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fever wrote:do they actually teach you to ride slower?

what about teaching riders this:
"if you gonna ride fast,heres how to ride safer at speed?"

They didnt say that exactly, but i think thats the aim of the course. Theres no way there gonna stop us from going fast, so they might as well teach us to do it safely.

It was an excellent day for sure tho! Spent a few hours in the classroom learnign about riding techniques, hazards etc... then we went and put it all into practice. Started of riding round town in traffic etc..stopped, discussed any problems, ride again, discussed anything else had lunch (all paid for) and then hit the country lanes!

And was the same again, stopped, had a quick talk then got going again, on the second stop my instructor said my riding had improved alot and was much better, he also said -

'youd be approaching corners and im there thinking, hes gonna brake in a minute, hes gonna brake in a minute, you start turning in and i think your gonna fall of, and somehow you manaege to make it round the corner. Which isnt a bad thing cos it shows you know hod to ride the thing'

And this was coming from an advanced certificate police rider! So quite happy with meself after that really. Got a certificate to say id done it and all for 30 quid! Also i had the luxury of 1 to 1 tuition, we were all grouped up according to our ability and cos i was youngest there by about 5or6 years i guess i got 1 to 1



Theres me looking happy with meself (2nd from left and needing a haircut) with all the other guys who did bike safe. Guy on the very left (my right) accidentally put diesel in his gixxer750! oooops! amazingly it still ran ok just smoked....quite a bit, luckily hed only topped his tank up with about a fiver so wasnt pure diesel.

Fookin hell the two old boys in the middle look like there about to keel over with a heart attack any minute. Did they have a paramedic on standby?

lol, no they didnt.

Well the one next to me had a fazer600, and they arent slow, he had 40 years road experiance under his belt. Didnt get to ride with him, but i bet hed be faster than me.

good stuff robbie!
im all for advanced training.

3 of us done a wheelie course last year on a bandit 1200 just for a laugh.
i was suprised how much we learned.because we all thought we knew it all before we took part.
our instructor was a complete loonie on a bike...he showed us some neat tricks.and had us carrying the front wheel in style.

now all 3 of us can pull controlled wheelies and not worry about flipping or landing wobbles.
a must try for any biker.

Looking at the picture and reading some of the comments I've started to wonder what the age profile is of ZXR400 owners.

Like are you all young pups like RobB

Or fat old and slow like me?

Loopy wrote:
I have heard a copper say that speed is irrellevant, there are places where excessive speed in a car or on a bike are perfectly safe, he's found that in fatal accidents speed was not the major factor contribituting to the death, it's normally something else or a combinations of things.

Usually human error id have thought. Also depends if theres anything to hit. You could slide up the road at 120mph, fair enough your leathers would be worn through and you'll feel like youve just been barbecued, but if theres nothing to hit chances are your gonna make it, like your mate who came off at 75mph. Only thing he hit was the floor, if hed hit something like a lampost or wall hed have died certainly.

Cargo, im 23 and even i get called old by me friends, god knows why

You're right there old man Rob.....I hit a car at 15mph and ended up in hospital but when I came off at Malory Park I was doing over 100mph and I didn't have a scratch....the difference?.....nothing to hit!!! (and no blind 60 year old biddy not looking where he was going )

You're right there old man Rob.....I hit a car at 15mph and ended up in hospital but when I came off at Malory Park I was doing over 100mph and I didn't have a scratch....the difference?.....nothing to hit!!! (and no blind 60 year old biddy not looking where he was going )

Weren't the classic racers on your bill, then???

Its all in the hands of the gods when you mess up - my worst biking injuries - chipped sternum , 3 crushed vertibrae, many smashed ribs and a heamorage somewhere behind my ear - were from crashing a PUSH BIKE. No more than 10 - 15mph tops (??? Im guessing), but fast enough to over shoot the transition on a drop-off (re-living my mountainbiking glory days here, sorry) and land on the flat, front wheel first, rapidly followed by my chest and head from about 3m plus up. It doesn't sound all that spectacular on paper, but I spent the next 24 hours strapped down, fully restrained, on a heart monitor, CAT scans, absolutely shitting myself, before the docs decided that my chest probably wasn't going to cave in on itself, or that my brain wasn't going to burst and booted me onto the general ward with all the phlegmy dying old men to recover. Great fun. And pain so far beyond the worst 'kicked in the nuts' pain you can't imagine it unless you've felt it (when breathing makes you cry like a girl you can be pretty sure you've f****d up! - oh, and it was summer, and i get hayfever, so imagine how much fun sneezing was) - all followed by about 6 months of being able to do nothing but sit around and get fat. Great.

Anyway, there is a point to this - I broke the golden rule - keep your speed appropriate to the conditions / circumstances. It was a good lesson for the road anyhow, cos I'd rode that drop a hundered times - and take it from me, its true that familiarity breeds contempt, which I try not to forget whenever I catch myself falling into 'local road hero' mode, or thinking about whats for tea while i'm inadvertantly doing a ton+ on a piss boring motorway stretch on the daily commute, or riding at 30 in town just because I can, when I know I should only be going 20 really to be on the safe side.
That said, being able to hurry a Porche, and anihilate those chav ricer dickheads for £1, 1/2 K is priceless fun, and a lot safer than a mountain bike so far.

There endeth the sermon .

Summit else youve brought up there (so to speak ); akward falls.

Some of those mountain bike falls ive seen are pretty bloody nasty and you get all tangled in the bike, and when your doing 40mph plus speeds tangled in the frame or handle bars stuck in ya groin, its gonna make your body bend in ways it does'nt normally do, which obviously breaks things

you're not kidding - if you are interested try to get hold of 'Descent' or maybe the 'Kranked' videos - some of the stuff makes motox look very tame

my nephews just been in hospital couple of weeks back, down the bmx track and he misjudged a double jump came down on top of the second jump and dislocated his elbow, smashed some of the bone and ended up in theatre for a few hours having it all pinned! ouch!!

sorry for taking this thread a bit off the point, but it's really got me thinking about what a moron I was.

Best comedy incident has to be coming down a v steep hill and slipping off the pedals, onto the back wheel, which resulted in a nasty conjoining of nuts and todger/brake pads - had to lock the front to endo the bike to flip myself off, or lose the jewels .

My mate also decided that he could use a berm at the bottom of a hill, which was there to stop you crashing into a quarry cliff face, as a jump to wall ride the cliff face ?! Obviously we encouraged him, and obviously he broke his wrists .

We also used to teach oneanother the impotance of equipment checks by disconecting each others rear brakes - oh the hilarity

Imagine how hysterical you'd find it if you and your mates emptied each others master cylinders for fun?!.

I have voted for 'no' on the poll, speed is relative and if you have the correct bike under you then its alright to go fast. Its a case of personal judgement, if its a busy road with junctions and blind corners then you need to watch it, if you can see its clear, wind the f'ker open!