At the grand old age of fifty I thought I would like to ride a motorbike again. I'd had one when I was 20ish but was doing so much cycling then that a motorbike was a bit of a white elephant. In those days you could ride a bike of up to 250cc without taking a test first. You just kept your 'L-plates' on indefinitely though you couldn't carry a pillion rider (unless he had a licence!) Well the law has changed since then, a good thing, so now my provisional licence meant that I could only ride a small bike, a 125cc and I had to take CBT, compulsory basic training, before riding that. There is one little loophole though, a short cut for experienced road users which is 'Direct Access', a system whereby you can train on a 500cc bike if you are on an approved course. I liked the look of that, a new challenge, a new skill and hopefully a safer rider as a result. After some hesitation, (that's me I'm afraid!) I approached Phoenix Motorcycle Training, run by Leigh Coldwell in Chippenham. We had a chat about it, initially by e-mail, and I went away and sat in a dark room feeling a bit faint about the cost. Anyway, I made up my mind that I would go down that route so the next thing to do was take the theory part of the driving test, another new introduction since I passed my car driving test in 1975.
The theory test was done in Bath, all done on a computer screen. A certain amount of revision of the Highway Code was needed, a process I thoroughly enjoyed! I hadn't realised how the Highway code had changed in 30 years (no more whip signals!) and there were many things I had forgotten. The Highway Code is only a part of the theory test though as there is also a 'hazard perception test' This was explained well on a DVD sent out by the DSA (Driving Standards Agency) so that on the day I felt confident that I would pass; I did! My marks were a perfect 35 out of 35 on the Highway code, very gratifying and a comfortable middle of the range score on the hazard perception test, harder to revise for (just like real life!) so a good score would need more practice, something I was unable to do.
Having passed the theory test I was able to approach Leigh about the motorcycle training proper. This was to begin with CBT (compulsory basic training) which is broadly the same for mopeds, motorcycles and scooters. It is possible to take CBT on a 500cc bike but I am glad to say that Leigh didn't try to get me to run before I could walk so I found myself astride a Suzuki 125 for my first motorcycle experience since I was an apprentice. The Redland School in Chippenham played host to our first wobbly figures of eight around the playground one Saturday. The other trainee for the day was a young girl, Emma, who was doing CBT on a scooter but the training is essentially the same except that I had gears and a clutch to add to my confusion whereas the scooter manages without.
All too soon Leigh was saying "Well, we all seem to be good enough, so let's head out on the road!" Eeek! The first few hundred yards was a bit slow. We must have seemed like a rolling road block to the bewildered residents of Redlands. The instructor is in touch with his trainees by radio and after a while I heard a voice saying "It is okay to go above 15 mph you know!" I managed to coax myself up to 30 mph over the next few minutes. I have to say that for anyone who values his life, 30 mph is three times faster on a motorbike than it is in a car. The Suzuki was ever so easy to ride, lying low to the road so that even short women can manage it, but it has an impossible gearbox with neutral coming and going erratically. I was so glad to be moving on to another bike for my test. CBT more or less mirrors what will be done later in the driving test, with emergency stops, U-turns, an open road ride (50mph!!!) and a hill start. My confidence was slowly rising and cautiously I started looking forward to the next part of my training, a half day of Direct Access conversion which essentially was a bit like the CBT but involved sitting on a Suzuki GS500 for the first time in my life.
The 500 weighs more. There was no getting away from it. It seemed huge. When you let go of the clutch there's a feeling of being carried away by a real no-nonsense power too. I felt like a pony trekker being sent out on Red Rum. First I rode around the car-park of the rugby club, figures of eight etc, some emergency stops and I started to get the measure of this larger bike. Then the time had come to go somewhere on it and Leigh followed me as we set off down the quiet lane to Biddestone and then left to Cross Keys at Corsham and back along the A4. Much poodling around the town and suburbs and all too soon this adventure was over and I went into work for the afternoon, grinning from ear to ear.
The next day, Tuesday, was just a work day. Presumably Leigh was involved with other pupils, so I trained next on Wednesday, meeting Leigh at his home on the other side of town. We had a whole day of round and round the houses, U-turns, emergency stops, hill-starts over and over with the occasional burst of excitement along an A-road. We finished by going through Lacock and up Bowden Hill to Sandy Lane. It wasn't a cold time of year yet but there is only so much you can do before you need to warm up and go the toilet etc so I was introduced to the delights of Mayhem Motorcycles, Chippenham's motorbike shop on the Bumper's Farm Industrial Estate. If we weren't hanging around in a motorbike shop, we were at a kebab van somewhere. I was a biker!
Wednesday started at Leigh's house again, and we were to be joined by Barny, about 30 years my junior. He was dropped off from a brand new Bentley. Leigh and I watched it drive away with our jaws on the floor. Barny was okay though, a real nice lad who had failed a few weeks ago on his U-turn and so he had to go back to more lessons and a retest. We drove round and round as the previous day, visiting places in Chippenham that I had hardly ever seen, maybe never seen, before. Each estate road had a six metre wide place just right for the U-turn and I slowly got better at them, usually turning rather too tightly - I'm used to turning a fixed wheel bicycle - and occasionally paying the price as I would be going too slowly and have to put my foot down.
The program of training was, essentially, to visit all the known haunts of the examiner and turn in all the places he uses and ride through the junctions that would be in my test.
My test! That was scheduled for Friday morning, six and a half days after first sitting on a motorbike. The morning dawned bright and crisp - in fact too bright and too crisp. It was very cold and very bright with a very low sun. At first the 500 could not be persuaded to run smoothly as it was chilled and I had to bump it back into life at several junctions when it cut out.
The other problem occupying my mind was the cold which was causing my visor to mist over alarmingly, and my glasses too. This combination of glasses and visor misted meant that I was trying to look through something only slightly more opaque than a house-brick. By cracking the visor open a little I could more or less see where I was going. We went off and did a practice route and the bike was just about warm and my nerves were jangling less.
The test centre is the very last building in Bumper's Farm. My test was the very first test of the day. The examiner did all the formalities, eye-test, licence, etc and then we went off. I was surprised when he told me to drive out to Castle Combe, not a normal route. He must have been avoiding the rush hour traffic. Going out in the country suited me as it uses up time and gets the bike warm before the manoeuvres like the U-turn. However I was caught out a bit by his instruction to turn towards Kington St Michael as, oddly maybe, I am not really very familiar with the junction. Even with the sun behind me I had trouble seeing it. No problem though, got away with it. Then we had to negotiate the traffic lights at the Plough. If I had not been familiar with the junction I would have been in big trouble, turning straight into the sun. We went up to the golf course junction and into Chippenham along Malmesbury Rd. I was instructed to turn right into Yewstock Crescent which I did, just as a van hurtled round the corner out of the flaring light at me. This went down on the examiner's score sheet...as did the next disaster when I completely cocked up the U-turn after having done maybe 100 perfect turns. I was dead cheeky and asked if I could repeat the manoeuvre (if you don't ask...) but to no avail.
Barny passed and I didn't. Disappointing, but the examiner is not your enemy; he's there to keep you alive! If at first you don't succeed...
Two weeks later I was booked in again so on the Tuesday I booked a half day off and we went round and round in time honoured fashion, this time on a different bike. I wasn't keen on this bike but it was all good training. Amusingly I had arranged to meet Leigh at 1pm but by 2.15 there was no sign of him so I phoned him on his mobile and he was hugely embarrassed to have forgotten all about me. He promised to get back to his home at 3pm. When he arrived he had another pupil with him, John, on the aforesaid different bike. John was just off home so I just climbed straight on his bike and we did an hour and a quarter of good training until the rush hour made it a bit too manic.
The next day was John's test, and mine too. I was pleased to be back on the old familiar bike - it felt like an old friend.
John failed ...on his U-turn. So that was three people to my knowledge who couldn't take a bike and turn it round. I had to sit biting my nails until he returned and I could go off with the examiner, a different man this time. We launched straight into the U-turn, almost from cold. I did it perfectly! (nervously but perfectly) Then the rest of the test was more or less a formality as we went out around Sutton Benger and the motorway junction and returned to Chippenham via the dual carriageway (70 mph in your driving test - not bad , eh?) At the end he said I had had a 'good ride' and told me I had only made 2 driving faults - you are allowed 15 in a test. I grinned all the way back to Leigh's house.
Then came the icing on the cake - because he had been so embarrassed by leaving me in the cold the day before, Leigh would only charge me for the re-test so a major financial disaster was avoided. A good bloke, Leigh - Phoenix Motorcycle Training, just in case you are interested!
