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Module 1 - members test experiences


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Very well done.......but I knew you would! Now the learning really starts...but....great!

Looking forward to seeing the new bike!

S23.

 

Just the tinsy mod 2 to knock out of the park before the Red Hornet makes its debut :thumb:

Ooops........ :oops: Me being previous again.....but just put it down to my amazing psychic powers of prescience..... :roll:


But that's the "hard" bit done. Every confidence for Mod 2. :thumb:

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Third time lucky I passed. I have no idea how as I put my foot down and stalled during the slalom but apparently that was a dab and only a minor so I'm not going to argue with them on that. I've freaking passed! :shock: :D 🥳🥳🥳

 

Well done. :thumb:

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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

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Hey [mention]Wakey638[/mention]


First off if a biker ever tells you they have never dropped their bike they are either lying or they have only been riding 5 minutes. We have all done it, it sucks balls but don't beat yourself up too much.


Second: Reasons we drop it:

Looking at the ground: you end up where you look, look down you're going down! Keep your head up and pick a spot in the distance to focus on

Going too slow: Unless you're a stunt rider controlling a bike at super slow speeds is a bitch. Especially when learning, try ensure you plan ahead enough to either come to a nice controlled stop on the line or avoid having to crawl along.

Going to slow when turning: This is a mega combination of the above 2 points! I stalled once on full lock... down I went! Again, when learning try to ensure your road positioning means you get some nice sweeping lines when turning rather than the dreaded 90 degree!

Bad footing: Now this one is a bit of a bugger because it's not always easy to see that dip in the road etc, however keeping your head up will help you assess the road condition at the point you will be stopping so if you need to re-position you can before you get there.

BEING SUPER NERVOUS AND TENSE! Again a bugger, because me saying relax!!!! it will make it so much easier is a shed load easier said than done, but try take same deep breaths and make sure your arms are nice and loose.


Don't give up, most of us have been through similar :cheers: OH also don't try rush it, nothing worse than pressure on yourself. Baby steps no one learns anything immediately

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Without seeing it's hard to say but when these events occurred what exactly were you doing, that's not sarcasm need to know to try to work it out.


The bike would be unstable if your doing nothing Ie rolling, if your going to stop then stop, use rear brake ride upto the point you want to stop, slipping the clutch and covering the rear brake, then stop and foot down.


Pulling away, don't dordle, get biting point, raise revs slightly, hold it on front brake, release brake, feed out clutch, foot up and out the road and away.


Practice starting and stopping with going slow in a straight line, do that a couple of hundred times over the course of a week, after a while it will sink in and you won't have to think about it, keep your head up and look straight ahead at a distant point, don't look at the ground or that's where you will end up.


Sort that out then come back for part 2 how to do a u turn.

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[mention]Wakey638[/mention] think about the physics. If there is power going to rear wheel the bike will keep going, even if you're in a full lock. You need to make sure you're slipping the clutch and keeping the revs around 3000rpm. 😂 It took me three attempts to pass the sodding mod 1 and I got quite good at the slow manuvers when I wasn't on the test pad. Practicing on the cbf will help but it's a big heavy bike so keep that in mind. I know [mention]SometimesSansEngine[/mention] dropped the bike a few times during his training and his instructor ended up making him do circles with his eyes shut just to prove to him it could be done. You can do it but just keep practicing until you feel more relaxed on the bike and as [mention]Bender[/mention] don't rush yourself.

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The fear of doing it again may be getting to you in all honesty - happens to us all as a self protect mechanism !


How are you with the slow straight ride ? I only ask as I found that once I could smash that then the rest was alot easier. Thats mainly as it echos the above - its gets you back to confidence with using all the controls you have, balance, confidence and looking far ahead.


I think once you have the confidence back then its comes alot easier. Saying that I was crap on a 125 for a while, got quite good and then went to the big bike and was crap again as I found the change in power, weight, clutch feel etc very hard work even though the principal was the same !


Seat time, looking ahead and self belief work wonders !

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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.

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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.

 

Just remember that you have less grunt on your 125. So what you need first for on that you will probably get away with 2nd on a big bike.


Having said that, any hazard where there is a chance I may need to stop I'll mostly slip down into first. It's the old adage, preparing to stop, looking for opportunities to go. It'll stop that last minute panic when you realise you need to stop and then a potential bike drop.

 

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. @Hoggs and @dynax suggested that I may be too slow, yep, that may be any issue, but I find my turning circles get wider with increased speed.

 

It is hard put you may find weighting your opposite peg to help lift your upper body helps, this will prevent you closing the throttle inadvertently and will also turn your chest in the direction your turning. Hard to explain, but don't panic about lifting the revs as you'll be controlling the speed with a combination of the clutch and rear brake. You can rev it to 7k revs, it'll sound horrible but with the right clutch control you'd still do the same speed (don't recommend this, obviously! :lol: )


You will go wider with more speed, but there is a definite better feeling of balance at a slightly higher speed, use the rear brake as necessary to tighten the turn. Have you seen the Roadcraft Nottingham vid where he has a trainee on the test pad?

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but I find my turning circles get wider with increased speed.

 

I found it was easier to just do a turn (at whatever speed I could) then work on getting it tighter and slower over time, rather than trying to do it slowly and tightly straight off the bat as you tend to fail more and then it gets annoying and frustrating and you swear a lot. But that's just me, people do learn in different ways

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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!

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Don't worry about exact revs you just need some, you can hear when it's too much :D , it's the slipping of the clutch that's going to stop it stalling.


No need to crawl upto the stop point, know where your going to stop and plan for it, if it's clear just ride on, if in doubt stop. You can then pull away, don't try to over think it to start with as it's a lot to take in, being indecisive causes more problems.

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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.

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One issue with all this [mention]Wakey638[/mention] is that it's a very hard to build up time doing it. After your test when you can ride your bike wherever you'll get lots of practice in. It's a bit different compared to learning to drive where you can go out accompanied by a licence holder as long as they passed their test over three years ago to do some more practice. So just keep doing what you're doing and know it'll come in good time :thumb:

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Might aswell add my experience in here now!


So I did my CBT last August, haven’t ridden since so booked in a DAS course with training all day Saturday and Sunday, then MOD1 this morning & MOD2 a week on Wednesday.


So arrived nice and early this morning to the training school at 7am, had a quick practice of figure of 8’s and u turns then it was a 10 or so mile ride to the test centre. Arrived there, stood around whilst the other person was doing their MOD1.


Finally my time came, remembered to do my Checks as I pulled off to head into the test area. Our test centre does tests in both directions so this time it was a left hand circuit. Luckily we had use of the area yesterday to practice going round both ways.


Done everything I needed to. Making sure he ALWAYS saw me doing my shoulder checks before pulling off. Test came to an end, went into the shelter to be told I have PASSED! 0 rider faults too. Very happy with that. Now got to wait 9 days until MOD2.


It really helped me to think it was just like yesterday’s practice exercise, and I could look back at my instructor before pulling off to make sure I remembered my checks. 50kph on avoidance and 52kph on emergency stop so pretty bang on with the required speeds!

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