Girlfriend in tears after CBT - questions

[Neepling]

Hi all,

just a couple of questions.
My girlfriend is in tears after being sent home from her CBT.
She was given about 20 minutes to get used to riding a geared bike before the manouvers started, apparently the manouvers went well but she stalled a fair bit.
Before the road ride section she asked if she could swap to a moped - she was given 5 - 10 minutes to get used to it.
The instructor then told her she was a bit wobbly so wasnt going to take her on the road but she could repeat for £65.

Now I paid for bike hire for the whole day but the bikes didnt turn up till around 11am as another instructor was using them with other students so her class had to spend about an hour of their day hanging around doing nothing - this was clearly time that could have been used getting used to riding etc.

Does this seem right to you?

[FURBAR]

Just tell her to man the fuck up, and get some beers in after she's been the cashpoint for the 65 quid ...
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Fuk um !!

[Ichy]

Twenty minutes to get used to the bike seems fine, obviously enough if the maneuvers were ok. The fact she kept stalling suggests that they didn't really teach clutch / throttle control very well.

The instructor has to consider the safety of all students so they have the right to refuse to take anyone on the road.

Would they have taken her out on the geared bike is the question?

They must have really rushed through it all the manage to fit it into half a day. Usually 8 ish start 5 or 6 pm finish.

[metalangel]

I think it's bollocks tbh, my missus struggled on our CBT and so was given a twist n' go ped to go around on and get used to the whole balancing thing but we spent the whole morning and quite a lot of time after lunch just riding around the parking lot to get used to the machines so we could at least ride and turn and stop without wobbles before we went out on the road!

I'd say you need to ask for some money off if the course is booked to start at 8 or 9 but there's no bikes until 11 then all that time should have been used for the classroom bit.
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Previous: 2002 Honda CB500 (sold), 2007 Suzuki SV650SK6 (crashed), 2005 Yamaha FZ6 Fazer (sold). Currently bikeless
"A faired bike will get you 10x more clunge than a unfaired one." -Marlboro Matt

[BenR]

take her to an empty car park & teach her clutch control yourself.
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Current bikes: suzuki RG125UN wolf. Yamaha MT-07

[Neepling]

Doing that tomorrow

[Mord]

[Flip]

[Jodie]

Blimey that's bad!

We took our last yr, it cost us £100 each.
It was a very long day, started at 8a.m and didn't finish til 5.

I had never been on a bike before so got the geared bike, t'other half was gutted as he was left with a scooter but he had a bike when he was young and knew how to ride.

Anyway we had all morning learning the gears etc, had a break for lunch then started going round cones and doing u-turns etc.
I found it a lot to take in and fell off once.
One girl cried a lot as she kept falling off and finally gave up, to my fella's delight as he grabbed her bike.

We didn't go on the roads until about 2ish...

I think I'd have a word with them it sounds really harsh, bet the poor lass is gutted. It isn't easy when you don't know how and I'm sure this hasn't done much for her confidence either.

[Teflon-Mike]

Where in the country are you?
How much did you pay for her CBT (£65 is cheap, especially of more southerly district)
DONT name the school please.

A few facts about CBT and the standards aplied by different ATB's (approved Training Bodies - 'the school' to you & me)

The main cost of a CBT is the certificate. I dont know how much the DSA charge the scholls for them these days, but it used to be about £30 a sheet.

IF the school is charging £65 for a full days CBT course, and £30 of that has to go straight to the DSA to pay for the certificate, then they ONLY have £35 per student to recoup thier time & overheads.

The Schools ARE for the most part commercial enterprises, and they have to pay the instructors a living wage AND cover thier costs.

Guidelines demand no more than two pupils to an instructor on road training. If they maintained that ratio throughout the whole course, that limits thier pottential revinue to £70 per day per instructor.

If there were NO other overheads like rent on the training ground, liability insurance, the cost of the instrutors bike, petrol etc, that is barely paying £10 an hour...... working on 6 hours of teaching time, lunch, and preparation for the course, and tidying up after.

Take out some 'reasonable' overheads, and you are paying your instructor probably LESS than minimum wage....

Think on that a moment. Ecconomics are, that your instructor, who you PRESUME to be a 'proffessional' some-one with an expert knowledge and skill, and the ability to communicate that skill to you.... for LESS money that the immigrant shelf-stacker in Tescos who struggles to even speak english and not get the peas in the place of the carrots!

Its a VERY tough market, made worse by the fact that the bulk of students want to do thier training on teh week-end, so you have two days to make a seven day a week living......

MANY schools survive, and even thrive, on CBT, but they do so with some cute marketing and sharp practice.

Cheaper the ad-price, then they will usually be running one or other or both of these ploys;

Stak-em-high, sell-em cheap; get as many students through the doors as possible in one go, get them through the course as quickly as possible, bung them out the door with teh ticket they want, with as LITTLE input as you can possibly get away with.

Other ploy is the 'Repeat CBT'; offer half price training, but make'em do it twice to get thier ticket!

Obviousely if you have agroup of students turn up on the day, you can run both. Ones that have more confidence and pick stuff up easy, you rush through, & get'em out the door, ASAP. Ones that take up too much time, you fail, and make repeat.

And TBH, its THAT is just common sense, it only becomes sharpe practice when its an EXPRESS strategy to maximising proffits, and is done WITHOUT any regard to teh students interests.

There are 'other' far more deviouse areas of sharpe practice I wont go into.... but lets just say if you value good traing, dont order delivery pizza! Scams are RIFE in the business!

Now, £65 sounds like cheap training, and quite possible that if your G/F was what we call a 'Nervouse-Nancy' and took a lot of training time, then theres some justification both ways for you to feel peeved she didn't get more attension, but also on the instructors part that she was a 'lost cause' takng up too much attension.

Not all instructors have the patience of a nun.... though your G/F should NOT have been reduced to tears!

I've had students in tears.... but we try NOT to cause them, as a rule!

As for the bike hire, again, if you went to a cheap school, then you probably DONT have much recourse. you did NOT pay for a days bike hire, you paid for training WITH bike hire FOR the training given.... not to play about and practice on at your own leisure.

THAT is how the school will refute it, IF they have the mind to.

Not much comfort, I'm afraid, but the Heare & Now is.... have glass of something alchoholic, give your G/F LOTS of comfort, and tell her not to worry.

DONT push her or get angry, shrug, tell her THAT'S the way it goes some-times, and APPOLOGISE.... women apreciate applogies, especially if you haven't done anything wrong....... (they dont when you HAVE.... they just want to punish you then!)

And let the situation diffuse.

IF and I say IF she wants to go back and try again, dont push her, but if she hasn't had any thoughts on the matter withn a week or so, ask, mildly what she thinks about doing it again.....

BUT before you do, or IF she suggests it before..... suggest looking for a 'better' school......

Tell her you made the mistake of going to a cheap one, but have been advices you get what you pay for.

CHECK with the BMF for accreddited training schools, and TRY if possible to find a non-commercial 'Volunteer' school in your area.

Round us, Hinkey Rider Training is just that creature, and ALL the instructors on the books are volunteers doing the job for the love, not the money, and the training is GOOD in consequence, becouse with volunteers, you can give students as much or little attension as they need or want, and NOT have any financial insentive to pass or fail.

BUT be prepared to PAY for the quality of training you want, and when you call teh school, be veryt specific that your G/F has done her CBT before and been 'denied' and needs more re-assurance; a good school will take that on board and will work on what she needs most, and IF that is time on the bike, rather than the class-room, give her the opportunity.

Hope that helps.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[danjameswhitt]

[lozzypop1]

1.) Get her to read this: MY HELLISH CBT STORY

2.) Tell her to find another instructor.

3.) From personal experience it's the instructor that is the problem most of the time.



That is all.
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Funny, I used to hate being spanked as a child!
Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.

[Crystal Tipps]

Sounds a horrible story sorry to hear your GF had such a bad experience.

I went into my CBT expecting to struggle, and terrified of having to spend the day with a few over-confident 16 year olds...and I did get off to a slow start, but my instructor was brilliant, and incredibly patient. Every time I mastered one thing we moved on to the next thing (like, OK we're going to use more gears now...or indicators...or mirrors...), and suddenly I couldn't do the first thing any more! But with perseverance (mine & the instructor's) I got there & he had no hesitation in taking me out on the road, and in fact I found that much easier than pootling about the "false" enviroment of the training ground.

I'd suggest finding a different school/instructor. And I paid £110 to include 9am to 4pm training and hire of the bike. All time used up...instructor munched through his sandwiches at the same time as doing the Highway Code part!

Hope this hasn't put your GF off...good luck!
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First bike: 2002 CG. Now riding lime green 2008 ER6N.

[sk8wheeler]

I had to go back for a second day to finish off my CBT. The first day I was with a group of much more experienced riders - 2 ped boys and a fella from the black country who I think said he had ridden years ago but needed to get his licence now. They were all much quicker to get the grasp of things. I was very fortunate in that there was a spare instructor to look after them, and I got one to one tuition. By the end of my first day I was getting the hang of the manoueveres. The next weekend I went back, we refreshed the things I'd done the weekend before, and within a couple of hours I'd been out on the road and was back collecting my signed certificate. Best of all, they didn't charge me any extra for the additional day. I think it was £95 for the CBT in the end.

Hope your GF has better luck if she decides to go for it again. I would definitely recommend going to another training centre.

[Alexio]

Get her a CBT certificate from somewhere else and then book her a couple of lessons - not with the intention of doing her test yet, just to further her skills on the road and be safe.

There's so much you don't get taught on a CBT! I had three lessons immediately afterwards (each lasted about half a day), learned much more than I knew before and felt a lot safer. I feel so safe in fact that more than two years and many thousands of miles later I still haven't gotten around to affording the test and a big bike. Poor student and all that.
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will never give up his CG. I look at my fuel gauge more as a progress bar than a fuel gauge.
G: With my GSXR I do often effectively use it as a scooter with a clutch in town.
ms51ves3: why does it need 500 miles? Are you teaching it how to be a piston?

[Kal]

I seriously fucked up my first CBT - I couldnt get the clutch/throttle balance right and either revved the bollocks of off it, stalled it or on several occasions changed gear without it. My second one a couple of years later was much, much better.

My personal opinion is that the instructors here aren't very good at what they are supposed to be doing and could put your Misses completely off, better to choke the money - tell the CBT people you'd rather feed your cock to a hiv infected corcodile than give them more money or recomend them - and take them to another trainer you have a personal recomendation for.
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Kal...
I Like To Hoon It Hoon It I Like To Hoon It Hoon It I Like To Hoon It Hoon It Ya Like To (HOON IT!).
1984 GB250 Clubman,1983 CB250N Superdream, 1999 GPZ500S

[Frost]

I think that some of it depends on the roads around the test place along with the time of day and other other people doing their CBT. If you have someone who isn't great and they're your only student you can take extra time and keep a close eye on them. If you have 2 naturals and 1 wobbley person and the roads around the area are full of traffic & potentially dangerous, your going to leave mr wobbley behind and focus on the other 2.

I would always recommend that anybody wishing to do a CBT practise clutch, gears and balance in a feild/supermarket car park/garden/drive first . The first time i rode a bike i took it for a lap around the block. Scared the holy shit out of me and was illegal but it definatly helped!

[Notj7]

I was given a few hours to ride around the car park. I'd never touched a bike before, and you could tell because I felt amazing simply changing into second gear for the first time.

20 minutes IS NOT fair to get used to a bike. It's not even "fair" for a person who has been biking for a few years to get on a bike they've never ridden before and get used to it's feel and handling even slightly in 20 minutes.
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Left the forum.

[Teflon-Mike]

[Killer Rat]

the best advice i got from my CBT as regards to clutch/throttle control was to imagine you are wringing a towel.

[Alexio]

[Kal]

[m0l0t0v]

[Ichy]

[Notj7]

I was given 45 minutes to simply ride around, changing gear and using the clutch, flicking on indicators and getting used to balancing on the bike for the first time. I'm not a retard, simply never had sat on a bike before, but I needed that time to get used to it.
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Left the forum.