The trouble with motorbikes is …….

My husband recently brought a motorbike.  It was a money-saving scheme, instead of running two cars we now have just my teaching car and his motorbike.  It’s a lovely bike, I’ll try to put a picture on if I can.   Just a 125cc, he had never ridden a motorbike before and went and did his day of Compulsory Basic Training.  After a couple of hours of practising controlling the thing, if you are doing ok they take you out on the road with the instructor bringing up the rear, all connected via headsets so you know where the instructor wants you to go.  Then a few weeks later we went down to Ashford to pick up his lovely shiny new motorbike, and he has been doing brilliantly on it, really enjoying using it and has no problems travelling to and fro work, which is a distance of about 9 miles.

There are times when he needs to use the car still, for instance if he is going out somewhere with our daughters, of getting shopping, or DIY bits, the sort of thing you can’t carry on a motorbike.  This can present a very small problem it has to be said, if I need to go somewhere at the same time, say to go and take care of the horses, so we thought it a good idea for me to learn to ride the bike, so on these odd occasions, I can use the bike when he needs the car.

So Sunday afternoon, the four of us went to the scout hut.  Mike had some packing to do for their forthcoming camp, Zoe took her bike down to have a chase about on in the woods and around the camping field.  I gave Lauren, our 13-year-old a driving lesson on the field, it’s a fantastic opportunity for her to have a go at controlling the car in safely whilst not being old enough to drive.  It’s all off-road, on private land and she is able to drive the car around and get used to clutch control and steering.  We did clutch control exercises, steering between a row of trees and benches, and reversed between them too.  Lots of fun!

Then it was my turn to try out the bike!

Mike talked me through what to do.  It’s very confusing!  The clutch is in your hand instead of your foot, and the gears are changed with your foot instead of your hand!  The thought of taking a motorbike out on the road after only a couple of hours practice is terrifying to me!  I was doing pretty well in 1st gear.  I was balancing and turning nicely around the car park, but getting into 2nd was scary, it felt too fast and I was soon running out of room across the car park.  There comes the next complication!  You have a front brake operated by your right hand, like a push bike, and we all know you never just pull on the front brake because you will go over the handlebars.  (Can you see where this is going)?  You also have a rear brake which is operated by the right foot, similar to applying the foot brake in a car.  I took the bike up onto the field, so I had much more room to play with to practice gear changing, stopping and starting, and I was doing quite well and feeling a lot more confident with what I was doing although each step required a lot of thought and wasn’t coming that naturally at all.

Mike did say be careful because the bike wouldn’t have as much grip on the grass.

You see it started to get a bit too fast (probably 20mph max)  And I was on a very slight slope with the intention of having another go at getting into 3rd gear on the next straight.  But I thought “Oh no I don’t like it”  It was beginning to feel out of control, and each time that happened I sensibly decided to stop and start again.  But this time I panicked and I’m pretty sure in my efforts to get the bike to stop I just applied the front brake, causing the bike to lose grip on the grass and over we went sideways.  I’ve got a nasty graze on my arm, which goes to show that even on grass at below 20mph you should be wearing proper safety clothes.  And Mike’s lovely new bike has now got a broken indicator lens and a crack in the headlight casing.  I felt so bad for damaging his bike, thankfully it was nothing mechanical and it is running fine.  And it is also going for its 1000km service on Tuesday so the timing was good there, at least it will be thoroughly checked over.

I have to say, my experience of not being able to stop, start, and change gear, successfully on the bike has renewed my sympathy for my car learners when it comes to these matters.  When you have been driving for years, these things come naturally, and even as an instructor you know it’s a hard skill to acquire but can still maybe not see how hard and scary it is for some people.  Often a learner will say they would be better in an automatic because they can’t grasp the clutch and gears.  And I have to say my first thought with the motorbike was, this would be so much easier if  it were a twist and go.  But of cause the best thing is to persevere and improve you technique, most of us get it eventually, and I know with practice I would be fine on a motorbike, but I don’t want to be damaging Mike’s lovely bike again in a hurry, or my arm come to that!

I think 4 wheels or 4 legs (on horseback) is most definitely the way forward for me for the time being.

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