Advanced Test

[BaZa®]

Re: Advanced Test

To everyone who is following this thread, especially the lower mileage riders. All this advanced training is without doubt a good thing. BUT dont fall into the trap that it solves ALL your riding skills problems. Its only a tick in the box to help you move ahead with your skill levels.
You need to ride your bike EVERYDAY all year round in all conditions to achieve a level where all the training becomes purely instinctive, ie if you have to think about it second by second its TOO LATE. Ultimately thats how bike cops, other emergency first response bikers and surviving dispatch riders get to be as good as they are. Use it or lose it.

Yup you and me have been there haven't we mate with the EFAD, a tick in the box can also give a false sense of security, as I said previously I thought I knew it all!!! NEVER I will and can always learn. There are too many w@nkers in cages that are either drunk, drugged up, thinking about the kids or what to get at the shops, so treat every other road user as a complete imbecile. It works for me. But I use the word w@nker rather than imbecile. :wink:

 

[Tony Cross]

Re: Advanced Test

IMO advanced riding skills and riding to the system makes you far more aware of your errors. It gives you a benchmark to measure yourself against.

 

[BikerBore]

Re: Advanced Test

To everyone who is following this thread, especially the lower mileage riders. All this advanced training is without doubt a good thing. BUT dont fall into the trap that it solves ALL your riding skills problems. Its only a tick in the box to help you move ahead with your skill levels.
You need to ride your bike EVERYDAY all year round in all conditions to achieve a level where all the training becomes purely instinctive, ie if you have to think about it second by second its TOO LATE. Ultimately thats how bike cops, other emergency first response bikers and surviving dispatch riders get to be as good as they are. Use it or lose it.

I wouldn't say I totally agree with that. I ride every day but don't think it makes me a better rider than someone who chooses to just ride in the summer. If they never ride in icey conditions why do they need to learn about it? But neither my IAM or RoSPA training taught me to ride in winter conditions. I took my training during the summer. A very very wet summer but still summer :p

Also the RoSPA group I was with stopped doing rideouts during the winter!

 

[Sidewinder]

Re: Advanced Test

To everyone who is following this thread, especially the lower mileage riders. All this advanced training is without doubt a good thing. BUT dont fall into the trap that it solves ALL your riding skills problems. Its only a tick in the box to help you move ahead with your skill levels.
You need to ride your bike EVERYDAY all year round in all conditions to achieve a level where all the training becomes purely instinctive, ie if you have to think about it second by second its TOO LATE. Ultimately thats how bike cops, other emergency first response bikers and surviving dispatch riders get to be as good as they are. Use it or lose it.

It is definitely a case of use it or lose it, but riding the same route every day blinkers you into thinking the hazards will always be the same.
The system is a thought process that is applied to very weather condition and hazard and does become automatic.

You also need to know your limitations- there is a point when doing advanced training when your confidence exceeds your competence and can lead you into danger by bad planning.

If you can handle a bike in poor weather you can handle a bike in good weather, but again it is important to recognise the safety factor of where and when to ride in bad weather.

Be at one with your bike and it will never let you down. It will always go round corners - your thought process however may stop it!