Bikesafe

I did the Warwickshire Constabulary Bikesafe course at the weekend. It's billed as an introduction to Advanced Motorcycling. It cost £95 & in my opinion is the most worthwhile 2 days I've ever spent on a course.

The course is run by Police Motorcyclists (Nationally) for motorcyclists of all standards. This one was based at the Heritage motor museum at Gaydon (10 miles up the road from home). The basic premise is safety, simply by being hazard aware & adopting a proactive riding style.

The first morning is theory. They've spent a few quid recently on an 'Interactive DVD', which shows the right & wrong way to do things. There's no pressure & plenty of coffee. After lunch, we hit the road.

As well as serving Police motorcyclists, civilian riders are also recruited as observers. Typically they are either IAM or RoSPA observers. The ratio is 2:1 candidates to observers*. They try to pair you with people of similar biking background / talent. I was paired with a guy largely, I think, because he had a FZ6 (brand new 08, 300 miles on the clock).

* They have to be called observers, as they are not allowed to teach or instruct, due to the insanely litigious environment we now live in.

The initial stint is an assessed ride, a few miles with one candidate at the front, observer in the middle & the other candidate at the back. Then the candidates swap place, a few more miles then a debrief. I lead the first stint & within a mile it was obvious, me & my partner were something of a mismatch, in that we had to stop & wait for him at the first junction. But, that's OK, he was a bit paranoid about over revving his new baby & I can understand that. You ride your ride & the observer assesses you under normal riding conditions. When we swapped, I just toottled along at the back. Stop for a debrief, my ride was described as 'Enthusiastic'.

After which we did a stint where we followed the observer & (tried to) put in practice what we had been told in the morning. Nice cup of tea, another feedback session. Then another blast. I lead this time for about 15 miles along a road just made for bikes. At 75/80mph we soon lost my partner, but we waited for him up the road. At this point, I was concentrating hard on applying new techniques rather than the benefits to be gained from them. My mate caught us up, & we followed him back to base. More coffee, more feedback.

The next day, there was another observer available, so me & my partner were split up. Coffee out the way we hit the road, most of the time I lead. We stopped regularly to discuss the pros & cons of the previous few miles. We did a loop ending up back at base for lunch. Another de-brief & then back on the road.

I made a quantum leap after lunch. The techniques I had been concentrated on started to come naturally. Suddenly, I was just in the right place on the road, hazard aware, overtaking smoothly, just smoother overall. And, 10 to 15 mph faster than I had been in the morning, but more in control.

The last stint of the afternoon I followed my observer - an old boy, in his 60s on an ancient Pan European - I topped 105mph trying to keep up with him. I've ridden the same stretch of road many times, probably just as fast, but never so competently.

More coffee, another de-brief & a goody bag. I went home a happy chap, peeled me leathers off & crashed out for an hour & a half. I'm sold; I've been in touch with the local branch of the IAM with a view to joining & taking the test.

If you have any inclination at all to do some further training, I highly recommend this course. You will benefit from it no matter how good you are.

Bikesafe - Motorcycle Rider Safety

Glad you enjoyed it.
I'm doing bikesafe this Sunday, it's only on the day but I am thinking about having a look at IAM afterwards. :thumbup:

glad you enjoyed your course Pedward, I would take issue with one thing though...

Bikesafe courses vary enormously throughout the U.K.

I have just declined one locally as it was to cost £65 for 4 hours! some Police forces run them effectively free. Yours sounds very worthwhile, I had decided to spend the £65 on profffesional 1 2 1 training as I thought that was better value, but now it appears I can get on a bikesafe course with a neighbouring Police Force, together with some other Club members.

Any quality training is better than none, some is obviously better value than others.

Surely there should be a national standard of these things, or are the Police just doing what they are told by the Government, and paying lip service to cost/quality of the product.

Sounds like you had a productive couple of days.

What do you think you go from it that you did not know before?

very nice, do they offer some other levels of the bike safe? are you planning on doing those levels as well if so? They offer different levels in my area and have always thought it would be nice to do.

Has anyone on here done the London Bikesafe? I hear it's pretty good and they may have more good commuter/city riding tips than other places.

My bikesafe joining details have just arrived.

According to the letter, what Herts Police do is a couple of hours or so of briefing and assessed rideout followed by the de-brief.
They also have "other attractions" including local training organisations eyesight testing security advice and various displays.

All in all sounds good and it's free.

Hey Phil,

Ta very much. I hadn't really thought about a BikeSafe course, but then I received my Sticker from Mark today and he'd popped in a few leaflets in too, one of them about BikeSafe. You post your review on the same day, I'm thinking that it's a sign to book myself on!

I'm still fairly new to biking so am just starting to think about where I should be in the road and the best ways to overtake or filter. Sounds like this course could help me a lot now that the basics are coming more naturally.

Thanks again,

Dave

fast blue one said:

Glad you enjoyed it.
I'm doing bikesafe this Sunday, it's only on the day but I am thinking about having a look at IAM afterwards. :thumbup:

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I took a run out with the one of the local IAM groups (there are 2 around here) seemed like a nice bunch of people. Couple of gals, one had an FZ6 didn't get chance to talk to her to pass on this site. Two FZ1s as well, I thought 4 Fazers out of 17 was a good recommendation for the marque.

Going to try the other group next week.

grommit said:

Sounds like you had a productive couple of days.

What do you think you go from it that you did not know before?

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Mostly road positioning, being in the right place at the right time; Hazard awareness; And, the golden rule, to be able to stop in the distance you can see.

A lot of it was "Statements of the bleeding obvious". However, to an old fart like me who passed his test 30 years ago with zero training (as long as you could ride around the block without falling off you got a license) it was an eye opener.

FZ-Dave said:

Hey Phil,

Ta very much. I hadn't really thought about a BikeSafe course, but then I received my Sticker from Mark today and he'd popped in a few leaflets in too, one of them about BikeSafe. You post your review on the same day, I'm thinking that it's a sign to book myself on!

I'm still fairly new to biking so am just starting to think about where I should be in the road and the best ways to overtake or filter. Sounds like this course could help me a lot now that the basics are coming more naturally.

Thanks again,

Dave

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Heed the advice here, I had assumed that there was a some sort of curriculum, but it appears they do vary greatly in quality. Check it out before you spend. Or come up here to Warwickshire.

I had my bikesafe yesterday. It was pretty much as I posted earlier. My observer/assessor was a very down to earth bike loving PC. We talked a bit about ability and aspiritation. and he outlined what we would do and roughly where. He then led me off on an R1 of all things. There were more police than police bikes and a local dealer had loaned them various yamahas including an '08 fazer.
The led part of the ride was 10 minutes of him showing me some of the lines that they use, and when it was my turn in front I found myself not quite as bold as he was.
The hard part was trying to forget he was there. Part of that was his constant changing of position to observe different parts of my ride even though he did warn me that he would do this.
When we got back we had a thorough de-brief which was full of positive feedback while advising me on the areas I need to work on (mainly gear selection because I am too fuel economy conscious and more use of the outside foot.

I was introduced to the local IAM and recommended to go on "skills for life" with them.

Putting this into practise on the way home I noticed a difference and it felt good.

All in all a good enjoyable and wothwhile session.
I've even persuaded my born again neighbour to go along to the next one. :thumbup:

pedwards89 said:

Heed the advice here, I had assumed that there was a some sort of curriculum, but it appears they do vary greatly in quality. Check it out before you spend. Or come up here to Warwickshire.

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Sounds cool... Warwickshire isn't too far away. Hampshire are fully booked so can't do one until next year now

Do you know if you have to live in Warwickshire to do the BikeSafe with them? Thames Valley for example only let you on if you are within 40miles of Milton Keynes.

Dave

Try Wilts Pol, they are nearer than Warks.

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M