My direct access course 4 day log (update: I passed!)

[Khanivore]

I have a 4 day direct access course. Prior to the course I had done the CBT and a brief 20 min assessment ride in the off road pad the school has set up. The assessment was because I did my CBT elsewhere. With no 125 experience of my own I was quite nervous.

Today was day 1. I arrived at their office and was offered a coffee. Talked some basics and then hit the road on the 125's. We had a 3 man group. It was myself and one other student with the instructor. The ground was very wet, it was cold, but thankfully it was not raining. I went out first and decided to ride as close to the speed limit as possible while it was safe to do so and the grin that appeared on my face was fixed there for the rest of the day.

By lunchtime the instructor felt that myself and the other student were both ready to go on to the big bikes. We were to ride Kawasaki ER6F's and that is when the fun really started. These bikes just felt much more substantial. They made a lovely noise and just seemed more stable at higher speed. My cheeks were starting to hurt from the smiling.

The heavens opened. My arse got very wet. I was extremely glad that I had bought my own crash helmet to wear and had chosen one with pin lock. I suffered very few fogging up issues but I must admit the glare from the sun on the water (yes we actually saw the sun for about 10 mins) and the rain on the visor in general took some getting used to. I would describe a couple of hours towards the end of the day as torrential. We also rode in hail stones for a while! It even started to thunder at the end Crazy.

None of this really spoiled the enjoyment. We did a bit of urban riding and dual carriageways and we also did a fair few miles on lovely sweeping country roads. I loved opening up the throttle and keeping up with Ferrari for a while on the dual carriage way

I have read two things on this forum that helped me a LOT and I will share them here for other new people to read:

- During my CBT and assessment my arms were really aching. I was holding on to the handlebars with a very strong grip and this was impacting my clutch and throttle control as well as wearing me out. Today I followed the advice to grip the tank with my knees. Wow! As soon as I did that my arms relaxed and i was able to control the throttle and clutch much more delicately.

- During sweeping curves I found myself thinking about speed, throttle, direction and balance all at the same time. This was a little overwhelming for me. I read about counter steering and tried it. What a difference that made. It just works. As I worked my way through the sweeping curves the fact that I knew to push against the bar on the side I wanted to turn meant I had a lot less to think about. I can't really explain it but I just felt much more in control, less rushed, and safer.

So the day was amazing. I can't wait for tomorrow. I remain worried about how easy it is to fail though. I hit a cone on the pad. Instant fail. More worryingly, I stalled on a roundabout twice! Instant fails both times. The cone thing was early in the day and I have lots more pad time to come so am ok with that. The roundabout stalling I'm more worried about. I wonder if I was in second gear? Who knows. Roll on tomorrow! But please, no hail and thunder, and if possible no rainy wet arse. Whatever happens it's going to be fun!

[J.M.]

Stalling isn't an instant failure unless you really don't seem to be in control of your vehicle or it results in a dangerous situation.

You should be slowing down through the gears to ensure that you're always in the appropriate gear, so you should always be in first when stopped. It's not like a car where you can slow and then change down 2 or 3 gears at once. You physically can, although some gear boxes can get funky about it.

All about practise though. 4 days isn't a long time to learn, so it will be tiring but worth it!
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2004 R1 & 2018 XSR900

[Khanivore]

Thanks JM. That's good advice re working down through the gears and I did that today. No stalling!

Today's was wet from the go. Wet and very cold. The ride was uneventful but by the time we got to the test centre for a practice session on the pad I couldn't feel my finger tips. In fact they were blue and that's no small accomplishment for a brown guy The rain was coming down so hard that we were told if there were mod 1 tests booked they may have been cancelled due to the water pooling up.

We waited a bit and the rain slowed down and the pad drained. I found the u turn a bit tricky at first but after a few goes nailed it several times. I'm still not 100% confident on it and will practice more tomorrow. On the bits where you have to hit 50kph I went way too fast a few times and then messed up the emergency brake resulting in a very long and impressive instant fail rear wheel skid. After that I went too slow several times. I did get the swerve and break done several times but there were too many misses for my liking. Luckily for me I have a second practice session at the pad tomorrow which I am very happy about.

So, no stalling was a good thing. The main thing I learned today was that unlike in a car you use the clutch a lot on a bike. You can slip it at slow speed and that's fine. I also use the clutch a little when releasing the throttle to reduce the very sudden engine braking I get otherwise. Is this ok?

In summary - a bloody wet and cold day but I feel closer to being error free in test day.

[Nobby the Bastard]

Re:Stalling.

I stalled the car (admittedly in 1989....) whilst trying to reverse the car out of the test centre and didn't fail.

Stlling isn't a fail, not reacting appropriately is....

Re: Locked up rear brake.

Locking up the rear brake isn't a fail IF you then correct and take your foot off the brake. If you can get away with obviously braking with the rear afterwards ou should get bonus points...
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Triumph Sprint ST 1050

[J.M.]

You should find the U-turn easier if you keep the revs high(ish) and control your speed with the clutch/rear brake. For some reason, it helps things to feel more stable. U-turns are quite a confidence thing though; if you don't believe you can do it, you will put a foot down and fail!

Although I'm not sure why that is a failure because in the real world, I can use my feet just fine whenever I like

With the emergency brake: don't pull the clutch in until the very end. Heck, you can even not touch the clutch and stall the bike if you like. Focus on using the front brake prominently and the rear brake only lightly. Also if you have pulled in the clutch, it will be easier to lock up the rear brake.

Slipping the clutch on a bike is absolutely fine. You really have to slip it at slow speed as it gives you the fine control that you need.

[MC]

Don't know if the same applies to the bike test, but I was told when learning to drive stalling once's no problem, twice in a row a minor, 3 times & you fail. Obviously if you do it in the path of an oncoming car that's dangerous, but you shouldn't really be taking those kind of risks on your test anyway.
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Yamaha MT-03 '08 (crashed)
Honda XR-125L '04

[Khanivore]

Day 3: clear blue skies and absolutely no rain! This was biking weather! Loved it.

My session at the pad was great. JM great advice on the clutch during the emergency brake. I let the bike stall on a couple of attempts and it was fine - no skidding. I hit the speed trap at 64kph on both attempts so was carrying too much speed. Seems that the rain yesterday slowed me down too much (couldn't hit the required speed much of the time). Tomorrow, test day, it will rain but I have much more confidence now so should be fine. Swerve maneuveres were also fine at 50-53kph now that I am not hovering over the brakes until AFTER the serve. U turns and, figure of 8 and slalom all went great without any hitches.

After a successful pad session I really increased in confidence and my road riding improved significantly as I relaxed. I still stalled the bike once and i have not got to the bottom of why but this happened pre-pad session when I was less relaxed.

I hit 70 on the dual carriageway and 60 on the country roads. All was good.

Tomorrow is d-day. I know it will rain but it won't be as bad as what I've ridden through over the last two days. Wish me luck!

[Benjums]

Good luck for tomorrow mate. Just remember to relax and you've been learning to ride in really crap weather and come out of it confident so am sure you will be fine mate. When is your mod 2?

[Sako]

Biggest tip I can give you with the U Turn is to fixate on the point you wish your bike to be, so focus on the opposite kerb at the finish point, you will naturally be drawn to it without realising it.

[Khanivore]

Mod 1 tomorrow 1pm ish. Mod 2 about an hour later. Heavy rain predicted all morning until 1 pm followed by normal rain.

Bricking it.

[J.M.]

[Khanivore]

I didn't sleep more than an hour last night. I was panicking about my tests today. Rain rain rain. Non stop heavy rain. It rained all day. Long story short, I passed

There were two of us taking our tests. I was first for both mod 1 and mod 2. By the time of my mod 1 I was freezing and wet from the practice riding. I was also very very nervous. The examiner was brilliant and really put me at ease. I passed mod 1 with two minors. I was so nervous that when I was setting off to do the slalom I stalled it. Then, when I set off for the slow controlled ride I forgot to shoulder check because I was so busy hating myself for stalling it. I did 51kph for serve and 57kph for emergency brake which was a surprise given the pissing down rain and my aversion to leaning the bike too much in the wet.

After the mod 1 I was very relaxed. I knew that worst case I would need to retake my mod 2. The day could not be a total write off no matter what happened now. A mod 1 fail would have been an expensive disaster as I would not be able to take my mod 2 and would lose the fee.

By the time of my mod 2 the heavy rain had turned in to seriously chucking it down and windy rain. I didn't care. I'd ridden in worse on the first day of training. My examiner was very cool. He put me even more at ease. I passed with two minors. I slipped a bit on two big manhole covers that are side by side on a mini roundabout. My instructor had shown new them earlier in the day so I was an idiot for riding over them and lucky to not go down. The other minor was because I waited too late to let a truck turn in to my road. It had to cut the corner a bit and while I did leave room for it my examiner felt I waited too late to leave room and I should have planned better.

I'm very happy to have passed If you live in Crawley area and you are looking for DAS I can not recommend Frank at ART motorcycle school highly enough. He is a brilliant instructor and an all round top bloke. I feel lucky to have been taught by him.

Now I need to really decide on a bike. One minute I want a zx6r or a cbr-600rr (have loved both since i was a kid from a looks point of view), the next I'm thinking of a ducati monster 896, and I've also got a soft spot for the looks and sound of the Harley sportsters. I need to decide what I'm getting and then buy suitable jacket and trousers

[djrikki]

". I read about counter steering and tried it. What a difference that made. It just works. As I worked my way through the sweeping curves the fact that I knew to push against the bar on the side I wanted to turn meant I had a lot less to think about. I can't really explain it but I just felt much more in control, less rushed, and safer. "

Im a new biker - what is this bit you are talking about mean ? :S

[Rigga]

Well done op! I did the same as you.

4 day DAS course followed by mod 1 and mod 2 on the fifth day. Was the most intense week of my life and very draining but all worth it when I passed on the last day!


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Current bike: Honda CBR 1100xx

[Rogerborg]

Splendid work, no fuss, slammed it in.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[J.M.]

Excellent news

[noobRider]

GJ Try before you buy.

Check out counter-steering on YouTube
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Licence: Nov 2012, Bikes: Suzuki GN125, Moto Guzzi Strada 750, Triumph Sprint ST 955i x 2
AnPhonEh: I need plans, I need contingency plans also, I need back up contingency plans

[djrikki]

[Khanivore]

Counter steering is simply pushing on the side of the bar that you want to turn towards! It's counterintuitive on paper. It doesn't make sense to be turning left to turn right but when you push the right side of the bar forwards (that should make you turn left right?) you turn right. I wouldn't worry about it, you are probably doing it without realising it.

[Ribenapigeon]

Well done, another recruit to the cult

How people manage to do these intensive courses I dont know, my CBT was a day of hell, no way I could have faced four more plus tests. Mind you the comoany I did my CBT with was a bit shit really but it was free.

Harley? noooooooooo save yourself while you still can!