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Dedicated to the memory of our Mentor, Uncle B.

Originally Posted by chanceyy
I have selected Steam for this weeks pick. Steam has proven that the cost of attending a course is money well spent.

Originally Posted by Steam
Near Miss #154
Today (waitangi eve) I practised emergency braking in a Real Life situation, when some lunatic cut me off on purpose!
It was good to have been practising this during the weekend.
I didn't lock up either wheel and came to a stop perhaps 2 meters from the van who cut me off.
Survival is success!

Originally Posted by bull
I choose Lissa as i was impressed with:

1. concentration and riding her own ride
Originally Posted by Lissa
On the Rimutakas I practiced taking it slow and at my own pace... not too much traffic going over, which helped alot. The Wellyside of the takas is alot smoother and shorter, and really not so bad. Tried to keep my bike in the centre of the road, not too close to the bank or the centre line.


2. perserverance and recognising the signs of fatigue
Originally Posted by Lissa
I need to practise cornering alot more.... Paekak Hill on the way home I was all over the place (well I thought so) I was tired and my concentration wasnt there.. also got to trust my bike more, and that I can actually lean it and not fall off.


A Good Practice Write Up
Not listed under the Where Did You Ride and What Did You Practise? thread this week was a write up by Bull. [Bull so happens to be a selector this week so it appears as though he wanted to place his post to be outside the Ride/Practise thread.]

I think it was deserving of a mention here too, as he is proactive in his riding training and the encourangement he has provided to other newbies.

Originally Posted by bull
Monday 05 Feb
1. Ride with Dasser out to Wainui Coast.
2. Slow manouvre practice in GMs carpark

1. Met up with Dasser in Naenae and proceeded to the bottom of wainui hill then up and over and out to the coast. What an excellent road, well maintained and lots of nice sweeping corners.
My focus of the day was to accompany Dasser who has been riding for two weeks and just follow along at whatever pace he liked. I had never ridden the coast road so thought it may well be a good training run for hazard identification, countersteering and smooth throttle control.
On the way out we cruised and i was happy to go along with just my throttle hand on the bars and using it to control the cornering. I had remembered UncleB telling me about him being told to ride up a twisty hill with one hand to learn better control so thought id try it out at a comfortable pace. It was quite effortless doing it and it definetly made me smoothen the throttle otherwise i was bucking back and forwards in the saddle coming up to corners. Lots of driveways scattered along the road so was allowing room for cars by moving closer to centre where possible away from driveways, had noticed patches of shingle on the road so was very wary and on the lookout for more along the road.
On the return trip the pace was a little quicker so was able to put alot of countersteering into practice and also shifting my body over prior to cornering to help me turning in quicker and later than my normal arc. Could really feel how it would let you turn at higher speeds with countersteer and body to the inside of turn and dipping inside shoulder, also wanted to ensure i was putting weight onto my outside footpeg - the whole cornering thing is getting exciting now!

2. Decided to go with Mickdastardly(brand new to KB) to the GMs carpark to show him what hell need to do for BHS and also to practice slow manouvres myself. I explained the steady throttle and using the clutch and rear brake to keep the bike moving at low speeds. He picked that up rather fast so it was then onto the race(the last one to the end of carpark is the winner) we started the race and went a good 80m before he put his foot down. Next thing i explained to him was the countersteering buzz. He took a little while to suss this out and looked like he was jerking the bars. Few explanations later and he was doing it with ease and the smile on his face said it all. then we started doing some low speed tight circles and then uturns, he did these with ease.

All in all i had a great day - left home at 1130hrs with a 3/4 tank of petrol and got back home at 2000hrs and need to fill it up so a good days riding for me.

Thanks to both Dasser and Mickdastardly for the two rides today.

Advanced Riding Course Review
The following report by Steam is endorsed wholeheartedly and all riders are encouraged to undertake a periodic riding course no matter how long they have been riding.

Originally Posted by Steam
On Saturday, Buckbuck and I did an Advanced Riding course with Andrew and Lynne at Roadsafe, 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.
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.

Thanks Steam, a great good write up you covered this course very well indeed.

Personally I found the Advance Refresher course as a Restricted licence holder to be very good and encouraging leading up to my Full licence test. There was a good cross section of riders and it was pleasing to see the ‘older’ riders returning to riding after a long time away from bikes and that they wanted to do this course.

For me, I learnt two important things:
(1) I thought covering the brake was mandatory, however with the over all riding strategy of ‘Observe – Anticipate – Respond / See – Think – Do’ as well as ‘Information – Position – Speed – Gear’, I now understand that to have a full grip on the throttle [ie not covering brake] is a perhaps a better riding technique. It gives you the split decision moment, swerve/accelerate or emergency brake.

(2) the braking sequence is now ingrained: Set up - Off Throttle - Brake – Clutch – Rear – Gear [gear down to first by time come to stop and left foot down, right foot covering rear brake.]