rideNroot
27th June 2007, 20:33
First off, hello! I'm pretty new to these forums, although I've been lurking around for some time now.
Anyway, thought I'd share my experience at Dunedin Driving School today.
Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the guy who does this, but he seemed like a very friendly fellow. Last week, I took the basic skills handling test with him, and although I passed, I just didn't feel confident taking a bike out again without working on my skills a little.
I booked in for an hours practice which I had today, cost was $60 for the hour.
Used the same bike, a GN125.
For the first 15 minutes or so, we practiced emergency stopping, while showing the importance of using your front brake. Was very obvious when trying to stop within the cones using only the back brake...
Spent another 15 minutes with the cones laid out in the slalom style, which I found pretty hard during the BHSC.
After that, he taught me the importance of looking where you want to go. What can I say! I never thought that it would make such a massive difference, but the improvement in tight turning was instant and very noticeable.
Then later it was going through an S-bend in 2nd gear, which seemed to be pretty easy to do after the earlier practice, really started to move my weight around the bike to get the slow turning right.
Then some other crap, riding around for no reason, in a slow straight line etc..
Considering my only other biking experience was as a pillion passenger & several hours of farm hackery, it was a real confidence builder. Especially the fact that he told me exactly what I was doing wrong while I was doing it, something he wasn't able to do during the BSHC.
If anyone is in Dunedin & would like to start learning how to ride, or get a friend into riding, I would definitely recommend giving Dunedin Riding School a ring.
Anyway, thought I'd share my experience at Dunedin Driving School today.
Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the guy who does this, but he seemed like a very friendly fellow. Last week, I took the basic skills handling test with him, and although I passed, I just didn't feel confident taking a bike out again without working on my skills a little.
I booked in for an hours practice which I had today, cost was $60 for the hour.
Used the same bike, a GN125.
For the first 15 minutes or so, we practiced emergency stopping, while showing the importance of using your front brake. Was very obvious when trying to stop within the cones using only the back brake...
Spent another 15 minutes with the cones laid out in the slalom style, which I found pretty hard during the BHSC.
After that, he taught me the importance of looking where you want to go. What can I say! I never thought that it would make such a massive difference, but the improvement in tight turning was instant and very noticeable.
Then later it was going through an S-bend in 2nd gear, which seemed to be pretty easy to do after the earlier practice, really started to move my weight around the bike to get the slow turning right.
Then some other crap, riding around for no reason, in a slow straight line etc..
Considering my only other biking experience was as a pillion passenger & several hours of farm hackery, it was a real confidence builder. Especially the fact that he told me exactly what I was doing wrong while I was doing it, something he wasn't able to do during the BSHC.
If anyone is in Dunedin & would like to start learning how to ride, or get a friend into riding, I would definitely recommend giving Dunedin Riding School a ring.