Steam
4th February 2007, 15:36
On Saturday, Buckbuck and I did an Advanced Riding course with Andrew and Lynne at Roadsafe (http://www.roadsafe.co.nz), along with about 8 other non-kiwibikers.
It was great, I learned a lot!
I recommend it, even though it was quite an investment at $180 for the day.
After just one day my riding is safer, smoother and faster around corners, and I have a list of things to practise to make me a better rider in future.
I don’t know how much Buckbuck gained from it, as lots of the stuff we covered were skills he has already practised himself.
There were a good range of bikers there, from a cautious middle-aged woman GN125 rider, to a rider of 30 years who was coming in to update his skills, to a Mid-life crisis guy who had just bought a massive huge $20000 Harley and didn’t really know how to ride it.
Theory session:
Three hours, 9am to 12pm
In a classroom in Johnsonville we went over what we hoped to learn from the day, and then for about three hours Andrew showed some videos of riding skills, and went over the theory of “roadcraft”, being an advanced rider.
Skills we covered in this section included a demonstation of peripheral vision and tunnel vision, and how crap our periperal vision is for seeing details, how important it is to scan for hazards constantly.
We looked at positioning on the road, moving away from hazards like cars coming from side roads and people tailgating.
Recovering from wheel lockups under braking was an interesting lesson. You release the front brake if that happens to your front wheel.
But if you lock up the rear, you keep the rear brake ON until you skid-steer the bike into a straight line, where you can put power back on the wheel without risking it throwing you into a highside. Now THAT will take some practise, and I don’t think I really want to practise it too much.
The mantra “Think, See, Do” was repeated often, as was “Mirror, Signal, Headcheck” (Check your mirrors before moving, Signal your move with indicators, Check your blind-spots by moving your head.)
We touched on planning escape routes, thinking where to go from moment to moment if something goes wrong.
And we had a look at positioning yourself in the lane for good cornering and passing.
Then a quick lunch and we were off to a carpark in Petone for three hours of practical work.
Practical in Carpark
First we rode around at idle revs, using only our left hand to hold the handlebars and not touching the throttle at all. This was to see how good our balance was.
Here I discovered when riding at idle my gearbox makes a quiet but ominious grinding noise, which stops when I pull the clutch in. Oh dear…
Next we practised emergency braking.
1 Roll off the power.
2 Squeeze the front brake gradually.
3 Pull the clutch in
4 Rear brake on
5 Change gears down to first, to allow an emergency getaway if you need it.
We tore down the carpark at 50kph, and braked hard. I continually locked up my back wheel into a skid, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get my front brake to lock. Does this mean I need to do some maintenance on the front brakes? I’ll have a look this week and see what I can do to harden that up.
The guy on the Harley did some very smokey skids, and a couple of guys did some stoppies by accident, only 4 or 5 inches high, but still exciting for their first times.
Andrew jumped on one of the student’s Hyosung and stoppied it effortlessly 50cm or so high, which is pretty cool for just jumping on an unfamilar bike.
And a guy riding a 1970’s Honda locked the front wheel for a good four meters, and managed to keep it upright. Nice smoke and skidmark!!
Next we looked at countersteering.
I knew in theory what it was but I had never practised it.
Andrew the tutor lined up 10 orange cones and got us students to stand on them. Then he rode in and out between us at quite high speeds, which was pretty freaky actually, given that his bike is 300kg.
This was so we could see close up what countersteering is, what his arms and body were doing.
We jumped on our bikes and had a go ourselves, and soon mastered it.
We played a hazard-evasion game where we rode towards Andrew at 30kph through cones, until he signalled left or right or STOP, whereupon we would countersteer quickly that direction to simulate escaping from some nutty cager who had just pulled out on us.
Fun!
I was amazed, I was confused, countersteering is amazing! When you really focus on doing it the stranger it seems. And yet it’s totally instinctual, it’s just what your bike wants to do. INCREDIBLE!
The Ride
Finally we headed out on the Wainui Coast Road to practise what we just learned.
We split into two groups, the fast and slow group. Buckbuck and I were in the slower group, which was a good move. The fast group went quite fast apparently.
We stopped several times on the way to talk about our riding and go over what we were practicing.
At one point we were tailgated by a gang member in a red van, who obviously thought we were gang members too, as he did a U-turn right in front of us then tailgated very very close doing gang gestures with his hands for five minutes before fucking off to whatever Wainuiomata gangland he came from. I woulda thought the neon orange safety vests would've given him a clue that we weren't a gang?
We finished up by 5.30pm I think, but I had to go so it may have gone on longer perhaps, with drinks after?
So anyway, it was very good, highly recommended by me, and had lots of good stuff in it.
I'll be interested to see what Buckbuck got out of it, as he's done all this stuff before.
It was great, I learned a lot!
I recommend it, even though it was quite an investment at $180 for the day.
After just one day my riding is safer, smoother and faster around corners, and I have a list of things to practise to make me a better rider in future.
I don’t know how much Buckbuck gained from it, as lots of the stuff we covered were skills he has already practised himself.
There were a good range of bikers there, from a cautious middle-aged woman GN125 rider, to a rider of 30 years who was coming in to update his skills, to a Mid-life crisis guy who had just bought a massive huge $20000 Harley and didn’t really know how to ride it.
Theory session:
Three hours, 9am to 12pm
In a classroom in Johnsonville we went over what we hoped to learn from the day, and then for about three hours Andrew showed some videos of riding skills, and went over the theory of “roadcraft”, being an advanced rider.
Skills we covered in this section included a demonstation of peripheral vision and tunnel vision, and how crap our periperal vision is for seeing details, how important it is to scan for hazards constantly.
We looked at positioning on the road, moving away from hazards like cars coming from side roads and people tailgating.
Recovering from wheel lockups under braking was an interesting lesson. You release the front brake if that happens to your front wheel.
But if you lock up the rear, you keep the rear brake ON until you skid-steer the bike into a straight line, where you can put power back on the wheel without risking it throwing you into a highside. Now THAT will take some practise, and I don’t think I really want to practise it too much.
The mantra “Think, See, Do” was repeated often, as was “Mirror, Signal, Headcheck” (Check your mirrors before moving, Signal your move with indicators, Check your blind-spots by moving your head.)
We touched on planning escape routes, thinking where to go from moment to moment if something goes wrong.
And we had a look at positioning yourself in the lane for good cornering and passing.
Then a quick lunch and we were off to a carpark in Petone for three hours of practical work.
Practical in Carpark
First we rode around at idle revs, using only our left hand to hold the handlebars and not touching the throttle at all. This was to see how good our balance was.
Here I discovered when riding at idle my gearbox makes a quiet but ominious grinding noise, which stops when I pull the clutch in. Oh dear…
Next we practised emergency braking.
1 Roll off the power.
2 Squeeze the front brake gradually.
3 Pull the clutch in
4 Rear brake on
5 Change gears down to first, to allow an emergency getaway if you need it.
We tore down the carpark at 50kph, and braked hard. I continually locked up my back wheel into a skid, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get my front brake to lock. Does this mean I need to do some maintenance on the front brakes? I’ll have a look this week and see what I can do to harden that up.
The guy on the Harley did some very smokey skids, and a couple of guys did some stoppies by accident, only 4 or 5 inches high, but still exciting for their first times.
Andrew jumped on one of the student’s Hyosung and stoppied it effortlessly 50cm or so high, which is pretty cool for just jumping on an unfamilar bike.
And a guy riding a 1970’s Honda locked the front wheel for a good four meters, and managed to keep it upright. Nice smoke and skidmark!!
Next we looked at countersteering.
I knew in theory what it was but I had never practised it.
Andrew the tutor lined up 10 orange cones and got us students to stand on them. Then he rode in and out between us at quite high speeds, which was pretty freaky actually, given that his bike is 300kg.
This was so we could see close up what countersteering is, what his arms and body were doing.
We jumped on our bikes and had a go ourselves, and soon mastered it.
We played a hazard-evasion game where we rode towards Andrew at 30kph through cones, until he signalled left or right or STOP, whereupon we would countersteer quickly that direction to simulate escaping from some nutty cager who had just pulled out on us.
Fun!
I was amazed, I was confused, countersteering is amazing! When you really focus on doing it the stranger it seems. And yet it’s totally instinctual, it’s just what your bike wants to do. INCREDIBLE!
The Ride
Finally we headed out on the Wainui Coast Road to practise what we just learned.
We split into two groups, the fast and slow group. Buckbuck and I were in the slower group, which was a good move. The fast group went quite fast apparently.
We stopped several times on the way to talk about our riding and go over what we were practicing.
At one point we were tailgated by a gang member in a red van, who obviously thought we were gang members too, as he did a U-turn right in front of us then tailgated very very close doing gang gestures with his hands for five minutes before fucking off to whatever Wainuiomata gangland he came from. I woulda thought the neon orange safety vests would've given him a clue that we weren't a gang?
We finished up by 5.30pm I think, but I had to go so it may have gone on longer perhaps, with drinks after?
So anyway, it was very good, highly recommended by me, and had lots of good stuff in it.
I'll be interested to see what Buckbuck got out of it, as he's done all this stuff before.