Failed test

Sad news for me.. GF just failed the bike test.. She was very nervous about it and put her foot down once during the part of the test were you have to do the figure 8 turns...
She was just fine when there was no examiner around, but when there is one, she gets really nervous and can't hold it together anymore..

Sooo, I cheered her up, explained that getting nervous on the bike is a big source of mistakes and that it does happen often. Trouble is, here the test is only once a month, so she has to wait 'till the 2nd of august to take the test again...

On the bright side, that's when she's getting her bike, so she won't be missing any ride time that she would've gotten if she had passed (as she's a shorty and can't reach on a lot of bikes - we finally found one that she can reach.. which is an er-6f, and she can manage the weight well too)

Just a bit gutted that she didn't get to pass

[gruntygiggles]

Oh that's poo. One thing you can tell her which might make it a little less stressful is that when you are doing the figure of eights, you can go around the yellow cone.

Example...you do the slalom cones, at the end of which are two figure of eight cones. Go around the first and set up for taking a nice big turn around the second figure of eight cone. When she's gone around that and has to change direction to then go round the first cone again.....if she thinks she's not going to make it, she CAN take a wider line and go around the last of the slalom cones. This is only a minor fault and can be all that's needed to help settle the nerves and I bet she'd do the second figure of eight fine.

I was hanging on to this knowledge, because I was always fine at going around the second fig of 8 cone as there's so much room to take a big turn, but turning around the first cone, I always worried I wouldn't turn in front of the end slalom cone. Knowing you can just go around this should really help.

Hope that made sense....if not, I'll try a diagram...lol

Thanks, I actually did not know that... I'll be sure to let her know, as that might be a tension breaker

[gruntygiggles]

Originally Posted by andreis

Thanks, I actually did not know that... I'll be sure to let her know, as that might be a tension breaker

Cool, that's all it did for me. It just let me know that I had an option other than put a foot down or hit a cone which would be instant fail.

Whatever.....the very best thing to remember is to turn your head where you want to go. Not just look where you want to go, but when doing figure of eights and u-turns, you have to really turn your head around as far as it will go until you complete the turn.

Yep, I know that.. You see, over here bike instructors don't really do that much for the rider. He didn't teach her important things (looking where you want to go, countersteering, emergency braking and basically all the other important things). The training hours are not actually really spent with one student, as there are 9 other students, and they all share the same bike and the same hours, meaning that instead of the 20 instructive hours a student was supposed to be getting on a bike, they get ~5-10 of uninstructed time. Basically, they're mostly left to learn by themselves what is to be done, and all the instructor does is sit through it all, with little guidance to offer.

It's apalling and as a result whenever there is some pressure put on the students and they are required to deal with one of their mistakes, they will fail.

I didn't join her training, but I encouraged her to read about which techniques apply and talked to her about them as best as I could (which is to say from what I've read and my own experience). But I couldn't be present when she was training, because the instructor would not allow people from the outside to interfere (or so I was told, and then he let students from other schools - which share the same training ground - give their opinions about one's riding and how to proceed about doing things)

The plan I had in mind was that once she would pass the test I start putting her on a learning diet composed of reading books and practicing what she read, as I felt things out of my control..

But now I really feel I should get more involved with her training, even though I'm not an instructor for 2 reasons :
1. My presence might get her used with the idea that there's someone there examining her riding and that would build her confidence for a real exam (although I DO know that my presence would be a disturbing factor, but this is exactly the kind of stress that caused her to crack when examined)

2. The instructor really isn't doing his job (for f**** sake, he's only had his licence for 1.5 years - screwed up system, I know - and has WAAAY less miles under the belt then I do and obviously isn't reading any of the books out there or watching any instructional videos to make up for lack of training/experience) and as a consequence, I do feel like I could easily do a better job (although that is not a must, as I'm not a qualified person, just read a lot on the subject)

Sorry for the long rant, but I had to get it out of my system...

[gruntygiggles]

Can you find anywhere over there that is private land like a closed car park that you can take her to and you do the slow control teaching? Dan did this with me here and just had me riding at a walking pace with my feet up on the pegs and learning to look where I wanted to go etc. Did me the world of good.

If you can do a better job.....do it. After a while of teaching her yourself, she'll get used to having you there and so long as you can be a teacher (not a boyfriend) when you're doing it, you'll be fine.

Sounds like what she needs is just confidence and you get that from spending time on a bike....not watching other people doing it or reading books.

Unfortunately, although there is such a piece of land close by, I don't have the bike to teach her. She can't reach the ground on my SV. I talked to her about asking the instructor for the bike (a honda cb125) and maybe he'll agree to letting her practice before the other students arrive, with me present.

I do agree she needs to learn about looking where you want to go and get some more time on the bike to build confidence and I hope I'll get round to being the teacher and not a boyfriend around her, but it'll take some getting used to..

About reading books, yes, I agree it's not best used when you're only starting with slow speed control, but it is useful at least for the instructor to do it as he really hasn't done a lot... (okay, I'll stop blaming him soon )

Originally Posted by gruntygiggles

Oh that's poo. One thing you can tell her which might make it a little less stressful is that when you are doing the figure of eights, you can go around the yellow cone.

Example...you do the slalom cones, at the end of which are two figure of eight cones. Go around the first and set up for taking a nice big turn around the second figure of eight cone. When she's gone around that and has to change direction to then go round the first cone again.....if she thinks she's not going to make it, she CAN take a wider line and go around the last of the slalom cones. This is only a minor fault and can be all that's needed to help settle the nerves and I bet she'd do the second figure of eight fine.

I was hanging on to this knowledge, because I was always fine at going around the second fig of 8 cone as there's so much room to take a big turn, but turning around the first cone, I always worried I wouldn't turn in front of the end slalom cone. Knowing you can just go around this should really help.

Hope that made sense....if not, I'll try a diagram...lol

+1

My instructors told me that they don't actually have a limit as to how wide you can go on the figure of 8 - go as wide as you want - in other words, so long as she's going round the cones in the right order, she could technically go as wide as the perimeter fencing of the enclosure (i know - extreme example) and back round between the cones and the same on the other side.