Motorbikes and me
This summer I’ve made two attempts to learn how to ride a motorcycle. Both failed. On the first occasion, in early July, I was just getting the hang of riding the bike around the yard and changing the gears up and down when the instructor set a new task, the day was warming up and I was getting hot in the protective clothing you have to wear and started stalling and flubbing everything I was trying to do, and I ended up leaving the session early. The second time was last Monday; I thought trying a scooter would make things a little easier as I had already learned how to use gears the previous time, but in the event could not even bring myself to ride the thing at all. I don’t know if I will try a third time; there are some training companies that offer one- or two-hour lessons, while others offer nothing other than the standard CBT (Compulsory Basic Training), in some cases with an offer of a second try at a reduced rate.
I previously looked into learning to ride a motorcycle twice, once in the mid-90s when I was in my early 20s and still at university, the second in the late 2000s when I was in my early 30s. The first time, bike shop attendants told me that I shouldn’t really consider travelling from London to Aberystwyth and back on a 125cc motorcycle (perhaps this was advice I should have ignored; after all, it’s around 200 miles, a distance that regular commuting will run up in a couple of weeks); buying one would have meant taking out a student loan, which I had hitherto managed to avoid doing with parental help, but the old car I had acquired from my uncle had become undriveable as part of the body had rusted so bad that the rear shocks had gone straight through. In the end, I decided against it. The second time was after a job agency boss had told me I should “get a little scooter” when public transport was often failing to get me to work on time. I looked around some of the same places I’d looked at ten or so years earlier, but in the event, a family tragedy led me to knock the idea on the head once again. This time, the reasons were more practical: being able to commute without getting stuck in London’s interminable traffic jams, and perhaps a more pleasant way to get to some of the country parks and stately homes where I like to take pictures, as well as (for small bikes at least) being able to do twice or three times as many miles on a gallon of petrol as I do in my car. Initially I was considering a three-wheeler, as there are tricycles with two wheels at the front rather than the back which are a little wider than a motorcycle and can be ridden on a car licence, but the road tax and insurance costs meant this would be a costly option, far more in the long term than actually learning to ride a motorcycle.
However, despite having done a bit of research, look at training videos on YouTube showing how you operate the gears on a bike and so on, nerves still got the better of me, twice. On the first occasion I came in pretty confident that I’d complete it and the following day I’d be going out, getting a bike and riding it home, and that biking would be a new hobby I’d be able to enjoy in the coming months (less so in the winter, but I had no plans to get rid of the car), and suddenly my plans had all evaporated and there was a void; even at times when I was comfortable with the idea of never riding again, I kept thinking to myself “what am I going to do with my life now?”. The practical advantages of riding still exist, though any bike with an engine bigger than 500cc will be no more economical than my car or in fact less, which is puzzling given that my car has a one-litre engine and still has a whole cabin to pull around whereas a motorbike’s comforts consist of a cushion and nothing else: no adjustable seats, no air conditioning, no stereo or any of the other things you see in a car that add weight. If I was downsizing from a three-litre four-by-four then almost any bike would be an improvement, but my car is already one of the most economical petrol cars going. The other reason I am still tempted to try again is that, as with learning to ride a bicycle (or doing so without stabilisers), which I did when I was a child and I now cycle all the time, there is a fear barrier that has to be overcome and that once overcome, riding gets easier.
The way the training system and the training ‘scene’ works does not make it easy for new riders, in my opinion. Unlike with learning to drive a car, there is a one-day compulsory basic training (CBT) course which is a set-piece series of lectures and exercises (a talk on safety and protective equipment, a couple of hours’ tuition on basic riding and manoeuvres, a Highway Code lecture followed by a two-hour road ride) in which one instructor can be split between four trainees (though only two for the road ride). This is typically carried out in a confined space, such as a school playground, car park or some other small yard, so at no point can you just ride. By contrast, when we learn to drive a car, we have a series of one-to-one lessons that last as long as it takes to get up to test standard. There are not many training companies that offer one-to-one CBT or introductory lessons; some in fact warn learners off companies that offer the latter, when a couple of hours to get the hang of riding without worrying about taking the instructor’s time from three other trainees might be what someone needs. The cost of any non-CBT training session ranges from £30 to over £60 per hour; CBT itself in London often costs considerably more than even in nearby towns such as Crawley. I have seen one-to-one CBT advertised as costing £500; by contrast, the two-day HIAB operation course I attended earlier this year cost £725 (i.e. £362.50 a day) for one-to-one tuition, and a HIAB-equipped truck costs a lot more than a 125cc motorcycle.
Gear — protective equipment — is another stumbling block. Helmets are compulsory; gloves, boots and suitable clothing are recommended, and nobody will train you without them. However, getting hold of gear if you’re new to the scene is a chore. The gear shop near me, when I went in to buy a helmet, directed me to get a full-face helmet when I had expressed a preference for an open one, because I feared a full-face helmet would not work well with glasses, and I ended up with one that wasn’t very comfortable. Getting boots was also an ordeal; their boot selection is all laid out on the shelves (rather than in boxes in a store room as in a normal shoe shop), boots are often in sizes nothing like normal shoe sizes (I ended up with a size 13 when I am normally a 10) and there was a security tag through one of the lace holes, preventing me from doing it up properly. After the first CBT disaster, I took the helmet back to the shop unused; the cashier initially refused to give me a cash refund (if you buy online, they have to, but not for store purchases) until I told him that his voucher would be no use to me. After the second, I hung on to the boots as I suspect he’d not have made the same allowance a second time. On both occasions, it occurred to me to cancel the CBT sessions, but it was too late for a refund. I don’t dispute the need for gear when riding on the road (although I see plenty of riders without it, especially the delivery riders) but it can be sweltering on a hot day when you’re stationary and trying to listen to an instructor. That’s not a good way to learn a new skill. Perhaps doing the basic (off-road) training on grass would be better than on concrete, as they could then ease up on the gear (particularly the jacket).
Motorcycling isn’t exactly in my blood. My dad rode when I was a young child, but (as is common with young men who get married and have kids, it seems) sold his bike long enough ago that I can’t remember what make and model it was. He then cycled ten miles to work and back each day until we moved to New Malden, where it was no longer practical and took the train. I know two people who have quit, in one case because he slipped on oil and although he was not badly hurt, the bike (a Harley Sportster) was a wreck. People have lucky escapes and decide that they’ve pushed their luck enough and it’s time to quit while they’re ahead. I’ve been told that riding at 150mph is a feeling like no other, but my ambitions aren’t that extreme; I just want to be able to leave the car behind when I go to work or otherwise out alone, and pay a bit less for petrol.
Image source: Rainmaker47, via Wikimedia. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) 4.0 licence.
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