Tag: Learning

If you want to start riding a motorcycle in London or anywhere in the UK, your first step is to get your Compulsory Basic Training or ‘CBT’ completed. This is a simple one day course and isn’t a test as such if your instructor finds that you have reached the required standard to ride on the road, your CBT training will be complete and your certificate issued. See more information about CBT courses in London and the UK on RideTo, the UK’s #1 platform for new riders.

So what happens on the day? Once you have booked a CBT with your local RideTo training school, you will be instructed on what you need to bring and what you need to wear on the day. The minimum requirements from a clothing point of view are a crash helmet, gloves and boots that cover your ankle. Your arms and legs must also be fully covered. If you don’t have any gear yet and are waiting until you complete your CBT, the training school will be able to loan you the minimum required equipment for the duration of your training. Although with the current pandemic, new riders are being advised to bring their own equipment where possible.

Before you can get a driver’s permit, you need to pass a US DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) written test. The best way to prepare for this written test is to take an online DMV theoretical test. However, a practice test is not for the sole purpose of preparing for the test. It comes with other benefits as well.

One important benefit of taking practice tests is that you get to know the rules and laws related to driving and road safety. You acquire theoretical knowledge regarding driving safely and abiding by road signs and other rules. All these lessons will help you become a safe rider.

I did it!

I passed my DAS. A bit nerve-racking, but passed. I can now ride any motorbike I like!

It was a bit tight on time, as my test was late morning, only giving me half a day to practice. The guys at 1 Stop Instruction have all been great, taught me well and quite obviously have a great system for getting newbie’s on two wheels.

We did a lot of riding around Enfield covering all the main routes of the test. Checking out many traps and common gotcha’s that others often fail on. Then it was off to the test centre. I just had to stay calm, remember every lifesaver, position myself correctly at every junction and cancel them bloody indicators! The 1 Stop bikes all have buzzers attached to the indicators as an aid memoir, simple but very effective.

The test mostly went very smoothly, though a brief hail storm made things interesting. Especially as this occurred when I ran into a long tailback behind some vehicles on tow. Do I filter past or hold back? Can I get by before the island on the road? Should I be safe and stay back due to weather conditions?

Near the very end of the test, we ran straight into a jam waiting for a railway crossing. Odd I thought, the 1 Stop guys had shown me a common trap just around the corner: a junction at the end of a road with no central markings, but painted parking bays on either side. The trick is not to assume it’s a one-way street and position yourself to the right of an imaginary left-hand lane, ignoring parking bays. So why did he let me go into the jam and not take me here? After the test, in the debrief the examiner quizzed me if I had heard him say turn left back there… Thinking back, I can’t work out if it was an intercom failure, or just me too deep in concentration elsewhere… Oh well, I passed.

Overall I felt relaxed and confident throughout, the examiner took me on roads I had ridden many times over the previous 2-3 days. Advice for your test: know the roads, avoid surprises. And jams are your friend, the less time you’re riding, the less time you could be failing.

Yay, I’m half way through my DAS course after passed my module 1 today. For those not familiar with the DAS, it is split into two modules, the first consists of a series of manoeuvres around a car park; U-turn, slalom, figure-of-8, emergency stop and swerve at 50kph, etc. The second module is done entirely on the road, being followed my a DVLA examiner.

I have spent the last day and a half practising these manoeuvres like mad in a car park with 1-Stop Instruction. The car park at their disposal is a lot smaller than the test centre and they pushed us to achieve the required manoeuvres within this tighter space, on a slight incline and at faster speeds. This made it tough, but rewarding and prepared me and my fellow student well for the module 1 test – blatantly, as we both passed first time.

For me the U-Turn proved hardest, maintaining smooth clutch control throughout to get the right speed, not too slow as to lose balance or too fast to go wide. The two speed tested manoeuvres were a bit nerve racking. These involve an emergency stop and swerve after passing through a speed camera at 50 KPH (~31 MPH). The CBF500 could manage the stop fine, but too hard on the brakes and the ABS kicks in to prevent skidding. Safe, but unfortunately a fail on the test. The swerve really tests ones confidence and control of the bike. The bike needs to lean back and to in a smooth manner, more than I was initially at ease doing considering my lack of experience. The key is too look at where the bike needs to go, rather than at the cones.

My test certificate had a couple of minor faults, one for lifting the rear wheel off the ground slightly on the emergency stop and one for handling of the bike when pushing it from one parking space to another. This latter one was because I had failed to find neutral on parking up (Doh!), so had to perform the manoeuvre holding the clutch in to hide the fact… A pass is still a pass, so I spend the rest of the day practising the module 2 routes around the Enfield DSA test centre, going through places where previous students have been caught out. Nearly there now.