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My Little Journey - Mod 2 PASSED!!


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Hello everyone (or no-one :lol: )


So I'm beginning my little journey to get onto 2 wheels at last! Thought I'd start a little thread where I can document all my goings on and first impressions and visions for the future and hopefully make a note of some tips for anyone that might come across this, as well as somewhere to keep a track of my own progress and look back on for nostalgia :)


So about me. I'm 29 at the moment, i'll be 30 this November and my wife asked if I wanted a party...no I want a motorbike. Surprisingly that worked and so here I am about to get started, at last. My Dad and Uncle have rode bikes most of their lives, my dad sold his last one to help my sister go to university and has never got back on since, he says he's too old, secretly I am hoping he might think about getting back on because I'd love to go for a ride with him.


Similarly a lot of my friends ride bikes but its just never been practical enough or made enough sense for me to do it. I was in a lot of bands when I was younger then I've had two kids since and a bike, although something I've wanted, I could never justify. But I am now in a position that I don't need to justify it, I can do it for myself and enjoy it.


So here we go....

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Theory Test - 10/6/17 PASSED


So I passed my car theory test first time when I learnt to drive, and I actually passed my theory test originally for the bike 2 years ago. But due to the wife getting pregnant I never acted on it after that until now, when it's expired :roll:


So I booked my theory test and did that on the 10th June, 3 weeks ago, ready for getting stuck right into the practical training and tests. I'm happy to say I passed that first time, scored 47/50 in the questions and a healthy 66/75 on the hazard perception. I'll admit though that I took advantage of the wife a little with this, because she was practicing at the same time to do her car theory test so we were both bouncing questions of each other and helping each other (she passed first time too :thumb: )


Tips

I've mentioned in another post about the hazard perception but I'll mention it here. Also this is in no way going to guarantee you pass, but this is how I approached it and what I did in my tests.


I'll focus on that because I know that's where most people seem to lose out on points and often fail, and my wife came incredibly close, scoring bang on 44 which is the pass mark. The multiple choice questions I think if you have any degree of common sense are absolutely no problem whatsoever.


Anticipate the hazard - So what I've found with the modern HP tests, with them being more animated than actual videos, is that the animations very clearly lead you to the hazard you should be clicking for. Some examples from memory were a dual carriage way, travelling in the left hand lane and seeing a car at a junction wait to come out, I would say 7/10 times that that car will pull out on you creating the hazard. Similarly, driving down a clear road with a junction ahead, expect a car to just come into view in the side road joining your main road, and then expect it to just ignore you and drive right out in front creating the hazard.


When to click - The key is when you do recognise these hazards, when do you click? I personally took a 3 click approach. So when I initially identified the car on that side road, or the car at the junction, or the cyclist in front of me, I'd click, as the hazard develops (and its a pretty quick development) I'd click again then I'd leave it a second and click again. This meant I've given myself 3 opportunities to score points.


Don't click everything - Another piece of advice is not to click EVERY hazard you spot, I know it tells you this but a lot of people still over click and score nothing for the clip. This is tricky sometimes as you may genuinely think that that is the hazard but it isn't and that's why you have to watch for something developing beyond what "could" happen. I remember one clip I got in practice where there was a group of kids playing with a ball next to a road, so I clicked (what if the ball comes onto the road) but then nothing happened in the next few seconds so I left it and sure enough the hazard was at the end of the clip.

__________________________________________________________________________________________


So looking forward from here, with my theory test in the bag, I've got my CBT this coming weekend on Saturday 1st July, followed immediately by my Mod 1 (DAS) training on the Sunday 2nd July, then my first Mod 1 attempt on Tuesday 4th July. I'll aim to update this post as/when I've done each day, almost like a blog and hopefully throw some information out there that I pick up and let people know my own experiences.


If you've read all that, you must be pretty bored! If you took something away from that then I hope it does help you out. Like I said at the beginning this is just kind of my little story to tell with my own experiences and tips/hints/cheats, but if I can help someone that'd be awesome.


Ta ta for now though, :cheers:


CBT Completed -1/7/17 Post #17 Pg.2


CBT Reflections from my point of view Post #18 Pg.2


Mod 1 Passed - 4/7/17 Post #35 Pg. 3


Mod 1 Reflections and experience - Post #77 Pg. 6

Edited by madcow87
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Good luck for the weekend!

Have fun, look where you are wanting to go, keep smiling (even if you keep stalling it for no reason...) and remember - Indicators! :lol:


Have you been thinking about what kind of bike you would like?

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Good luck for the weekend!

Have fun, look where you are wanting to go, keep smiling (even if you keep stalling it for no reason...) and remember - Indicators! :lol:


Have you been thinking about what kind of bike you would like?

 

Cheers Arwen, I learnt long ago from my mountain biking that I need to look where I want to go! :lol: TO be honest I hope that some of my time spent riding a push bike around comes in handy in my attitude on the road in general, and as for indicators I've no problem turning them on...however I will have to get used to cancelling them myself!!


I have been going through endless bikes that I'd like once I've passed, admittedly I've had my heart set on sports bikes from the off, I've always just loved the look of a full faired bike, the ZXRs and GSXRs are the immediate ones that come to mind. However I have recently started looking around and have really taken to the idea of a Ducati Monster (696/796), along the same vein I quite fancy something along the lines of a Street Triple, MT07 or the ER6Ns, all those bikes I kinda like the look of and I feel like they're maybe a slightly more sensible choice for my first bike.


That said though, I'm gonna be sitting on anything and everything over the next few weeks to really get a feel for what I'd like. Shallow as it may seem I have to be excited by the bike to look at it, I'm the same with cars, being excited to look at the bike makes me want to enjoy the ride/drive.


Thanks for the luck, hopefully I don't need it :cheers: :cheers:

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Just to prepare you.... full faired supersports with 0 NCB will result in you possibly having a little bit of a cry over the insurance. Luckily you don't live anywhere stupid (like London) but run some quotes just to prepare yourself! (also it's totally worth selling your kidney for a supersports bike if you want one :lol: )

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Oh it's not shallow to want a bike you like to look at. Bikes are way more about that than cars in my view!


The monsters are nice bikes, I looked at a few. My partner also has a little 620 monster in the garage. I like it but it likes to stab my calf muscle with its pointy little foots pegs every time I put a foot down! :-) Insurance for me as a new rider on it was reasonable, surprisingly.

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Cheers guys as a bit of preparation I have got some quotes and on supersports they do tend to be a bit more, initial quotes on ZXRs and GSXRs have come in around the £400-450 mark, which is double my car insurance but I thought was pretty good considering 0 NCB. For bikes like the Monster and MTs the qutoes I've had are around the £300 mark which is better still and I'm a sucker for a Ducati :P

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£400 - 500 with No NCD. That's one of the advantages of living in the Lake District.


Then you have the beautiful roads. :thumb:

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£400 - 500 with No NCD. That's one of the advantages of living in the Lake District.


Then you have the beautiful roads. :thumb:

 

Very fortunate to live where I do as far as the roads go mate. Some absolute beauties around here!


As for the insurance there really isn't any sort of car/bike theft to speak off, maybe one/ two bikes a year and that's about it, literally never hear of any theft. So the only time a claim is made its because its some twonk in a car isn't paying attention somewhere. Fingers crossed I've only ever been involved in one accident driving (got rear ended by a pregnant woman :shock: ) fingers crossed I can take that record onto 2 wheels!!

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good luck for yer tests coming up :)

Cheers mate I appreciate it [emoji3]


So a few days out and I've had an email from my training school just giving me a heads up of what to expect and the running order for everything we'll be doing over the next week or so.


Nothing I've not heard/seen mentioned before but they have been very strong on communication since I arranged all the dates with them, really keeping me in the loop and reassuring me, even from a few weeks out. Hopefully this all translates to a great experience come time to rock and roll.


Sent from my F3111 using Tapatalk


 

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Great right up, the hazard perception is a bit weird but you are right, multiple clicking is the way as things are happening, it's like a game really. I'm sort of on a similar path as you at the moment but I need to sort booking the DAS so it's interesting to see someone else's journey too.


You will have a full on weekend going from CBT to mod 1 but it will be fun. Have you ridden before? I hadn't and was wiped out after doing my CBT.

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Great right up, the hazard perception is a bit weird but you are right, multiple clicking is the way as things are happening, it's like a game really. I'm sort of on a similar path as you at the moment but I need to sort booking the DAS so it's interesting to see someone else's journey too.


You will have a full on weekend going from CBT to mod 1 but it will be fun. Have you ridden before? I hadn't and was wiped out after doing my CBT.

 

Thanks mate hopefully the post might be useful to others in a similar position too!! Good luck with your quest for two wheels too mate you're a step ahead of me for now :lol:


As for previous riding, no not really. Other than tearing around a local beach when I was a kid (probably a bit longer ago than I care to admit) and running up and down car parks getting a feel for bikes I've never spent any significant time riding. So there's that to look forward to!!

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Hey guys, so I did my CBT today, and it was possibly the best experience on a road I've ever had. So first off...


TL;DR - I "passed" my CBT and received some very confidence inspiring words from the instructor heading into my training tomorrow.


What I'm going to do is give an account of what I did and my experience. Then I'm gonna follow it up with some personal reflection afterwards, so anyone thinking of doing the same thing as me in a similar situation can maybe understand a little more, even though obviously everyone handed it different. Also I'm writing this on my phone so I apologize if its poorly formatted, I'll get on my laptop later and polish it up a bit [emoji38]


So here we go...



We met at the local 6th Form college car park and was introduced to the instructors. All friendly, brief chat while we waited for late comers about any previous riding experience. The CBT instructor, Andy, was obviously trying to see what he was dealing with [emoji38]


So there was me, 29 years old with essentially no experience but a fair amount of theoretical Knowledge. An older lad in his 50s that uses his 125 to run around on errands and has been repeating his CBT every 2 years for the last 8 years. Finally there was a lad, 34, who had been riding a 50cc ped around and was doing his geared bike work to make his commute a little easier.


These other two lads both used their own bikes, I used one of the school's YBR125's. And I scoped out the bike I'd be doing my DAS with...a Suzuki 650.


Intro & Car park work


So like all CBTs I guess, we followed a standard format and had a chat about safety, wearing the correct gear, how to behave on the road and had an introduction to the controls on the bike. The advantage early on was that with the other lads having done this before and ridden a while on the roads, most of the information was aimed at me, and during this time the instructor established I had a pretty good base to build on, what i didnt expect was how little one of the other lads knew about the bike he was riding.


Heading onto the car park, again most of the instruction was aimed at me being the novice of the group. I picked up the basic setting off, controlled stop and was up and down the first 3 gears pretty quickly so we moved on to some basic manouvres. Figure 8 I took to very well, but for some reason I couldn't translate that same control other to doing the U turn. I cracked it after a couple of gos though and moved on to junctions.


This was when one of my main bugs came apparent. typical car driving behavior really, indicators. Specifically though, canceling them! This continued into the road ride were I needed a prompt after negotiating a junction to cancel the damn thing.


We tidied up the cones and moved onto the emergency stop, something I'll be honest, I wasnt too excited for. After a couple though i realized how easy it was, and how easy it was to lol the back wheel, must avoid that.


So we had a brief intro to the additional instructor that would be on the road with us, then had a 20 minute break for lunch.


Road ride


It was time for the bit I was most excited for. we got kitted up with the headsets (bane of my life) and got set to go. the older lad with us went with the new instructor (bit of an "old friends" situation) and me and the other younger lad went with our instructor from the morning session.


Wow. There's honestly not much more i can say. it was everything I'd hoped it would be. I've been on the back of bikes for years, but I never thought riding it would be THAT much better!


We travelled around a few local lanes and some quiet housing estates for junction practice and some slow manoeuvres practice. during which I couldn't stop grinning like the Cheshire Cat!


I had some hiccups, mostly with approach to junctions. I sometimes over stepped shifting down and ended up pogoing the bike a little exiting the turn, and I was getting told a lot when stopped to hold the rear brake, but then when I set off for whatever reason my brain switched off and I was dragging the rear brake (something else I need to concentrate on).


So we headed back to debrief...my first proper cock up...entering back to home base, the bikes were stored securely out the way but to get there, you have to ride up a little road onto a gravel car park...came over the last speed bump before the hill up to this carpark and realised I was absolutely not in the right gear for this...tried to stab down a couple of gears an stalled as we hit the bottom of this bloody hill. Brakes, clutch, start the bike, perfect opportunity for a hill start! Ride up to the top car park and park up.


CBT complete. "Pass" if it exists :lol:


Following picking up my certificate, I stayed behind asking my instructor for some advice going forward as tomorrow I'm jumpig on the big bikes for my taste of the big boy toys. He said the only things I need to be careful of, are getting lazy with the clutch (which happened towards the end of the ride) and dragging the back brake as I mentioned. By the end of the ride I'd got into my head I needed to turn off the indicators myself


We got talking with the instructor who will be doing my big bike stuff to make sure he knows what to watch me on as well. But other than those couple of things my instructor today was confident that I'd be fine. The best compliment I received was about half hour after getting on the road we'd pulled over and the instructor said "its hard to imagine you've never rode a bike on a road before." Apparently my confidence, positioning and observations were excellent.


So yeah overall an absolutely belting day and I can't wait to get stuck in tomorrow!


Sent from my F3111 using Tapatalk

Edited by madcow87
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So a bit of reflection to follow up.


As I think I've said already, I've been driving for about 10 years, never had an accident, no points, no claims, nothing. During the years I've had a lot of young apprentices in work taking there driving tests and whatnot so I've always kind of had a finger in the pie so to speak as far as road law goes and I do kind of pride myself in being a save driver.


Alongside that, a lot of my family/friends have rode bikes, I've always been around them, and I absolutely love motorbike racing.


My job is within engineering which I really find interesting so the mechanics of a bike and the goings on intruige me and I've always been interested in how a bike differs to a car on the road and the approach they take. So I came into the CBT with a lot of that safety stiff already ingrained in me and was very conscious of these things.


Because of this, I excelled with the observation aspect and doing shoulder checks. My instructor initially on the road ride instructed me to do a check but I was doing it as he was suggesting it and from then on all he really did was try to catch me out, pleased to say he didnt. so I would say this is one habit that's easy to get into, and well worth if your a driver already and wanting to head onto 2 wheels.


One telling sign I noticed of how you're going to get on, even at this stage is how you position yourself and how happy you are to wind the throttle open. It shows a lot of confidence if you'll open it up when you need to and if you'll maintain that central road position in town/traffic. If you struggle with these things and go a bit timid at the thought of it, you may need to consider if its the right choice, because 30 on a bike feels a damn sight quicker than 30 in a car!


Maintenance. Seriously its somewhat alarming how little these lads knew in terms of maintenance and how a bike works. I'm not talking a valve clearances and cam angles, I'm talking about why we have tread in tyres, importance of having the chain at the right tension in good condition etc etc I might be wrong but that seems basic to me. Its OK to not know this stuff, but when you've been riding for 2 years surely you've needed to consider these things?


Clutch control and rear brake control for manoeuvering is easy, but easy to get it wrong as well. I read loads of experiences before I got in there and understood this stuff easily and it made sense but it can be easy to get it wrong.


I personally found the controls all quite intuitive and similar to operating a car (obviously as far as the clutch/throttle go). The only thing I struggled with sometimes was occasionally when moving my foot to shift up, I'd clip the lever and shift down, then obviously I just started up up down up down and had no idea where I was. Try to be as clean and precise with all your motions and try to be as smooth as is humanly possible, and dont be worried about how quickly you do these movements.


Advice time, just some small things to consider...


Dont go into it thinking you'll be dangling legs, scraping knees and getting your head down. You won't. You'll wobble around a bit and try your best to build your confidence.


Dont dismiss ANYTHING your instructor says. Nothing is personal, he wants you riding a bike, he just wants you to do it safely. What he's doing is critiquing your very basic abilities to help you improve.


Whilst we're on the subject of instructors, dont be a dick. The other young lad with me was a dick. He made an excuse for everything he did wrong, he answered back some smart are comment every time the instructor gave him some advice and just generally made it a bit awkward. The tit arrived on his own bike, trying to disguise the fact he wasn't wearing any gear by wearing a full Richa rain suit, and with his helmet not fastened...just saying.


Which leads us nicely onto what to wear. I wore my textiles with thermal liners in, they removed at dinner time (best decision of the day), boots, gloves and helmet...in contrast someone doing their Mod 1 training arrived with trainers (no socks), skinny jeans, a tee shirt and a soft shell jacket...he got told to go home and get his gear on.


All in all, be realistic about your ability and experiences and dont be worried about cocking up and making a tit of yourself, just enjoy it and it'll be amazingly rewarding!


If anyone has read all that and is in a similar situation to myself, and want some advice before you go in ask, ask me, your mate, anyone on here, people will tell you. They'll help, bikers want to see more bikers. these guys today we're all just discussing biking and what bikes they wanted, asking what we wanted to do and it was awesome!


Sent from my F3111 using Tapatalk


 

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Fantastic mate sounds like you had a fantastic day. I felt the same as you when I finished, absolutely buzzing!


Good luck with the mod 1 training tomorrow, I found the bigger bike easier than the 125. My cbt trainer let me ride an mt07 rather than the125 for the road part of the cbt which was great.


Looking forward to your update tomorrow!

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Fantastic mate sounds like you had a fantastic day. I felt the same as you when I finished, absolutely buzzing!


Good luck with the mod 1 training tomorrow, I found the bigger bike easier than the 125. My cbt trainer let me ride an mt07 rather than the125 for the road part of the cbt which was great.


Looking forward to your update tomorrow!

 

Thanks mate I absolutely did have a great day!! Looking forward to getting going tomorrow now. Very cool that the school let you have a go on the big bikes!! I have heard a lot of people say that the big bikes are a little easier to ride, so I'll see how that translates tomorrow :thumb:

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Lookin forward to getting going today, spent some time last night on youtube trying to work out what i need to be doing to correct my issues yesterday. Gonna work with my instructors to get a better idea as well and hopefully I get on well with the big bike today [emoji16]


Sent from my F3111 using Tapatalk


 

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So a really quick stock take from today. It was a hard day at the office today.


I'm feeping positive but it hasn't gone too smoothly and I'll either update with a post tonight or tomorrow morning. For now I'm having a beer and I'll be enjoying a takeaway later tonight with the wife and kids [emoji38]


Sent from my F3111 using Tapatalk


 

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Sounds ominous. I look forward to hearing the full story.

I'm currently writing a bit of a report now and I'll copy and paste it shortly lol but yeah it was a tough day.


Sent from my F3111 using Tapatalk


 

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