Chris Birch

This entry is part 11 of 19 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #14

Most Australians will know Auckland-based Chris Birch, 35, as the rider in that frigging awesome KTM1190 video on YouTube. Those a little better informed will also know the lanky Kiwi has a string of NZ enduro championships, a Roof Of Africa and a Dakar on his resumé, and that he does a lot of coaching and training.

When we heard Chris was not only in Australia, but here to do specific adventure-riding courses, we near spilled our coffee in our rush to get out and meet the bloke.

We found the irrepressibly cheerful KTM gun trying to devour a real Aussie burger – not one of those poofy Kiwi ones – and, except for us interrupting him, making it look as easy as he does a high-speed nose-wheelie on an 1190.

We barreled straight in and went after the good info, asking what prompted Chris to offer adventure training here in Australia.

“We’ve been over here for the last two years doing trailbike schools,” he said, trying to chew a wheelbarrow-sized mouthful of Aussie ground beef.

“The YouTube clip’s got a big following. We’ve been doing adventure schools in New Zealand, so we thought we’d give them a try in Australia.

The school we visited, in the Watagans of NSW, was fully subscribed. It was the second school for this visit, and the first had sold out as well, so obviously Chris’ is held in high regard by the adventure-riding community – as he should be.

There’s a lot of industry buzz around Chris and what he might be doing in Australia in 2016, and we tried to cunningly squeeze a little journalistic scoop from the smiling Kiwi.

“Everyone buys these adventure bikes,” he explained, politely sidestepping our enquiry, “but a lot of people are scared to take them too far off road, so we try to help people get the best value from their bikes.

“At the moment we’re just running Level One Schools,” he munched. “Just starting from the basics on how to ride a dirtbike off road, and taking some of the stuff I’ve learned from years of racing and transferring that on to adventure bikes. It’s basic principles of how to create traction, how to be stable on the bike…techniques that’ll allow the riders can take their adventure further.”

Hmm.

It wasn’t the inside scoop we were looking for, but it was good sensible stuff.

Chris was far too wily to fall for our carefully laid investigative traps, and he politely excused himself and went over to the group to begin the session.

It was an interesting coaching session to say the very least, and Chris has some strategies and ideas that will seem a little different to those many of us have been used to. But those strategies and ideas come from a world-class competitor with some very big results to look back on, so we soaked it up.

Watching Chris ride, our jaws hit the floor and our eyes could hardly believe what they were seeing.

If you want to know how Chris Birch can do some of the amazing things seen in his videos, log on to www.chrisbrich.co.nz and book in for some coaching.

And if you find out what he’s going to be doing in Australia next year, for crying out loud let us know.