and very very fast. Jeeze, he must've been doing like 80mph down the back straight WFO and then showing how braking is done all the way into the right-hand hairpin at the bottom. Smooth and relaxed all the way, and really cool to watch in the air. Man, that's how it's done!
-Mike and James Berke, posted on thumpertalk.com