Learning To Ride VIII - DAS Training & Test

Note: If you can’t be bother reading the epic journal below, and to be honest I wouldn’t blame you, the bottom line… I FAILED!! , sorry you’ll have to read the rest if you want to know why….

On Saturday I started my three (well two and a half) days Direct Access training. Three days on a 500cc bike preparing for my test on the Monday afternoon. So how did that go?

Well, not great…..

In the 1st 10 minutes of the ride my instructor said to me and I quote “You were wondering when your test was on Monday, well if you keep riding like that it won’t matter because we won’t be putting you forward for it”, there’s some positive reinforcement for you…

What was a doing wrong? Well mainly “Lifesaver’s” (a final look over your shoulder, usually right, before you commit yourself to a manoeuvre), and mirror checks.

So that was pretty easy to fix, check my mirrors and do lifesavers. By the end of the 1st day everything there was fine.

Unfortunately that’s not where my problems really lay, my biggest crux is Slow Control. e.g. U-Turns, tight turns left/right etc.

For starters, I’m not a great fan of the seating position on the 500cc bike, the handle bars are a lot further forward than on the 125cc or Katy’s BMW, meaning that I’m leaning some of my weight on my arms; not great for your confidence when you are trying to turn round tight corners.

Which leads to the real reason; when doing tight turns I have a habit of looking where I’m going, not where I want to be. Sounds a bit weird when you say it, but when your doing a u-turn or a tight left or right turn you should be looking down the road where you want to end up, which can be 45 degrees off of the direction you are actually travelling.

Now this is quite disconcerting when you are new to bike riding and are not convinced at your ability to control the bike at slow speeds. So I want to keep looking at the thing I might hit (e.g. kerb/parked car/on coming traffic, etc) to check that I don’t. Like my mother always told me “Look where your going!”, but when your riding a bike that means you probably will hit it (a bike has a habit of going where your looking) meaning that you loose your confidence of your ability to control the bike at slow speed, so you want to look at thing that you might….

Spotting the vicious circle yet?

So with this in mind…how did the test go?

Well unsurprisingly, I FAILED!

I’m actually quite glad I failed. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t ready by Monday, but I’m not disappointed that I failed. I knew fine well that I wasn’t ready and if I had passed I would have been a danger on the road!

So what did the examiner say, only a couple of things, though lots of faults because of them

1. Weaving right before turning left
2. Weaving left before turning right
3. Indicating

Well 1 and 2 we know about.

3?

I was too busy worrying about 1 and 2!

So what’s next?

Well because the test centres are so busy, I need to wait until the 28th to sit it again. Not leaving much time before the Highland Musical Safari!!

I do have a couple more days training where I can hopefully get some more experience and confidence though…..

• Sat 15th July :- DAS Road Rider Lesson
• Sun 23rd July :- DAS Road Rider Lesson
• Fri 28th July :- Practical Test (v2)