Only a wee bit about bikes....

We moto-bloggers tend to post about riding safety a fair bit and quite rightly so but I forgot a cardinal rule around the home late yesterday. Consequently I'm paying for it right now and having a quiet day of not doing very much at all.

A small area in our garden is paved with treated wooden blocks which have a coefficient of friction when wet that any budding perpetual motion inventor would lust after - even small animals and insects steer well clear of it. (you can see what's coming, can't you?).

In a hurry to finish a couple of chores before heading off for our weekly evening pub quiz competition, crossing those darned blocks is not exactly the best time to be distracted.  We'd just had a light shower of rain and........

This is going to hurt.......

(courtesy Poolcenter.com)

Gravity, even from a short way off the ground ensures a rough landing and there I lay in light drizzle hurting and wondering what the hell happened.  Jennie was indoors and oblivious to all this as I made tentative movements to see if there were any unusual grating sensations and wishing Mummy was there to make it all better.  Mercifully, there were no breaks although my shoulder aches and it hurts when I cough - just strained chest muscles I hope.  Didn't try to play the sympathy card as I've planned to do something about those darned blocks all winter so the response would have been predictable.  (This has been the ultimate prompt to do something sooner rather than later).  No doubt there will be some interesting colours coming out on the body over the next day or two but don't feel too bad right now having swallowed some anti-inflammatories and rubbed in Voltaren Emugel.  Just hope I'm not too stiff to take part in the IAM ride on Sunday or I'll never hear the end of it from a certain other Kiwi blogger who will see it as his mission in life to tell the other riders!!

Back to the subject of bikes, I had an experience on the Auckland motorway a few days ago which was a timely reminder that even with a high standard of riding, motorcyclists are still at risk.  I was in a line of traffic in the outside lane, moving marginally faster than the next lane in.  Leaving a decent gap to the vehicle in front, I was slowly going past a 4x4 in the next lane.  I was just past the driver's seating position when I sensed as much as actually seeing that his front wing was swinging across to the space I currently occupied!  Delighted to say that's where the IAM training kicked in with muscle memory instantly triggering an avoidance manoeuvre.  No fright, no nothing other than an instantaneous control response - pretty darned pleased with the level of internal discipline.  Reflecting on that incident, a couple of things come to mind.  In the last post reviewing David Hough's new motorcycle book, he talks about prominent vehicles capturing another driver's attention to the extent of ignoring smaller objects (like me!).  This near miss could very well have been an example of this phenomenon.  The driver may well have been fixated on the vehicle in front of me and combined with the decent space I'd left, simply assumed it was ok for him to change lanes.  Guess he'd never heard of doing a lifesaver or shoulder check.  Just take care out there everyone!

Finally, a friend has just introduced me to a supremely talented young Australian musician with a wicked sense of humour.  I can't remember when I've laughed so hard, which hurt rather a lot, given the current state of my ribs.  The satirical song Tim Minchin sings about young children is music to the ears of grandparents in particular, but also parents after they've regained their sense of humour.  I particularly dedicate this YouTube video to our fellow blogger and recent father again Chillertek !!  Incidentally, Tim Minchin has many more hilarious YouTube videos which can't fail to brighten your day.......

Bikers in Blue charity run

Blue September is the Prostate Cancer Foundation fund-raising month in NZ.  There are all sorts of events to raise money for this worthy cause and the Fat Bikers Motorcycle Club organised charity rides in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.  IAM members were asked to go along and show the flag and it didn't take much prompting!

Unfortunately, the weather didn't co-operate in the early morning with torrential rain (it's been a very wet winter in the north island of NZ) and the 2 1/2 hour ride from Coromandel to Auckland to get to the start of the ride was awful, with a lot of standing water about.  To make matters worse, the zip zipper-up thingy on my overjacket exploded en route without me being aware until a rivulet of icy water ran down my chest.  Never mind, good excuse to visit an accessory shop in the next few days!

The Triple all decked out in blue tinsel

Fortunately, the rain stopped shortly after arriving and the roads dried out pretty quickly for the run itself which was great.

All manner of sports bikes and cruisers came along and the next photo of a Suzuki Gladius with a life-sized dummy on the back is especially for Brandy.  It might give her ideas for punishing Brad if he's blotted his copybook ;-).

A seating position to make your eyes water!

There were some nicely finished bikes there and the Suzuki M109 clearly had a lot of money spent on it.

Beautiful M109 with blue helmet hair!

Didja notice the nitrous bottle in the previous photo?

Another M109 from the front!

An awful lot of Can-Ams

Mark (Fat Max) Hill, the FBMC front man; gave a hilarious ride briefing where he had everyone in stitches.  At the end of the ride, there were heaps of donated raffle prizes with Mark again as the MC.  We all know that events like this take a huge amount of organising but Mark and his team made it all look easy.  The hallmark of very slick work.  A big well done guys! 

 Love the tee shirt Mark!

To end on an appropriate note, Mark talked for a bit about prostate cancer and what I didn't realise is that 1 in 10 men will suffer from it at some time in their life.  That's a pretty high percentage and I'll be ringing the doc to get a test in the next few days.  Thanks Mark, you're a gem - I'll even buy you a pie from the Coromandel Pie Company if you get up this way!

Introducing Ken, IAM Vespa Scooterista!

Crikey, this retirement business takes some organising!  Between doing voluntary work helping local senior citizens to use computers, acting as an unpaid carpenter for our offspring and IAM motorcycling involvement, there aren't many spare hours left in the day.  Still, at least we get to choose what we want to do and when to do it for much of the time!

Yesterday was no different as I'd promised to take out an IAM Associate, Ken, from Auckland to brush up on his open road skills.  There had been a snow dump in the central north island high country the previous day and although it was sunny, the strong southerly made it as cold as charity.  Wasn't looking forward to the early morning 2 hour run up to Auckland in those conditions so it was a case of piling on plenty of layers of Icebreaker merino clothing under the padded Gore-Tex riding gear and even slipping Rain-Off mitts over my winter gloves as a further insulation which paid off in spades. The trip was really enjoyable, simply by staying warm and by the time I reached Auckland, temperatures had lifted (just) into double digits C; although wind chill was quite noticeable.

Ken and I arrived within minutes of each other at a service complex just off the Southern Motorway - let me introduce Ken:

Time for a warming coffee and cake before the ride!

A lot of people think that  advanced roadcraft training with IAM is the exclusive province of big, fast roadbikes and whilst a lot of members do own big bikes, it's certainly not their exclusive domain.  Ken is a scooter enthusiast from way back, owning a 200cc Vespa.  He shares the common desire of other IAM members to ride safely to one of the highest roadcraft standards anywhere.  In an urban environment, small capacity scooters compete on an equal footing with any other bike but out of town, a high level of ride planning and situational awareness is required to meet the IAM requirement of "making progress".  Consequently, the decision was taken to plot a route which Ken wasn't terribly familiar with on 2 wheels just south of Auckland.  It incorporated a small amount of motorway (freeway) work, but mainly covered country roads of varying width, sweepers, blind bends and altitude changes.  A great challenge for Ken in terms of positioning and gear selection to make consistently good progress in unfamiliar territory!

Getting ready for the "off" - really nice Teknic jacket Ken!

The ride was deliberately set up to be "informal" so there was no documented marking, enabling Ken to concentrate on one aspect of the roadcraft requirement without the stress of an "official" observation. After a short briefing and connecting his excellent Scala comms set to my helmet, we set off.   The benefit of concentrating on one single aspect of roadcraft in this instance became immediately apparent with Ken attacking the conditions with enthusiasm.  The bike to bike comms was a huge bonus, allowing both of us to offer up relevant information at exactly the right time for maximum impact. Without going into the minutiae of the ride, Ken acquitted himself really well and the scooter also coped pretty well in the strong winds which prevailed on some of the ridge tops. Equally importantly, it was fun for both of us!  After one or two more mentoring rides of this nature plus some solo practice, there's little doubt that the official IAM observed rides will show a significant jump in open road confidence and performance. (A more succinct phrase would be ride it like you stole it Ken!)

Yours truly, looking like Michelin Man but warm as toast!

I guess that the main point of this post is that no matter what you ride, there is no good reason not to aspire to riding to the very highest standards.  The other relevant thing is a comment by both motorcyling guru David Hough and Oregon-based instructor Dan Bateman that the instructor/mentor gets as much, if not more out of training sessions as the trainee.  On top of those benefits, the fact that the IAM operates on a completely voluntary basis, there's no downside whatsoever.  Thanks for a great morning Ken!

To finish on an entirely different note, here's a job advertisement from an NZ south island newspaper for someone to work on weed control on Department of Conservation land.  Isn't it wonderful to see a bit of plain talking in today's politically-correct environment?  Well done that company!!!

A nice, mixed weekend

Jennie was due to fly out for a Mediterranean 3 week "girlie cruise" on Sunday, so Saturday was earmarked for some "together" stuff.  As it happened, the weather and tides were perfect so we took the boat out fishing in the morning.  Right on the edge of winter and a balmy 18 degrees C with no wind - absolutely perfect.

We anchored up in 25 metres of water among the commercial mussel beds and basically, as soon as the first bait hit bottom, it was all on!  We were only out there for just over 2 hours and got our daily combined maximum limit of 18 Snapper - one of the best days ever.

The big chilly bin starting to fill up!

Under the boat, there were 3 Kingfish about 1 metre long lurking to see what we were hauling up.  "Kingies" are rocket-propelled predators and their speed has to be seen to be believed.  They can also weigh more than 50kg!  They're smart fish too - they'll take bait dropped in the water but they're very wary about anything with a line attached - live baiting is the normal method of catching them.  Great eating but they're so powerful that normal gear gets smashed up or at very least, a snapped line.  During a moments' inattention last year, one hauled my rod and reel out of the boat - bye bye $$$$$$!

The photo below shows the metre-long kingies coming up to investigate some bait I dropped on the surface.

Great eating but hard to land!

Towards the end of the trip, Jennie landed an undersized Trevally, dropped it back in and that's when we got a heck of a fright and exhilaration all rolled into one.  As soon as it hit the surface, there was a colossal explosion of water right next to the boat as the biggest two kingfish we've ever seen came after it from the depths.  We were just frozen at the power and speed of these monsters and didn't have time to take a photo but this file photo has one of comparable size.  What a privilege to see something like these in their element!

 The mighty adult Kingfish !

(source: Oceanbluefishing.com)

Sunday saw me departing before dawn for another round of assessing IAM Associates against the advanced riding criteria in Auckland.  There's some strong current interest from female riders which is great.  Wonder if the average male rider thinks he's got nothing to learn?  I'm inclined to think that testosterone plays a bigger obstruction to learning than we might imagine!

 Some of the bikes assembling pre-ride (including a rare VFR 1200)

More bikes of all shapes and sizes

Anyway, I got to assess a rider who's skills had plateaued for a while and was pretty sympathetic as we all go through that process.  However, he'd put in a whole lot more practice with an IAM mentor and his overall skill level had measurably increased over all aspects which delighted us all - the system works!!!  I also had an extremely accomplished Observer assessing me and after the ride was finished, he took me and another trainee Observer for a short training ride to demonstrate some advanced observing skills and how to plan and control the ride.  The learning in that half hour was immense and served to reinforce that whilst I might be riding at an advanced level, I have a heck of a way to go to become an accomplished Observer!!  That's the great thing about continuous learning compared with a one-off course - you become painfully aware of how much there is to learn.  Teaches humility when you see just how good some of these guys are!!!

On the 180 km trip home, I called in to refuel about 60 km short of home.  On re-starting the bike, there was a yellow warning light on the dashboard which wouldn't go out - momentary panic about getting stranded as the Coromandel coast road is a lonely place on a late Sunday afternoon on the edge of winter!  It wasn't oil or temperature but the engine management system and I fretted that it might be electrics.  However, we made it home with no problems and a lot of relief.  Straight onto the internet, praying that I wasn't going to have to fork out BIG $$$ for repairs!  From what I've been able to deduce, some Triumphs are sensitive to over-filling the fuel tank which I know happened because I wasn't paying attention and splashed it everywhere!  Apparently, over-filling can trigger a sensor alarm in the engine management system which ALLEGEDLY disappears after 3 cold starts and warming the engine to normal operating temperatures.  Because the bike has to start from stone cold, I've only managed one today, with 2 more scheduled for tomorrow.  Fingers crossed that's all it is.  The internet is a truly wondrous place - how ever would we have coped with problems like this a few years ago?

So now I have 3 weeks on my own to do stuff and eat stuff that I wouldn't normally get permission for.  Small chance, Jennie will have spies everywhere :-).

Addendum:
Yayyy!!!  The "fix" for the engine management light actually worked, despite slight skepticism on my part.  Amazing!

For Nick and Angus MacPhail....

This post was written after I said I'd stopped blogging for an indeterminate period, BUT ..........

I got home yesterday to find a wonderful link to the past in the Comments section of my previous post from Nick MacPhail who lives in the Channel Islands between the UK and France.  We've never met but may well have been within a few metres of each other in the days when I drag raced at the same time as his brother Angus - what a small world it is these days!  Angus' bike, Ag's Barra, was featured in a photo I took and put in an earlier post about innovative engineering HERE .  I won't repeat what Nick said as you can read it for yourself in the comments section of the previous post.  It's well worth reading and also, the YouTube link to Angus' fantastic drag bike "Jade Warrior" HERE  is a rare treat.

Yesterday, I accompanied my mate and riding partner Davey Uprichard who lives near Wellington up to Auckland for his IAM advanced riding first assessment ride under the eagle eye of Philip McDaid, Chief Examiner.  It was a real win-win day as in the morning, we were able to spend a few hours at the annual classic race meeting at Pukekohe, just south of Auckland in the company of another great mate and riding partner, Dave Easey from Auckland.  For a country of around 4.5M population, some amazing bikes come out of sheds at this time of the year, many of them startlingly innovative.  So Nick and Angus, this post is for you guys in recognition of your appreciation of both smart and rare engineering! (This is only a very small sample of the bikes that were present, both in the spectator park and in the pits).

Dave, Davey and yours truly at the track

Rare Morini 350 V twin from the early 70's

Laverda Jota 3 cylinder in what looks like a Spondon frame

Flawless vintage Morgan 3-wheeler with Matchless V twin motor

Weston race bike - looks like a speedway engine is fitted into a Norton frame

Beautiful Triumph Trident late 60's factory race replica

Weslake-engined race bike

XR Harley replicas - superb engineering

The photo below is of a Brough Superior lining up on the dummy grid for a vintage race.  All these bikes are raced hard with no concession for age or scarcity.  Given that the price of a Brough at a classic bike auction would probably be greater than the cost of a modern factory-supported superbike, the owner has exceedingly large balls!  He's also to be congratulated for not wrapping it in cotton wool and for sharing it with the rest of the population.

Beautiful Brough Superior

The bike below is one of the rarest bikes you'll find - a desmodromic-valved Manx Norton.  It was built by a Kiwi called Brian Thomas to a design by Doug Hele, who was a legendary designer at both Norton and Triumph.  It was their correspondence and friendship which led to Doug's bike being re-created.  A stunning piece of workmanship.

Desmodromic Manx Norton

The next bike was my personal favourite - a Kreidler 50cc racer from the 70's.  Winner of numerous world championships, the bike produced in the order of 11-15 horsepower at close to 17,000 rpm!  The engineering is simply exquisite and when you realise just how small it is, finding a talented rider with the weight of a 10 year old child must have been a nightmare!

One of the best examples of engineering perfection anywhere

Kreidler front view - mountain bikes have wider wheels!

Flawless Benelli Sei 6 cylinder from the 70's

Another exceptionally rare motorcycle is the bike below.  The Hesketh V twin was produced in the UK by Lord Hesketh who used to be involved with F1 car racing.  Manufactured in the 1980's, it was overpriced, unreliable and soon went out of production.  Nonetheless, still a good example of someone trying to innovate.

A Hesketh V 1000 in perfect condition

My mate Paul zoning in

Those photos end the relatively short stay at the Pukekohe race track.  We said our goodbyes to Dave Easey part-way up the Auckland motorway whilst Davey and I headed north west for a date with the Chief Examiner of the IAM.  Those who have previously read of the stress I went though to pass my tests will remember that the examination criteria are based on UK police rider standards - a daunting task for anyone!  I was enjoying Davey's discomfort and deliberately hadn't filled him in with the details.  If I had to suffer the pangs of apprehension, he bloody well could too - that's mates for you! It's interesting that one of Davey's first actions on arriving at Philip's premises was a rapid visit to the toilet.  You may well think it was a nervous one, but I couldn't possibly comment, hehe!

However, Davey and Philip are both Irishmen from not too far apart and within seconds, had lapsed into accents which took more than a bit to follow - probably to keep me totally in the dark!  After explaining what was going to happen and equipping Davey with a radio, we set off on an assessment ride of well over 100km covering a mixture of motorway, urban, and all forms of countryside riding.  It was my intention to sit out back, sniggering and chilling out but Philip put a stop to that by saying that it would be good observer training for me!

Philip and Davey about to set off

Half-way through the ride, we stopped for the first de-brief.  Philip told a delighted Davey that he was already riding at an advanced level and that the improvement areas were only small, rather than any major errors in technique.  Hardly surprising to me, given that Davey and I have ridden together so much and that I'd trust him with my life.

For the second part of the ride, Philip put me directly behind Davey to take the main observing role, but cunningly being able to watch me at the same time - no pressure then!!!  Because Davey is such a darned good rider, there (regrettably, haha!) wasn't an opportunity to "ping" him for anything major and it was a thoroughly enjoyable ride in a relaxed atmosphere.  Returning to base, there was a full debrief and Philip asked me to complete the formal report with 3 improvement opportunities for Davey to work on.  He was congratulated again on such a great performance, particularly for first time up and invited to join IAM as an Associate.   All that remains is for me to allocate him a mentor in the Wellington area and enjoy hearing about his rapid progress through the forthcoming check rides.

All in all, one of those sublime days - away from home riding bikes for 12 hours in great company, covering almost exactly 500 km and seeing some fabulously rare motorcycles to boot.  Oh, and returning home to local smoked fish and marinated mussels as an entrée and baked sticky ribs as a main course, washed down with good beer.  Real man-food courtesy of Jennie, bless her!!

Sincere thanks too to Philip for giving up his time on a voluntary basis to spread the message about high level safe riding, it's hugely appreciated.

Raising my riding skills - some reflections

 

 A study in contemplation!

 When I started out on the journey to raising my riding skills in April 2011, little did I know where it was going to lead and how I’d feel at different stages along the way.  I’ve made periodic posts since April about the on-going IAM training but thought it might be useful to condense the experiences and thoughts into a single post in case it’s of use to others who are thinking of re-skilling or upskilling, but have yet to do anything about it! 

It’s naturally a personal view, but I’ve tried to quantify the reasoning for choosing the particular path that I did.  I hope it all makes sense.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

I’d written a couple of posts about motorcycle accidents and how both regulatory authorities and many motorcyclists too, seemed to avoid the root causes and propose solutions which would have limited impact on reducing accidents.  I was 63 at that time and the idea of upskilling seemed a good one but also like many riders, hadn’t actually done anything about it because I thought that I was an “ok” sort of rider after 40+ years in the saddle.  Trouble is, "OK" is normally "Not OK" to an impartial observer.  The majority of motorcycle riders might justifiably complain about the standard of the average car driver, but often do little to help themselves.  Fair comment?

Eminent American motorcycle safety author David Hough had seen one of my rants on motorcycle safety and in typically forthright fashion, sent an email asking what my plans were to ensure that I continued to ride safely as I aged.  This was his opening salvo – the first of some wonderfully direct and productive correspondence:

Some of your words lead me to believe you've also been thinking about how age is affecting your riding, and how it is likely to affect your motorcycling in the future. So, I'd welcome your observations, both in terms of how the aging of the body and mind affect someone like you or I who have been riding for many years, and also for the "return" riders who have gotten back into motorcycling after years of raising the kids, building the house, etc.

David is an exceptionally astute guy and reading between the lines, he almost certainly thought that I was saying the right things but may have been procrastinating about actually doing anything - and he was right!  Over a number of weeks, refreshing or raising skills was only one of many topics we discussed with respect to ageing riders but he’d prodded my conscience – time to put my money where my mouth was!  Looking back, if it wasn’t for David, I almost certainly wouldn’t have taken the route I did.  Simply put, I owe him an awful lot .

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT TRAINING OPTIONS

As well discussions with David, I’d been having some correspondence around the same time with fellow Kiwi rider and blogger, Roger Fleming and Dylan Rogers; an advanced instructor living in the UK.  Chewing the fat with these guys was incredibly valuable as it helped to crystallise the direction which seemed appropriate for me. Also, it introduced me to people who started as strangers and are now cherished friends as is the way with motorcycling!

Any form of training has to be followed up with practice for it to be effective.  Not only do the skills have to be practised, they require periodically refreshing to stop the inevitable slide back into bad habits mainly because we lack discipline (errr… a polite way of saying we get lazy)!  The only true way of stopping this slide from happening is to be periodically evaluated by an independent, qualified 3rd party.  Potentially tough on the ego but great in terms of acquiring good skills.

Whilst taking a series of one-off commercial advanced riding courses over time was a viable option for me, the approach advocated by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) seemed to be the most appropriate one – genuine advanced training. This is a summary of the IAM approach.

•  There are formal, measurable, standards based on UK training of police motorcyclists.  Arguably one of the highest levels of riding skill available in terms of roadcraft, as opposed to track skills which are rather different compared with advanced roadcraft.  The training “bibles” used are available at a very modest cost to any member of the motorcycling community who wishes to buy them.  They’re listed  HERE  and HERE. 

• The level of instruction, mentoring and testing is delivered by people who consistently meet these standards and are trained to evaluate others.  The instructors donate their time on an entirely voluntary basis.

• It’s a progressive path, not a one-off so there is little chance of letting the skills slip.   It starts with an assessment ride where current skills (or lack of ‘em in my case) are assessed against the aforementioned criteria.  A formal report is given to the trainee.  The trainee practices to address any improvement areas, followed by a series of further observed rides and evaluation reports until the standards are consistently achieved, not just sometimes!  That process can typically take up to two years depending upon commitment.  The trainee then takes the demanding full membership test and if successful, becomes an IAM full member.  It’s worth mentioning at this stage that the evaluation rides take two hours or so per occasion in heavy city traffic, on motorways and narrow, twisty rural roads.  There’s no place to hide with something that comprehensive and like any worthwhile endeavour, it’s darned hard work.

•  A full member may then elect to remain a full member and attend monthly IAM rides or similar events to maintain skills.  In many cases however, full members continue their training to become Observers (instructor/examiners) and voluntarily donate their time to raise the skills of others.

 The on-going nature of the training was particularly appealing, as was the challenge of trying to consistently ride to measurably high level standards.  Also, being retired, I had the time to put something back into motorcycling provided that I was good enough to go all the way. 

IAM was the training path I finally chose.

 

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES

As mentioned earlier, the individual rides and tests have already been detailed in previous posts but there’s much, much more than that going on in the background and it’s worth summarising some of those things.

•  Actually committing yourself to start training is the hardest thing.  Far easier to simply procrastinate and stay in your comfort zone.  Unfortunately, that does nothing to reduce the risk of coming to serious harm so just bite the bullet and get started!

• Any worthwhile training is going to stretch the trainee and probably cause initial ego damage – it did to me!  You soon shake that mindset off and regard any riding errors as an opportunity for improvement.  I think that testosterone is a real inhibitor in admitting that your skills need some work and that women are likely to be far more honest in this respect!

• You do need a bit of experience to get the best out of an advanced course.  Some of the techniques aren’t intuitive unless you can apply some judgement.  Good commercial training is often a useful adjunct to IAM work.

•  Riding to a system and constantly revising your riding plan caters for ever-changing road and traffic conditions.  The process becomes completely automatic with practice.

• In the early stages, my situational awareness (observational skills and consequential planning and execution of appropriate responses) was lacking and it was oh so easy to be overwhelmed by all the inputs from external sources.  Further on in the training, you become aware of just how much more information you are processing to make the correct judgement calls.  Riding in challenging conditions becomes easier and more pleasurable.

• The improvement process isn’t linear.  There are times, particularly in the earlier stages when I struggled to implement the skills and apply them on a consistent basis which was a bit depressing.  This was normally as a result of trying to apply too many new concepts at the same time and going into overload.  The enjoyment of riding suffered at these times and a bit of self-doubt crept in.  It was solved by taking smaller bites at the cherry.  Getting things right and locking them in place was a huge boost to confidence and even small gains opened the possibility of going all the way.  In the early days of training, it was fear of failure which drove me on.  Somewhere along the way, the motivator switched to wanting to execute a near-perfect ride.  That difference might not look particularly important in print, but the mental switch is a HUGE one.

• Meeting other people doing the same training at end of month rides makes you realise that you’re not alone in your doubts and fears and there’s a huge amount of mutual support.  The Observers and Examiners have all gone through the same or similar processes.  They’re there as volunteers so they’re committed to great outcomes on your behalf.

• Being followed by an IAM Observer/Examiner becomes progressively less intimidating – they’re there because of your commitment to improve.  However, there’s absolutely no compromise in the standard they set and like anything worthwhile, who would have it any other way?  Life for most of us is generally comfortable and a true challenge is a great way to remind us that we’re alive.

• Passing through the various stages of IAM training is a source of quiet pride and a certain amount of relief rather than loud celebration.  People who simply want to wave a certificate about probably won’t have the mindset to complete the incredibly demanding course.

• I don’t ride anywhere nearly as fast as pre-IAM days.  The biggest thrill comes from riding well, not breaking speed limits by a large margin.  On the few occasions nowadays when riding fast for a bit of fun, the IAM skills are always there to make good judgement calls about how fast and where you do it.

• The training makes you aware of the generally poor skills of the average road user.  A bit scary in one respect but at least it allows you to identify and address potentially hazardous situations in a timely manner.

• IAM training is available in very few countries.  However, the general principles apply to all good motorcycle training, commercial or otherwise.  The trick is to carefully research what is available in some detail, what suits your circumstances and only then, commit to training.

• Whether you're a fast rider or slow rider, riding on the open road or in town,  good training still applies.  As a motorcyclist, you're vulnerable and greater awareness of your surroundings and the ability to identify and mitigate hazards are are critical for us all to survive.

 As this is, and will continue to be a highly personal journey after quite a bit of research and thought, I wouldn’t presume to advise anyone else to follow suit.  What I will say however, is that if you’ve been considering raising your skills, don’t look for reasons to put it off – please, please find something that suits and get stuck in!

At 64 years of age, I passed my IAM full membership riding test last Friday. Eight months after starting the journey, the first stage has been completed.  To put something back into motorcycling and to prevent a slide in skills, the next stage is to qualify as an Observer (Instructor/Examiner).  Not a bad outcome arising from a chance email sent by David Hough eh?

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do.

Henry Ford

Addendum:  After intensive training and much blood, sweat and tears on my part (and undoubtedly teeth-gnashing by the Examiners), I passed my theory and practical examinations and became an Observer in January 2013.  The post on that momentous day is HERE

Pain and extreme pride

I sent an email last evening to my friend in the UK, Dylan Rogers; who is an Institute of Advanced Motorists Observer (Instructor/Examiner).  Dylan has offered much encouragement and advice, for which I'm eternally grateful.  The first sentence contained an uncharacteristic profanity which was really an emotional outpouring of how I felt at that very moment.  It said, "F**k me, I am sooo tired....."!

Earlier this week, the date for my IAM Full Membership advanced riding test was confirmed - the final step after 8 months of one of the most demanding things I've ever undertaken.  The IAM Chief Examiner told me that my Examiner would be Simon, a serving motorcycle officer who qualified on both bikes and cars with the police in the UK.  The UK police riding standards are used as the basis for IAM training so it's unquestionably tough with no concessions if you're just a little off your game.  Anyone can have a bad day but having completed the Bay and Banjos Tour last weekend with my mates, I felt reasonably sharp, but not by any means over-confident.  The arrangement was to meet Simon in central Auckland at Deus Ex Machina, the extraordinary motorcycle cafe which I've previously mentioned (more on Deus shortly). 

We live in a reasonably remote part of NZ and it's 180 km from central Auckland before I even start the test.  A real full-on day even before returning home!  Leaving home just before 0700 gave me time to ride to Auckland, have breakfast at Deus and a relaxing quick look at some of their new bikes before Simon arrived.  Over a coffee, Simon explained that we'd be doing dense traffic city work first, followed by urban work in the outer city, followed by both narrow, twisty back roads riding and open sweeping country roads where a whole range of different techniques are used.  If that wasn't enough, we would then finish off with a spell of motorway riding - Auckland motorways on a Friday afternoon...... shudder!  I'd not previously travelled on much of the planned route so that was a cause for additional stress.  I just had to put all my faith in the IAM techniques and a good riding plan to see me through.

As our village has a population of 1500 on a good day, I'm not that used to riding in the centre of a city populated by close to a million lunatics and it didn't start well.  The comms system which Simon kitted me out with was playing up and I was slowly becoming more paranoid in case I hadn't heard his directions properly.  We had to stop twice to fiddle with it before the problem was solved - very unsettling!!!  Oh yeah, then one side of my visor popped out of it's pivot - not a good sign! It only takes some minor incidents like this in a pressure situation to really stuff up your concentration!  The 1.5  hours of town and urban work felt fairly comfortable and my past training enabled the processing of more information than I'd previously thought possible.

Moving out onto the narrow, twisty back roads of Scenic Drive to the north west of Auckland was hard work.  Totally lined by trees and dense bush, most of the corners were blind and varied between 15 km/hr hairpins to 70 km/hr sweepers. To avoid the unnecessary use of brakes, good positioning, the right gear and reading the vanishing point was essential to avoid some real stuff-ups.   Adding to the pressure were variations in the posted speed limit all the way along the Drive.

Simon's civilian V-Strom 1000 and my Street Triple

Over a quick lunch snack near the town of Kumeu, Simon said I'd done well and that the only things he'd noticed was that I could have set up position for 2 right hand corners a little earlier, but that they were still fine and that I could have made a little more progress at one stage (a euphemism for stepping the pace up, haha)!  With no black marks, it was hugely encouraging to relax and have fun on the afternoon session.

We continued north on SH16 which is largely continuous open sweepers with some blind crests.  Pretty much like last weekend's ride with the lads so that was fine and I felt perfectly at home, despite a very strong side-wind which was kicking the bike around.  There were a couple of poor overtaking manoeuvres by a motorcycle and a 4x4 on the outskirts of a village on this route which must have made Simon wish that he was on official duty! 

The trip east to the town of Warkworth  was a mixture of tight bends, sweepers and a long stretch of fresh gravel which caused some consternation.  It wasn't the gravel itself, but the posted 30 km/hr speed limit.  There didn't appear to be a speed limit cancellation at the far end of the works and I was paranoid that I'd sped up whilst still in the restricted zone.  However, Simon was pretty certain that there wasn't a sign either - what a relief!  Only one other minor panic on this stretch - there was a one way bridge on a tight corner.  My approach was a little too fast (my arse was certainly twitching a bit!) so rather than hitting the brakes and demonstrating an error of judgement, I block-changed down 2 gears to get increased engine braking and got away with it - phew!  Shortly afterwards, Simon came on the radio and was complimentary about how I'd ridden that section which was wonderful to hear.

From Warkworth, it was back south down SH1 via Orewa and the Northern Motorway and demonstrating safe overtaking at speed in dense traffic - no worries at all and about 10 minutes riding time short of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, Simon called it quits and pulled me over.  I'd passed first time with a pretty much clean sheet which was way, way beyond my wildest dreams and tangled my words of thanks, I was so overcome!  The test lasted for a little over 4 hours and we covered close to 220 km which was a whole lot more than expected.  I'd been away from home for 11.5 hours and covered just under 600 km - no wonder I was stressed, hurting and dog tired!

Simon and his victim

Earlier in this post, I said that this was the end of 8 months of hard work.  Except it isn't of course.  Those fantastically skilled  IAM Observer/Examiners like Simon, Wayne, Duncan and Philip who volunteer their time at no cost for something which they're passionate about and deliver real results in terms of riding safely deserve every accolade known.  The ideal means I can see of repaying them is to help as best I can, so my Observer training will start as soon as they're ready for me.  Can't feel any elation at present as it's been such a hard road - just feel relief and more than a little quiet pride.

I'd also like to sincerely thank fellow blogger Raftnn (Roger) and my mate Andy who are following the same IAM path.  Their unconditional support and leg-pulling has made the whole process so much more enjoyable for all of us through being able to share our experiences.  Although I've never met him, thanks also to Nigel Bowers who's Advanced Biker videos on YouTube have been so good in reinforcing my training on wet days and dark nights!

In the next day or two, I'll be posting a few reflections on the whole concept of advanced motorcycle training as there have been some benefits which aren't immediately obvious and if it encourages anyone else to have a go, that would be simply wonderful.

As a light finale to the post, I thought I'd share photos of some of the bikes which took my fancy at Deus Ex Machina this time round.

The first was an old-school Triumph drag bike - a wonderful sight for this ex-drag racer.  No supercharger though - note the big bottle of Nitrous Oxide on the side of the bike!

Brute horsepower - wonderful!

Legendary Honda CBX 6

They sound better with 6 pipes!

1920's Triumph - what a cool sidecar!

Gorgeous Indian

1938 Velocette MAC

Suzuki 500 2 stroke GP racebike

The paintwork on this scooter looks like a hologram in real life - unbelievably detailed paintwork

And I'm saving my personal favourite for last!  It's an early Innocenti (Lambretta) scooter which I initially thought was due to be restored.  However, looking at the string work on the carrier and the tyres which are in excellent condition, I'm more inclined to think that the important bits are in perfect working order and the bodywork etc has deliberately been left unrestored to create a sort of Mad Max or Steam Punk image.  If this is the intent, it's brilliant and I'd love to shake the owner's hand!  Hope that you like it too.

This is just so cool!

Deliberately unrestored?  You figure!

Don't panic, don't panic!!!!

A couple of days ago, I received an email from Philip McDaid, IAM Chief Examiner; saying that it was time for my cross-check ride and what was I doing on Thursday? (today).  The cross-check ride is virtually a mock run under a wide range of riding conditions of the IAM full membership test to ensure that I can consistently perform to the police rider standards which the IAM use as their baseline.  Philip said he was happy to ride down my way from his Auckland base and I thought "Sweet - roads that I'm totally familiar with - that gets rid of a lot of stress"!

We arranged to meet in the historic gold-mining town of Thames 50-odd km down the coast for a pre-ride coffee and I set off this morning under sunny skies and in an excellent frame of mind, although under no illusions that it was going to be a relaxing ride.  Incidentally, in the photo below, the large catamaran moored in the background looks like it has a VW Kombi for a cabin, particularly with the 2 tone paint!

Early morning on Coromandel Harbour

We live on the hill to the right 

Philip and I met up in Thames and over coffee, my relaxed demeanour changed somewhat when Philip explained that in order to be examined over the wide range of conditions required, we would NOT be riding on local roads, but would in fact be riding back to the Auckland area, using a mix of 2 lane roads, the  Southern Motorway itself and driving in high density traffic in one of Auckland's southern adjoining towns!  I thought I took the news pretty calmly given that the anticipated ride had just turned to custard but must have had a stricken look on my face which explains Philip's triumphant grin!  The shock of an alternate destination with some unknown roads must have caused me to mis-hear some of the route (my story and I'm sticking to it!) but more of that later.

Philip in Thames

How cool is this?  Thames main street

Painted in Highway Patrol livery

The one-way route (re-traced to return home)

Approximately 370 km for the day

The run from Thames in moderate traffic was really enjoyable apart from part-way along the predominantly 2-lane State Highway 2 when we caught up with a fuel tanker doing about 10 km/hr below the national open road speed limit of 100 km/hr.  This was where the mind games started!!  "Hmmm... I'd really like to get past this but to do so quickly, I'll need to go over the speed limit.  Will Philip ping me for speeding or will he ping me for failing to make progress if I don't - oh heck, what to do?"  Well, he didn't ping me for passing in a brisk manner, but he did notice whilst I was looking ahead for an opportunity that I'd drifted a little closer than the 2 second following rule when there was no need to do so!  Fortunately, I was out to one side of the tanker or the "gentle reminder" might have been a bit more forceful!

Traffic on the Southern Motorway was moderate and I felt completely comfortable with lane positioning, overtaking and situational awareness.  Too comfortable as it happened as my brain had registered Papakura as our first destination, not Pukekohe.  Consequently, I serenely sailed past the Pukekohe motorway off-ramp with not a care in the world until Philip came flying by and indicated to get off at the next junction.  My stuff-up became painfully apparent when we stopped moments later to fit the radio comms ready for the part of the route I wasn't familiar with.  Suffice to say that I felt a complete pillock when Philip said if I'd used my mirrors, I'd have seen him indicating at the Pukekohe turn.  How abso-bloody-lutely humiliating!!! Philip also advised me to look out for "speed creep" on the motorway - easy to do when a fair percentage of the traffic is travelling above the speed limit!

Time for some dense traffic work around the town of Pukekohe which has narrow roads, made even narrower by parked cars.  It also seemed that there were tight radius mini roundabouts at every intersection with traffic coming at you from all angles.  However, all the recent city riding practice must have paid off as it was stress-free with no incidents.  Road positioning well away from parked cars helped no end.  From Pukekohe, it was off south on the narrow twisty rural back roads towards Ngaruawahia.  The conditions are similar to my local roads and I love 'em!  It must have been apparent to Philip too as after 20 km or so, he called a halt to proceedings and said I'd nailed it - YESSS!!!!  

Absolutely over the moon, enormously proud and to be perfectly candid, more than a little surprised.  It's really hard to maintain a sense of perspective when you're concentrating so hard and I thought that the fuel tanker incident and missing the motorway turn-off earlier in the day might have cost me dearly at this advanced level but Philip said that he could see that my overall skill level and riding plan was up to standard. Phew!  Back to the Autobahn motorway service station for a late lunch and a debrief, Philip said that he'd be speaking to one of the other IAM Examiners to take me for the official full membership riding test in the very near future.  So between now and then, It's practice, practice and even more practice!

Starving after all the stress!

Sooo.....  370 km for the day, including 2 1/2 hours of minutely observed riding by the Chief Examiner.  Surprising how much it takes out of you and it's likely to be an early night!  It's been seven months since starting out on this journey and it's hard to describe just how much the standard of my riding has improved.  It certainly IS possible to teach an old dog new tricks!  IAM is an amazing organisation where professionals such a commercial instructors, police riders and other people with unbelievable riding skills volunteer their time to help others raise their game - simply outstanding.