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Thanks ID. Still waiting for the summer lol. The bike is fine thanks. There was not any damage done. I managed to cushion t with my leg, lol.
Excellent write ups and pictures, Radar. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all three parts. Cracking stuff mate.
The scooter is Burgman 125. Its a new one I bought for Sandra. Hope I don’t get this one nicked, lol
Hi ya mate. welcome to the forum.
Why don’t you just do a CBT and take it from there if you like it, afterwards.
lol, if Sandra keeps putting my Mobile in the wash, I’d lose those anyway. My last phone sleeps with the fishes.
I think what I did was to nod saying it was safe for him come out. Had no right to take responsability for his safety.
Curiously enough I was caught out by something almost the same when I was in West Germany. I was the one coming out of side road. Another driver needed to enter the side road but couldn’t until I came out as it was too narrow. He waited, I came out and was hit by a car overtaking him. They don’t have the caveat of not overtaking near junctions as we do here and I was the one deemed at fault.
Part 12.
I have come to despair of bike riding ability sometimes. A few months ago, while doing the usual checks before going to overtake a lorry I came to do the final lifesaver and I was shocked to find another rider sitting broad on my starboard quarter. I never realised he was there and have been plagued with ‘what ifs… ‘, ever since. This and other numerous incidences in the past prompted me to attend a Bike Safe course with the West Midlands Police. Two of my mates from the bikers-café forum were on the same course as well. They were Champs and Gone2Mars. G2M was not strictly there by choice but it did save him a fine and 3 points.
I turned up on the morning of the course attired in my usual Suzuki GSXR Shoei helmet, tattered textile jacket worn over blue and white one piece leathers, worn sliders on my knees and worn bike boots sporting toe sliders. As I walked into the cafeteria where we all were to await the start of the course, I felt my assembled peers thinking, “Looks like we got a right one here, and thinks he’s a Rossi!” I was beginning to feel about as welcome as the one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse at the second coming of Christ. My leathers are worn because I’ve come off a few times; they weren’t new when I bought them anyway. I bought them from my DAS instructor. My bike boots are old ones off eBay and Gix who thought my leathers didn’t quite look the part without them donated the worn sliders to me. Gix being Gix had worn them down quite a bit. I always look on them and the sliders on my boots as additional sets of crash bobbins anyway. My Shoei helmet is my one indulgence. It’s not because of the colour, though that’s nice too, but because it fits well and is very light in weight. Something my neck with the not fully recovered whiplash from my first accident two years ago is grateful for.
After I met up with champs and G2M, we spent the morning in the classroom learning a lot. After some lectures, we were shown an interactive DVD, in which there was shown an identical accident to mine that happened two weeks after I passed my CBT coincidently, and we then had a lecture on First Aid from a paramedic motorcyclist, Flipper. Then it was lunch.
For the assessed riding in the afternoon, we went out on the road two of us to each police motorcycle rider. I and another more elderly fellow were assigned to a police motorcyclist called Marcus. He was an inspiration as well as a font of knowledge and good advice. The type of person you would like to distil into a book so that you could take it out and read from time to time. This was the fellow who collared G2M coincidentally. I was amused at the thought that G2M and I should swap, and jokingly suggested such but G2M was reluctant for some strange reason. I can’t imagine why.
As we had no bike-to-bike communications the plan was for Marcus to ride behind the one in front and when he wanted us to take a particular direction, he would use his indicators to direct us that way. This called for us to be very observant behind and I made sure when a junction was coming in the distance to religiously look behind to see if a direction change was required.
There was a brief inspection of our bikes before we set off and Marcus suggested that I replace the tyres pretty soon. The rain was coming down in torrents by now and it was lucky that I had my textile jacket over my leathers. We started off from the West Midlands Police Training College in Birmingham and proceeded down Pershore Road, A414. The other fellow was leading at first and after a few wrong turnings from the failure to notice Marcus’s signals; we manage to get onto Alcester Road South, the A435, and proceeded south. The weather made visibility very hard when riding, my visor misted up and got too wet for my by then sodden gloves to clear it. When I rode with the visor open, the same thing happened with my glasses. I being me started to get left behind at first and I had to do naughty miles per hour to catch up. We turned onto the A4189 westwards and had a bit of a pit stop to shelter from the worsening rain. Marcus was very amused as I wrung out my gloves, resulting in a deluge of collected rainwater. When it eased off a bit, we continued east along the A4189 towards Henley in Arden. Before we continued though, Marcus took some time out to give the other fellow that we were with, some coaching on slow riding. He had just bought a new R1 and I think had not completely mastered the changes from his previous bike to a sports bike.
After a while we were back on the road with me leading and heading east.. I had a word with Marcus beforehand to tell him that I would be going slowly. I’ll bet he didn’t realise how slowly I meant. I made a mistake right away by not stopping and putting my foot down at a white line before joining the carriageway. I half suspected I’d be getting some points at the end of the day for that infraction The A4189 is a nice easy road for the inexperienced rider. Some nice bends but none that is too severe. I use it now for my ‘scenic route’ ride home from work. After a while on the A4189, we turned off onto some narrow country lanes. Marcus was a bit nervous about my positioning on bends on these roads. Rather than keep to the inside where I had limited vision or keep the outside where I would have the most vision but not leave myself time to get out of the way of any car that should come flying around the corner, I ended up riding in the middle where all the detritus was. He said to me later that he kept saying to himself, “Get off it! Get off it!” He said I was very gentle on the controls though, which helped a lot. Marcus also said my rear observation was good as we didn’t take a wrong turning once, except when I true to form miscounted and took the wrong exit at a roundabout. Marcus came up beside me, circled his finger and then put three fingers up meaning he wanted me to take the third exit at the next roundabout. I took the wrong one of course and had to turn around to catch up with them after they had taken the right exit. I blame the fact that my counting is impaired because long age I lost some of my little finger on the right hand and now I can only count up to nine and a half.
My concentration was going at the end of the afternoon when I unnecessarily braked as a bus pulled up a distance ahead. The thing was that it was before a raised zebra crossing and the forks bottomed out as I hit it. I got away with it though much to Marcus’s expressed surprise later on. I mentioned to him my concentration was going, as I was slightly concerned, and all he said was he was not surprised, as we have been riding all afternoon. In other words, stop whinging and get on with it. Fatigue robbed me of the memory of the return route, I’m afraid.
Then it came to the assessment at the end of the afternoon. We were assessed on eleven points. Only four of mine, Observation, Low speed control, Acceleration and Cornering were satisfactory. The other seven, Moving off, Stopping, Gears, Braking, Signals, Positioning and Overtaking, were rated as good which I thought was not too bad all things considered. Marcus said I was very cautious, but was impressed that I would not be pushed into riding faster than I felt safe and that I was at the level he would expect for someone with only a year of riding experience. The main advice he gave me was to get more miles under my belt and then go for some advanced training. As Marcus is the Institute of Advanced Motorists coordinator for the West Midlands area I’m thinking of the IAM for the next step in learning after I have gotten more experience.
The course was excellent and run very well. It was great value for only fifty pounds. The instructors were excellent and our assessor Marcus was a pleasure to meet. I would highly recommend the Bike Safe course to anyone wanting to further his or her training.
…And G2M, the lucky git, won the raffle.
