With 12 years of coaching and nearly 600,000 miles of Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountain riding experience, Rider's Workshop founder, Jim Ford, introduces a new genre of motorcycling: mountain riding! The book offers Jim's take on the "art" of motorcycling mountain roads. Much of the training comes from years as a private pilot. Jim is instrument rated with plenty of flight hours. Riding well is never about riding fast! Instead, it's about developing a heightened sense of anticipation, precision, and situational awareness. The result is a much higher degree of proficiency, safety, and seamlessness on the controls. In story form, Jim describes the journey from "conscious incompetence" to "conscious competence" and upward toward the loftier realms of "unconscious competence," otherwise known as "the zone." Jim describes how to induce "the zone" nearly every time you ride. Jim also includes his Magical Mountainous Tour (MMT.) The MMT is 2000 mile crafted route encompassing the best "invisible roads" through the Blue Ridge Mountains. If becoming an expert rider plus curvy roads, inspiring scenery, and no traffic define your sense of a great ride, then The Art of Riding Smooth is for you!