Riding

Hard pack, sand and clay

Hard pack is the surface Loket is filed under, as hard-pack dirt in the Czech Republic. On a dry day the rut becomes a rail. In the rain the note says hard pack keeps its own feel, which in practice means the groove can go slick while the soil you just threw onto the berm is still loose. Brake earlier than the dry lap and do not assume the inside is faster just because Cheat! will happily give you the penalty for trying it. Sand is Riola Sardo in Sardinia. The berm blows out, the acceleration is longer, and a chopped throttle stands the bike up. Sand is the friendly place to learn a scrub because the landing forgives a flat one. Clay is the third name. It is not a synonym for Pietramurata. That Italian circuit is compact dirt, and the posts never call it clay. Clay is its own wet and dry behaviour. Until a note pins clay to a circuit, practise the word as a feel, not as a track label.

Volcanic soil at Bariloche is a fourth description from July, separate from the three-surface sentence in the launch post. Ride it as loose cover over a harder base. Compact dirt at Pietramurata is sharper than sand and is still not clay. The filter on the calendar page keeps those words apart on purpose. Rain does not turn every track into one surface. The launch line is that each of the three keeps a distinct wet character, so a wet Loket setup is a poor export to a wet Riola Sardo.

Ruts, weight and the Compound

Deformation is lap by lap. The first lap shows you the soil. The fifth lap shows you the line that soil will still allow. A rut that was a suggestion becomes a wall, and the wall is how Clean Rider gets failed: you either ride the rut and stay legal, or you jump the tape and take the penalty that also fills Cheat!. Superman, crossing the finish while falling off, is the other end of the same physics. The bike can leave you. The finish line still counts. Unicycle wants fifty metres of wheelie, which is a balance test on whatever rut you chose, and it is much calmer in the Compound than in a 20-rider MXGP start.

The Compound is free roam and, in the longer description, a multi-square-kilometre training area. Scrubs and whips are the drills it is for. James, Is That You? is a scrub of one metre or lower over a bump. Height is the whole icon. A pretty whip that floats does not count. Do the low one until it is boring, then take it to a race. Manual stand and sit belongs in the same session. Turn it on in the Compound, feel the front go light when you move up the tank, then decide if you want it in Time Attack. The default off position is how most players will set their first Gold badge for Practice Makes Perfect. Turning it on later is a new bike, which is also why Pro Bike Mechanic wants the setup saved before the win.

Assists, camera and a clean lap

Amateur through Expert is both an AI ladder and an assist profile. They share words and they are different controls. The AI ladder is who you race. The assist profile is how much the bike helps you. Hotshot is a race with none of that help. Trust Me, I'm an Expert is a win with the difficulty set to Expert, which can still include whatever assist the profile allows unless you also turned the profile down. Read the two icons separately before you spend an evening on the wrong switch. Four AI levels is the launch count. There is not a fifth hidden difficulty under Expert in the note.

First-person camera smoothing arrived in PC Update 1. Field of view still changes how much jitter you notice, so a wide FOV can bring the shake back even after the smoothing. If the helmet cam feels worse than the chase cam, change the FOV before you blame the patch. Seeing other riders online is also smoother after that update, which matters in a ten-rider lobby where the first corner is the whole race. Replay will show the contact. Photo mode will keep a still. Aesthete is the first snapshot and the only photo icon.

A practical order is Compound, then Time Attack, then a short race. Learn the low scrub and the wheelie where nobody is in the way. Price them with a Gold badge, on an MX2 bike if you also want 2 Fast for You!. Then take a race with no assist if Hotshot is the goal, or with Expert AI if that icon is the goal. Leave Speed Regulation Assist off. It was deactivated because it could stop the bike pulling away, and a riding guide that turns it back on is working against the patch. Handguards do not come off. Rider weight does move, once you enable stand and sit. The soil still wins if you ignore it.