Bikesafe London

[Adrian]

Has enyone been to bikesafe-london in hendon this weekend?

[Paivi]

Yes, and I was a muppet and left my insurance & MOT documents at home, so couldn't do the observed ride with the bike cops. And, I was stupid enough to own up to an old address on my licence, so I couldn't even take out a demo bike.

Still, I enjoyed the White Helmets' Display.
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My other bike's a Monster...

[Adrian]

Oh crap, that's such a shame. The police gave a certificate out also after the ride which can be used to drop the insurance a little...will they host this event in UK again? I know this was the last one in London. I didn't catch that show but i did see the car chase on slippery track and the stunts

[Paivi]

It's an annual event, next one iirc is in Gloucestershire.
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My other bike's a Monster...

[multijoy]

Don't suppose anyone can recall the name of the dealer with the umm... pre-dragged leather kit?

ta!
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'11 CBF1000A, '99 C90, '98 CB500
silky666: He rode amazingly well considering his bike is the weight of a small van and had slicks on.

[Paivi]

[multijoy]

I've had a look through that and still remain stumped- doesn't help that I can't even recall seeing a name. I may have to google them all, which could be a job best left until work!

That said, it could have been one of the coppers flogging stuff they've cut off, I'm sure I did notice some quite big stitching
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'11 CBF1000A, '99 C90, '98 CB500
silky666: He rode amazingly well considering his bike is the weight of a small van and had slicks on.

[sickpup]

Must admit I am getting more and more bothered by Bikesafe.

I acknowledge there are some officers who can ride to a high standard after they have completed training but in my experience there are more that can't. There seems to be an attitude problem among many officers where they believe that just because they have training they are the best on the road. T.C puts the position across quite well in this post... Clicky.
Further to T.C's post it's worth looking at the mileages on ex-police bikes as it can give you a guage to measure how much operational experience officers have riding bikes. A quick look at Force motorcycles will show you a whole brace of ex-police bikes with low miles on them. Five and six year old bikes with less than 50k on the clocks so less than 10k a year, many commuters do more than that in a year.

It's all well and good to do Bikesafe but I would suggest you look further for real training. An assessed ride with an officer just out of basic training isn't rally worth much.

[Paivi]

[sickpup]

That may be so in Met land but it isn't so elsewhere.

Also keep in mind how much experience that officer actually has rather than years since qualification. The mileages of ex-police bikes for sale suggest not that much.

As I say worth doing I'm just not to sure how much it is worth?

[multijoy]

It's certainly not advanced training by any stretch of the imagination, but, in fairness, the bikesafe scheme appears to be very up front about that.

To my mind, it's a cheap way to get an assessment of your current riding abilities from a group of riders who, on the face of it, are better qualified than your-mate-who's-been-riding-longer-than-you (not a real person, just a made up one in this instance!).

This is a good thing, on the basis that any training is better than no training at all. I've not, however, done one yet so i can't comment on the actual day- if it's continually stressed that it's merely a stepping stone towards formal advanced riding, then it can only be a good thing.

If you're coming away from it thinking you're advanced rider, then this is not a good thing.

On the whole, I think it's a good bit of outreach that benefits both the public and the police.


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'11 CBF1000A, '99 C90, '98 CB500
silky666: He rode amazingly well considering his bike is the weight of a small van and had slicks on.

[Mister James]

If nothing else, it's a cheap way to get a heads-up on the kind of riding that traffic rats are going to find acceptable; and by elimination the kind they won't.

[Tonka]

My Bike Safe certificate arrived in the post this morning along with my advisory notes, a booklet and some freebies

I went out the weekend before last on a Dorset Bike Safe and have to say I was impressed with both the attitude of the Police taking the course (2 groups of 3) and with the advice they gave. Apparently, Dorset has a high number of serving officers who are also recreational bikers, so there is a higher level of awareness and understanding. They seemed reasonable rather than pedantic and the message was that they were keen to keep us safe and out of trouble, not make us all ride like robots.

They were careful to point out that it was not training, just advice and that it was something that was aimed at trying to pick up any potentially dangerous habits rather than tell you how to ride. They suggest doing further training if you're keen, but don't 'plug' IAM or any particular Schools as it's your choice.

Mine cost me £40 and in Dorset we had to do an evening of video instruction and a talk before the actual ride out could be booked. The ride out took nearly 4 hours in total and I found it very useful if only to remind me that these guys are trying to help us and they're not always the 'enemy' but that's just my
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'The core of a man's spirit comes from new experiences'
Suzuki SV650S (Clean); Yamaha XT250 Serow (Dirty)