As a few of will have noticed, I've taken a small break from making hurried films about fast cars. Over a hundred skits in two-and-a-half years is probably enough for me to want a few weeks off. Time to recharge and, at last try and get to grips with learning to ride a powered bicycle. It's so long since
I took my CBT
, the thing nearly ran out.
To get my CBT I went down the BMW route, which was highly professional, but also based in Royston, and therefore just too far away from base. Google offered several alternatives nearer home, the most appealing of which was Bike Train Wales. I telephoned boss-man Nick who seemed admirably perky and agreed to go for an hour's refresher course at their base in Cwmbran - also known as wobbling about on a 125 between some cones.
Harris's humble steed for the day
After that came the DAS Stage One test. It's at this point that I realised it wasn't reasonable to take an entire week off work to learn how to ride a motorbike and would need to squeeze the lessons and test around more bloody work flights (yes, there are lots of videos on the spike). This meant booking a theory test at short notice - not an easy task because everything was chokka, but a space emerged at Swansea so I trucked down there and managed to pass it.
Glib though it may sound, thumbing through the Highway Code of an evening really does make you realise how much you've forgotten, or probably never knew in the first place. The Hazard Awareness section was a bit random, but I passed with no great distinction and then the mind-games began. Specifically, wobbling around cones on a 650cc V-Twin Suzuki Gladius. I'd never even thought about putting a foot down before, but in one 30-minute session I completely lost my mind. Clutch control went out of the window, speed slowed to tipping point and I just froze. My shoulders went solid, I couldn't move the bars and I had all the balance of the village drunk at throwing-out time.
Luckily, the Stage One test consists of some faster riding too. Well, 32mph riding. An emergency stop, a swerve and a couple of long corners. This stuff felt entirely natural and posed no problem whatsoever, but that didn't really matter when we arrived at the Newport Test Centre.
The test is perfectly simple. In theory. A large asphalt area and lots of cones, an examiner and me; for some reason terrified by the prospect. First you ride the bike into the test area, then you park it within some cones and prove that you can manually push it around - all perfectly simple.
And then begins the most difficult thing I've been asked to do involving an engine in years. Forget night stints in the rain and fog at the N24, or skidding other people's fast cars up against concrete walls: a five-cone slalom undertaken at walking speed followed by three rotations of a figure of eight was my nemesis. I had so comprehensively out-psyched myself as I approached the first cone I might just as well have immediately ridden out of the test area, called the examiner a berk and gone home.
The first three cones slid by without incident - well, only a few wobbles. I clipped the fourth with my right foot - that was enough to fail the entire test - I somehow missed the others and then entered the jaws of the figure-of-eight. Seven yards later, my right leg was propping up myself and the bike. In the spirit of brightening the examiner's day (he was doing a sterling job of suppressing an obvious urge to point and howl with laughter) I tried again and got no further than before. He called me over for the next exercise. I said I might just call it a day, he said that was up to me. I had paid my £15 though, so I thought I'd stun him with my 32mph bike control all the same. At least I didn't fall off.
Nick's business partner Julian was there to greet my abject failure. "Spent more time walking than riding," was my summary, followed by a debrief with the examiner which lasted just long enough to amplify the sense of inadequacy to the point of never wanting to see a motorcycle again.
Luckily, the ride home on open roads was delightful, but I seriously questioned whether I'd ever be capable of passing a motorcycle test and, all self-deprecation aside, I'm not used to being really bad at stuff that involves balance and coordination. Organisation, academia, social skills - all of those I'm proudly hopeless at. But stuff involving engines should not present a problem.
Nick at Bike Train Wales is a very patient man...
I texted Nick suggesting I might not be made out for biking. He has that calm demeanour required for such middle-aged, hubris-driven histrionics and told me a further hour around the cones would exorcise the demons in my head. And they were, he insisted, in my head. I tended to agree. All this over some bloody cones, it really was embarrassing.
Anyways, last week I ventured back to Newport Test Centre, newly enabled with confidence and managed to pass the test with just the single flaw of being 2mph too slow on my swerve test. I left the place with a greater sense of achievement than having overtaken Jean Alesi in last year's Goodwood TT. Isn't it strange how overcoming something that to the outside world seems so simple, but which for whatever reason has exposed a small but pertinent weakness in our own psychological make-up, gives such a profound sense of relief and self-congratulation when conquered?
Next week I'm having a pop at Stage Two, the road riding bit. I feel a little more confident about this, and have to say I'm really looking forward to doing what I want to do - riding a motorcycle on the public road and not wobbling around cones. That said, I'm almost certain that I will be much safer if and when I do pass Stage Two because I've spent that much more time learning how not to wobble at very low speed - he says, partly attempting to justify his failure.