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Marius Elvenwood

1. Biker Blog! How original.

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by
Marius Elvenwood
, 11th September 2012 at 17:45 (9345 Views)
SO. First entry. The day I signed up to Kiwibiker and the day after I got my class 6 learner licence.
On friday (7th sep, 2012) I got my Basic Handling Skills certificate (BHS) from Warren Joyce who is a very good teacher, I would highly recommend him to anyone else. Seeing as he is the only BHS instructor in Dunedin I figured I better get my cert from him. The price was a bit steep though; I paid for a brief instructor lesson (seeing as though my skills on a bike were limited to off-road riding on less than 100cc) as well as the BHS test itself. $180 all up!!! Quite steep, considering the prices back in Australia.
Then Yesterday I went for my learner licence. $96!!! Sorry if I keep complaining about prices but I'm trying to save money for a bike and it's not enjoyable to see that carefully conserved cash being spent on something I can't ride!
I passed 35/35. Not surprising i guess. I had bought the road code for motorcyclists, made a quiz for myself on the computer and went through the quiz 5 times in a row until I had every single answer correct.

BUT. Kiwibiker looks like an excellent site for motorcyclists of all ages and experience. Seeing as though i'm 19 and have very little experience I signed up. Nothing to lose I guess.
I had a look at the buying/selling section of the site. Maybe there was something I could buy that wasn't listed on TradeMe or in MCR or Mciver & Veitch? Wow. There was! A body suit with armour for $50 dollars! Seemed too good to be true. Glimpsing through the comments it seemed that everyone was very pleased with their purchase. In fact, the post was only 6 days old and already there were only Youth Sizes left! Still, it might be possible that an XL Youth Size would fit me.
So after contacting the seller he planned to arrange a meet up with me. Right now I'm eager to have a look at this suit, try it on, and if the glove fits... we shall see.

So my current checklist of biker-related items to buy is:

Biker Clothing
Helmet
Biker Boots
Motorbike (Suzuki GN125H if all goes well, which it will damn it!)

Signing off
Osc

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Categories
Bike Gear , General Bike Ravings

Comments

  1. madscientist's Avatar
    I also recently got my class 6 (early Sept), then signed up on here haha. So far its cost over $300 something and I still don't have a bike.. Basic Handling cost $100 from Dan Ornsby (motorcycletraining.co.nz) which got me an hour of lessons and included the cert). He was very patient with me as it turned out I wasn't as good as I had thought.. (about 6 hours on a bike ever) then $100 for OPSM to tell me my eyes are fine, $96ish for the test, $25 for the road code, $12.50 for the sample tests, and $6 for the L plates.. (scrap alloy for making the mint bracket) but after 4 odd years of "I'm gonna get my bike license" I finally did it.. and I love it, Now i Just need to hang out with some Chch riders to avoid developing too many bad habbits.. the frustrating thing I guess is the catch 22, "to be allowed to learn to ride, you must first learn to ride"
  2. Marius Elvenwood's Avatar
    Yeah those first costs seem like a bit of a drag. I never paid for an optometrist to check my eyesight though, that's a big bummer! We should just be glad that our licences won't expire any time soon eh?
    And I know how you feel about leaning to ride! I don't even have a proper car licence yet, so riding on the roads is going to be dangerous! Once I get my bike for the first few weeks I won't really be going anywhere except the local empty carpark to really hone my skills once and for all! I wish you luck in your search for someone to ride with in Chch, that is something every first time rider needs. A big hello to anyone reading this who lives in Dunedin, has several years exp and doesn't mind a tag-along who must learn how to keep his bike upright!