What a wonderful story

Nought to Masters in Six Years

Many of you will have heard that, up until meeting Glenn, I had never sat on or ridden a motorbike.

 

Glenn is a keen motorcyclist and has ridden for as long as he can remember.

He is a National Observer with Plymouth Advanced Motorcyclists and has achieved his Masters with Distinction.

 

Glenn and I met in March of 2012.  By October of that year I had decided that riding pillion was fun, but riding my own bike would be amazing, and I took my CBT (October 2012).

Glenn spent an interesting year (blood, sweat, tears included - mine, not his!!) teaching me to ride. We bought a little Yamaha YBR 125cc for the job. She was called Ruby.

 

It was hard work, but it was an amazing year. Many, many hours spent practising all the manoeuvres needed for my test. Riding on all kind of roads. Several picnics at Davidstow airfield, using the open space to fine tune slow speed riding and emergency stops.

I’m pretty sure I put that bike in all the ditches and up all the hedges between Torpoint and Roche, travelling from Glenn’s house to mine, putting in some miles and giving Glenn a few grey hairs in the process.

 

Anyway, toward the end of summer 2013 Glenn thought I was just about ready for my test.

We’d begun perusing the internet and touring around all the local bike dealerships looking for a bike low enough for me. Being 5’1” doesn’t give me much choice.

 

We found a beautiful Harley 883 Superlow and against all advice, we bought her in readiness for when I’d passed my test! She was named Lola.

 

So with Lola sitting on the drive, we thought about booking my test. Through good fortune at a bike rally in the Midlands that summer, we met up with (and became friends with) a DSA instructor. He and his wife invited us to stay for a week in October when he would put the polish on my ride and get me ready for my test. They live in Halifax!!

Always up for a challenge, we accepted the offer and booked time off work and headed oop north!

 

We arrived late one Sunday afternoon. Cliff was at work at the riding school in Bradford, so after a cuppa with his wife, Glenn and I headed off to Bradford where I had a couple of hours on a school bike, getting used to the extra engine power, braking and weight.

I spent Monday on the practice school trying to hone my skills.

On Monday evening, over dinner, Cliff announced that my module one test was booked for 8.30am the next day in Wakefield.

I’d never been to Wakefield before in my life. Hey ho!

 

The day dawned and we headed off to Bradford to collect the school bike, which I then rode to Wakefield, with Cliff all radioed up to me. Glenn followed on his bike.

 

I was the first candidate of the day and to say I was nervous would be an understatement! When nervous I tend to go into verbal overdrive and can sometimes be a little cheeky. I was true to form that day. I’m not sure the Yorkshire examiner quite knew what to make of a middle aged Cornish girl on a bike!!

Glenn and Cliff had been watching on from outside the protected test area. I wasn’t allowed to talk to them as I walked back into the test centre and their faces looked similar to that of an expectant father.

I was soon able to put them out of their misery as I gave them the ‘thumbs up, I’ve passed’ through the window.

We then went for a top notch cooked breakfast. It was at this point that Cliff revealed that he was pleased and relieved I’d passed my ‘mod one’ because he’d booked my ‘mod two’ for Thursday ie 2 day’s time.

We spent the rest of Tuesday on the bikes riding all the possible test routes Cliff could think of. 

 

On Wednesday Glenn and I had a day to ourselves, so I had a day’s rest from riding. 

 

Thursday dawned and I was incredibly nervous.

 

We headed back to Wakefield test centre, again, early in the morning.

I met my examiner and we set off. 

At no time or point had anyone advised me that I could make ‘minor’ mistakes......and I made a few.

We rode some tricky roads which we hadn’t covered on our practice runs and I made a couple of silly mistakes, so when the examiner asked me what I thought of my ride, I debriefed fully, being very critical of my own ride and talking through my minor mistakes. He was very impressed by my level of self critique and then explained that I was allowed some minor errors.

He congratulated me on passing my test. This was in October 2013.

 

Once home again, I couldn’t wait to get Lola out on the open road.

I loved that bike. It’s the only bike I’ve ridden where I can actually plant both feet firmly on the ground, simultaneously! 

I kept Lola for 18 months and clocked up 16,000 miles on her, during which time I enrolled on the IAM Advanced Rider course, with Steve Puckering from PAM as my observer. 

Steve took me out for 6 rides and we worked on areas to improve. I thoroughly enjoyed these sessions. I was also fortunate enough to be welcomed along on some PAM rideouts, as an associate. In those early days, Glenn volunteered to be ‘tail end Charlie’ and I tagged along as the ‘tail to tail end Charlie’, therefore avoiding embarrassing myself in front of all those Advanced riders.

 

So, here we were again in the month of October, 2014. Steve Puckering declared me ‘test ready’ and Martin Brown took me out for a cross check. 

I took my IAM Advanced test with the Cornwall examiner, Rodney Grigg, riding roads around the tin mining area of West Cornwall - Camborne, Redruth, St Agnes.....I did my slow speed riding on a horrible car park in Camborne, with cambers the size of small tors! It was tricky pulling Lola around in a full lock whilst bobbing up and down the little hillocks at the same time - she had the turning circle of an articulated lorry. (But I loved her anyway).

I passed my IAM Advanced Motorcyclist test  October 2014. 

 

After that, I had a couple of years or so of riding.

I eventually out grew Lola (in riding style if not in size) and by chance one day happened to take a Yamaha MT07 out for a test ride. Totally unplanned and spontaneous.

Well, that was it for Lola.  The MT07 was a far better ‘all round’ bike and has allowed me to develop my ride further. 

Lola was so low that I was taking the screw heads off the exhaust heat shield every time I rode along the Torpoint Twisties. We took to carrying spare jubilee clips so we could replace them at coffee stops. Not ideal.

 

So Lola was traded in for my first MT07 in May 2015. She was called Mitzi.

We went to Ireland (twice), Brittany a couple of times, Paris, The Italian Alps and a fair bit around the UK too. In three years she clocked up 36,000 miles. 

 

In early 2018, Glenn and I started to talk about the Masters course. He thought my ride was of a high enough standard to give it a go. I wasn’t as sure as him, but was keen to develop my ride and to gain the confidence and skills to ensure I was as safe as I could be on my bike.

I signed up and embarked on the Masters journey.

 

Similarly, to the Advanced riding course, a rider is assigned a ‘mentor’ and you have 6 rides together, where the Mentor imparts advice and suggestions on how to improve your ride in order to meet the standard required.

The ride sessions and debrief can vary in length of time, depending on what the candidate feels they want to work on, and the mentor’s observations.

 

The key differences, for me, between the Advanced riders course and the Masters, is that the Masters test ride is for one and a half hours and it must be taken on unfamiliar roads, ie away from home. There is also an expectation that the candidate will have a much more thorough understanding of ‘Motorcycle Road Craft’ and its theories. 

 

All my mentored rides were obviously on relatively familiar roads, so it was quite tricky teaching myself to read each road as if I’d never ridden it before and remembering to read every road sign. It’s a skill worth practicing though, so as not to become a complacent rider. 

 

My Masters Mentor was Mark Tucker from CAM. He was an excellent mentor and I enjoyed my rides out with him.

 

So this took us up to October 2018, when I took my test on the winding roads of Surrey! (Working in a school limits my availability during the week, so I needed to take my test in the half term. This determined the date and location. Glenn and I made a ‘mini break’ of it!)

The weather was near perfect, although the sun was low in the sky and quite dazzling at times. The roads were dry and it wasn’t too chilly. In fact, at the end of the ride we sat in a pub garden in t-shirts, it was so warm. 

 

The ride itself was challenging, (but not difficult) in terms of the unfamiliarity of the area, and the fact that all directions are given by the examiner from behind, so I was constantly watching for his indicators, so as not to miss a turning. (I missed one, but he had explained if this happened, he would pull over in a safe spot and wait for me to turn around). In my defence, it was a left hand turn almost immediately after a left hand turn, in a sleepy village on a single track road. 

 

The ride was safe, we kept a good pace and made progress wherever we could.

Then we pulled into a beautiful car park, with freshly laid tarmac and I was asked to demonstrate my slow speed riding. (My nemesis!)

It went without a hitch and was much easier than I had been dreading!

 

Then for the theoretical questions and ride debrief.

We had some discussions about the Highway Code, speed limits; braking distances etc and then I de-briefed my ride. The examiner was again impressed at my level of self-critique……I’m my own worst/best critic!

 

I’m pleased to say I passed! 

 

So from never riding a bike, to achieving my Masters, was a journey of many thousands of miles, over six years.

 

I look forward to many more 🙂