Wakey638

Well, I took the bike up the farm lane and back a 'few' times last night. Did a lot of stop/starts and felt a lot happier. Almost didn't want to get on the thing but the wife just looked at me and said FFS, what's the worst you can do?? Fair point. (Although the lane does go over river... ) Did seem a lot smoother on the bite and trying to get the slow control, although, not too slow. The Notts Roadcraft mentioned a technique of wringing a towel which did make sense with me. Anyway, up and down the lane will be my 'thing' for a bit. Progress is made.

[mention]SometimesSansEngine[/mention] , cheers buddy! Lunch hour watching!

Good advice, [mention]SometimesSansEngine[/mention] , and I'll have a look Notts Roadcraft. Happy to except help from anywhere! Yeah, [mention]Hoggs[/mention] , swearing does feature a lot! I give the turning wide then tighter a go, that does make sense. Some stuff to try out tonight, I think. Practice, practice, practice!

Cheers folks, it's good to know that I'm not the only one to have dropped the bike! I had a good think about when I dropped it and I can say that I dropped it twice when I was attempting to stop. I believe I didn't stop where I intended to do so and that my foot went down but I had already traveled an extra 6 inches or so, at which point my leg would not be able to support the bike at that angle. Right. As [mention]Bender[/mention] said, I think it's time to practice starting and stopping on the cbf. And it's something I can do on the 125 too as, obviously, the principles are the same. I tried to be mindful of that this morning and promptly stalled the 125 at a junction... I don't really want to be crawling up to a junction in 1st so that'll need work. Slow control, hmm, yeah... I know I don't have enough revs but trying to find 3k revs without blimping back and forth seems to be an issue. That may be because I'm too tense on the upper body, which isn't going to help with any of the slow control. [mention]Hoggs[/mention] and [mention]dynax[/mention] suggested that I may be too slow, yep, that may be any issue, but I find my turning circles get wider with increased speed. [mention]Magpie84[/mention] , I might also be heading towards a couple of attempts at passing. At this point I'd just be glad to have a shot! Thanks again to all that put forth suggestions and support, it really does help.

Well, this seems to be the place to share stories of our motorbike woes! I am having a few problems, to say the least. I'm 49 and passed my cbt back in October and been doing alight, been quite happy with my progress and even the wife is happy with how I'm doing (biker). I've had practice on her CBF and I'm feeling good about this. So it's time to book in my MOD 1 course, I think I'm ready. I start my first day and it's going okayish, I am having trouble with slow control but I think I can overcome it. But I drop the bike on the u-turn, not to worry, crack on, but confidence is a little shaken. We go down to the test centre to have a play for a couple of hours and, again, slow control is an issue but instructor is fairly happy we can iron it out. We then travel back up to our training area about 30 mins away. We're 50 metres from the training area and I come to a roundabout, no bother, I go to stop as there is traffic and somehow lose my balance and I'm under the bike. Had to helped up, bike is damaged and I had to push it back. Instructor correctly informs me that he's not prepared to continue with me and that I'm binned off the MOD 1 course and my test will be cancelled as he has concerns about my ability to ride safely (which I agree with). I am a gutted, and mortified that I dropped the bike (twice!). The training school wants to continue with me and I'm scheduled in a weeks time to have a half day course to concentrate on my slow control, and I'm booked in again for my MOD 1 in a months time (Dear God, the cost!) The wife (God bless her patience) and I go out at the weekend so I can get some more time on her CBF aannnnd guess what? Yep, again. Luckily she doesn't really care about the bike as her main ride is a Street Triple but, Flipping Heck bikes are spending more time on the floor than upright with me! My confidence is shot and my slow control is terrible. How the heck do I pull this back?? Advice and ridicule gratefully received! Wakey638