Failed my mod one today. What's best next step?

[Davemc37]

Failed my test on the slalom. I hadn't had more than about five minutes practise on the morning before and I hadn't really got used to the bike and it's clutch. I was going a too slow at the part wheee the slalom changes to the figure of eight and I think I probably put an extra unnecessary turn in slowed down wobbled and failed.

It's a horrible feeling having to do the rest when you know you've failed about two minutes in. Anyway is it best to just book another one straight off or should I pay another £100 for an extra training session. I'm worried that the extra session would be a standard full mod 1 session covering everything when I only want to do the slow stuff like slalom,figure of eight and u turn.

Ps my instructor today was telling me to keep my revs over 2,000 when doing the slow bits but that seemed excessive in reality.
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born again biker with a mere 23 year gap between bikes.

[Rogerborg]

[Wonko The Sane]

as already said, you know how to do it (I can't see why your instructor would put you in for your test if you were not ready) so just re-book.

with regards the revs, its easier to slip the clutch and spill off some not required power than it is to add it, your instructor is right, keep the revs up around 2000 gives some leeway for you letting the revs drop slightly while also making sure you have power when you want it
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[M.C]

It's probably the most pointless part of the test, how many times do you see roadworks and think I know I'll swerve through these cones. Figure of 8's only useful if you're really really lost

I struggled going through the cones at the instructors speed, so for the test went through at my own (slower) pace, doesn't sound like you were having that issue though.

[Dave70]

You are paying your instructor, so tell him what you want to practice. Mine had no problem with letting me just do the figure of 8 and U turns over and over. Although he did test me out at first to see that I could actually ride a bike.

Don't worry that you failed the first time, it took me three attempts to pass and I'd been riding for about three years on a 125 beforehand.

Get it re-booked and go practice. See if you can book an hours session right before your test, so you've warmed up, so to speak.

Good luck.
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There ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk.

2012: R125 killed by white van. 2016 R125 killed by 30,000 miles of redline. Current: 2016 Kawasaki ER6f.

[Teflon-Mike]

[pinkyfloyd]

[Bozzy]

[Rogerborg]

Here we go. I feel a thread derail in the air.

[owl]

Almost dread to bring it up, but rear brake?
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Observation is the greatest source of wisdom.

[BumpingUglys]

C'mon Roger. We all know the slalom has real world application:

https://youtu.be/aJbcORZdjnI?t=29

On topic. I failed my Mod 1 first time, and just scraped through the second time. I think a lot of that was getting off my own 125 and on to a relatively unfamiliar 600 and going straight into the slalom. Tricky when the weight, power, biting point, throttle response, and brakes are all different.

If you're typically comfortable with the manoeuvres, I'd recommend riding the bike to the centre if you can, just to get used to it again. Maybe coupled with a (immediately) pre-test practice if you feel you need it.
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Ducati M695

[bamt]

[Rogerborg]

Jocular high-speed examples just demonstrate that there is no real world use for the slow cone weave. On this point I am resolute, and it's not even a butthurt baww since I aced my mod 1 with no minors.

I'm going to have a grumpy about it on OPs behalf because:

1) The driving test is getting progressively easier. 3 point turn is now a "turn in the road" (feet down if you like); parallel parking (two changes of direction) is now reversing into a car park space (one change of direction); the independent driving section is about to be "do what satnav says do" rather than any test of navigation or sign following.

2) The excuse for harder bike tests is "because deaded bikers", which is predominantly an issue with other road users not looking, or with Rossie wannabes intersecting with the planet. Neither of which is remotely related to or mitigated by cone weaves, figure-8s or NEAT FEET u-turns.
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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

[bamt]

Can't disagree with that. I can see what I think the intention was (to demonstrate that you know what the controls of a bike are for and have basic competence before going on the road), but as with much legislation the apparent intention and the finally instantiated rules bear little relationship to each other.

[M.C]

[Rogerborg]

[Deadonkey]

I did the mod 1 slalom with the bike at idle in 1st. No clutch control at all. Just did the slalom like I was on a push bike.
That was on an xj6. Might not be possible with all bikes

[M.C]

[Freddyfruitba...]

[Rogerborg]

[Teflon-Mike]

[winz]

Slightly off topic, but Teff, are you feeling ok? I seem to have read both of your posts in this thread. An absolute first.
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Current Bikes: BMW K1200S
Previous: Honda CBR929RR, Honda CBR1100XX, Honda CB600F

[Teflon-Mike]

The CBT/Mod-1 exercises are just that. 'Exercises', principles, elements. In a match, soccerists will probably never be dong the sort of running on the spot, keep the ball in the air gymnastics that the trainer will have them doing in 'practice', B-U-T, the co-ordination, balance, and dexterity they learn/display is used in a match. It is NOT by any stretch 'useless' will never be used, lets make it hard for the student pedantry.

Whether, after test, YOU DECIDE to employ any of the techniques or 'tools' those excesses were trying to instill are up to you... and in a lot of cases, you may not need to, but more likely, you will choose not to.... BUT that doesn't mean that they had no 'value' in the first place. - Just that you never capitolise on that value.

Of ALL the exercises and techniques of CBT/Mod1, IMHO THE number one, most ridiculed, least valued and least utilized exercise is MANUAL HANDLING! (First thing on CBT you actually got 'hands on' with a motorbike on! And oh-so-often, the very first thing forgotten!)

And it's a technique that is even more under utilised these days with so many coming to bikes, via DAS after umpety years driving a box.... There is a innate mental block in'approach' before you begin... Cars.. we walk up to them, keys in hand, get in, and do everything from the driver's seat, after; (Crikey how many these days are loath even to get out the thing to chip ice off the ruddy windscreen!) Very notion of pushing one never enters any-one's head. So that same mind-set gets brought to bikes; approach bike, keys in hand, sit down; key in the hole, "Oh! Got to back it up!" oh dear! No reverse gear!Shrug, PADDLE. (Smug gold-wing. and mad Ural owners excepted!)

Forethought to take the bike off the stand, wheel it round, and place it so you can ride straight off after getting on, NEVER enters the conscious thought process.... and that is just for the parking and un-parking that on CBT/Mod 1 the exercises actually try and parallel... "OK I'd like you to wheel this bike backwards from between these four cones, as if backing it out of a parking space, and wheel it into those four cones as if parking it in a shed".

Now... ways of skinning cats; Out on the road; a perfect feet-up U-turn, is a maneuver that shouldn't be needed very often, an could pretty much be avoided altogether; and one way it could be avoided IS to get off the ruddy bike and swing it round by hand! And plenty of situations that could actually be the 'better' technique to apply.

Couple of years ago, I was in Wales with the daughter on the bunny going to meet up with little bother and their gran, getting delayed txt msg's relayed via the kids as to where Gran had decided to 'stop', and daughter saying "No, Google says go that way!".. leading us up a dead end 'track' up a rather steep hill.... "We have to turn around!"

Mod 1 U-Tun cones are set for you to do the U-Turn, between cones set just under 8m apart! If you look at the key on an OS Map, they denote 'roads' in yellow, and 'narrow' roads in white, with the note 'Usually less than 4m wide'. So, on Mod1, you comfortably have about as much room to do a U-Turn in, as a good two-lane main road, wide enough to have a white line down the middle!

Welsh hillside; 2-Up on a 'white;' track, less than 4m wide; crap gravel strewn tarmac, broken edges, soft verges and on a three in effin one hill.... with a gate three hundred yards up so you have no choice but turn around and go back; you cant ride around the block or something!

[keanu-reeves 'speed' mode]"What do you do?"....'Shoot the pillion'... err... well, yeah, that IS one option, I suppose.... and after twenty minutes of being smacked on the hat when delayed action txt-msgs arrive, and garbled "Well they say they are by a fountain!" reports are relayed..... yes... tempting.... very very tempting... B-U-T not the correct answer!

Trying to do the job feet-up, is one possibility.. I don't know many folk who could though. Even doing it from the saddle, even solo, and bashing down the boot to keep it up, isn't likely to be successful, and the likely outcome of even trying, will be a thirty two-point 'paddle', as you run out of tarmac and try and shuffle the ruddy thing backwards, probably against the damn hill, to make some more room..... on crap tarmac... one foot trying to both hold the bike up, and offer propulsion..... err, yeah... it IS a recipe for disaster before you begin; the opportunity for effupp enormous!!!

In that situation, and so many others; the 'safest' solution IS to get off the ruddy bike, and man handle the ruddy thing 'round'. Two feet firmly on the floor; two wheels firmly on the floor, you have best balance to stop the dam thing falling over, and even if it goes over, YOU don't need to go with it in a tangle! But best leverage over the bike, best traction and support, the technique gives you the best change of turning the thing around in that restricted road, and getting back where you want to be.

And 2-Up? Pillion can now 'help' rather than being unpredictable bit of dead weight unhelpfully waving their arms around screaming at you you are about to fall over, and bashing you on the bonce!!!

OK, this is a more extreme example; BUT, how often do you spot folk struggling to paddle a V-Rod or whatever out of a parking space against the road camber? Or paddling a sports-bike on loose gravel in a pub car-park? It is endemic, and so FEW EVER stop to think "Oh yes... CBT/Mod 1 manual handling... get off and push!"

It s endemic, and it is NOT because the exercise was 'pointless' and you never 'have' to do it, BUT so few ever THINK to use the technique they WERE taught.... "MOTAH bike! Got a Mowtah! What you mean PUSH! If I'd wanted to push, I'd've bought a PUSH-bike, wudn'eye?!!"

First thing taught on first lesson of CBT, and first to be forgotten or ignored...but probably one of THE most useful tools in the armory that would save so many expensive fairings, mirrors, bar ends and bent gear levers, or embarrassing 'moments', because student doesn't appreciate the 'lesson' and havng to remember it for 'test' is dismissed as mere pedantry... but hey, you WERE taught it; you were expected to show you could use it; choose NOT to, the rest is down to you.....

As said, the tools and techniques, are offered in CBT and in training, and the Mod1 exercises put them to the 'test'... you might not be able to 'see' how or where you might most obviously translate them to more likely real road situations, and I use the 'get off and push' example because it IS so obviously one where so many folk never even think to look, let alone try....

Slalom? OK, so I do have the compunction to 'play' come road-works, which is humorous; and no, you shouldn't ever have to do it 'on the road'... BUT that is again missing the point..... Exercise is in slow speed control, judging distance, speed and balance and accurately placing the bike where you want it, 'picking a line'!! This is NOT useless, pointless or futile, AND if you look beyond the literal, and actually try and appreciate the 'lesson' behind that exercise, you are using the same 'core skills' judging speed, distance, 'line' and placement, balance and control, NOT just filtering or at slow or lower speed, but every time you corner, more every time you tackle a series of corners.

Principles, practice, technique and tools ARE all there, they all pretty much have purpose and relevance IF you choose to find it, if you choose to appreciate it and IF you choose to utilize them...

As far as 'test' is concerned, bottom line is,if you want to 'pass' you have to do what is asked. Doesn't matter whether you, as candidate can see the point, or even if there is one; if they asked you to recite the epic prose of Beowilf in it's original old-English, in a pink tutu standing on points, before you start the engine....THAT is what you have to do.... if you want a licence!!! B-U-T there isn't actually much by way of 'pink-tutu' exercises in either CBT or Mod1... as far as I can tell.

The only real pink-tutu exercise in either, I oft critasise is the practice, of "Drag'n'Slip" to jiggle throttle and clutch and hold the bike back on the brake, to 'under-drive' the gearbox, in order to perform slow speed maneuvers, just beneath the sped a (bigger capacity!) bike would naturally go clutch out in first. That IS the motorcycling equivalent of patting your head and rubbing your tummy, of very dubious merit and far from the oft offered excuse a 'demonstration of fine control', but even that and is not 'actually' an explicit requirement of either training nor tests!

You are just asked to ride through the cones without making instructor/examiner 'trot' to keep up... could be done, particularly on a tiddler 'clutch out' and even on a big bike.... folk have reported being failed for 'not' obviously dragging the back brake and reving the motor.... as examiner, apparently 'expected' to see.. but it's not actually stipulated on the test checklist that they should, AFAIK!!!

But even there where it's practical merit, is significantly dubious; even THAT, remains a 'tool' you may use, in some situations, should you so choose... Personally, would say if you need/want to go that slow, you are being over cautious, get on with the job, OR get off and ruddy push! Remember your manual handling! Or no examiner behind expecting you 'make progress', effit! No good gap to ride it, clutch out, into! STOP and wait for one!!.

Which brings us back to the ways of skinning cats! WHICH is the crux.... so much of what you may be taught, so much of what you may be tested on, IS just 'tools' you may, LIKE manual handling, chooseto ot not not to use, or may or may not find, or even appreciate real road situations where you probably utilize those tools without even thinking, less still, where a little thought, like manual handling, could let you choose a 'better' tool from the armory.

But bottom line, is do you want a motorcycle licence, if so, even if they put something as obviously irrelevant to the task as quoting Beowulf in a pink tut on the test, IF you want the licence that is what you have to do.. meanwhile what they are asking you to do, is for the most part 'of value' whether you choose to see the value, whether you choose to utilize that value, well, you can lead the horse to water, but whether the pig'll drink is another matter.
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[Freddyfruitba...]

[Fisty]