Northants BikeKraft Day

Just got back from doing the Northants BikeKraft experiance day at Silverstone.

My day...

Arrived for 9. Bacon buttie and tea\coffee whilst the masses arrived. Kicked off at 9:30.

First session up for my green team (4 teams\colours) was slow speed stuff. Bit poor with guiding us to where we needed to be but the slow stuff was good fun. Did a bit where we just tried to go as slow as possible in straight line - 'racing' against other bikes made this actually quite good fun as well as a informative\useful. Then round a course laid out and supervised by the IAM. I'm not a big IAM fan but credit where it's due it was a good exercise and they ran it very well with lots of help, encourangement and patience.

Then inside for a Speed workshop. This was ok but for me the weakest part of the day. They asked the question something like "Why do we have speed cameras in the county?" but failed to answer it? Some poorly put together slides & random statistics did nothing to change\improve my views or attitude. On the plus side they weren't evangelical, they didn't stuff it down your throat and there was some good info\tips in there - Can anyone tell me what a "SLOW" painted in the road out in the countryside signifies?

In then for lunch. Well organised and tasty beef burgenoin (sp?), tasty pud coffee etc.

Session 3 was a cornering session on the 'track'. The track being an area of tarmac that wasn't really suited to the job being variously in bad repair, painted, overbanded etc. Fine for cars, not so good for bikes especially not in the wet. My mate Jar wasn't comfortable with this so was rather slow. I was happier (more riding & wet riding experiance) and when I got to lead I ****ed off and lost them behind me, not sure the IAM bloke was too happy with this. The Police riders were doing most of the observation on this exercise and I wish I'd gotten one of them. The IAM bloke did take his big 1200 BMW nicely through the corners but after explaining we were supposed to simulate road riding (keep it to 70 on the staights) and that leaning off the bike was unnecessary (unnecessary but I was happier doing this and I think quicker) he didn't really have much to say other than that my riding was "fine".

Session 4. Back in the classroom for a quick drink driving workshop. I actually thought this was very good as in it exceeded my expectations. Jar wasn't so impressed. I thought they balanced things nicely, explained their position well (both take the 'real' DD educations sessions for convictees) and did a good job of educating and entertaining.

So overall a solid thumbs up for the day, a positive experiance. The day was solidly organised and executed. Some interesting \ informative \ fun experiances and very little really that was negative. There was some spark missing though that stops me from saying it was excellent but I do think they should be praised for running it.