Falling off

Hi everybody,

I'm Paul, nice to meet you all. I am from the UK but have lived and rode in the US before. I'll be in the Pacific Northwest very soon and feel moved to write some notes because I have already been involving myself with following the forum and get a good feeling from the whole site.

I was just thinking today about tests and how they can pile a disabling amount of skill paralysis onto those who don't react well to them. I have at times, been one such person.

In the standard bike road test in the UK there is a turn in the road manoeuvre where the candidate must U-turn the bike around within the radius of the width of smallish side road without touching the ground by foot. Even the mearest of dabs will incur an instant fail.

I did what they call direct access. This is where you can take your training even from complete "never sat on bike before" beginner (like me) on a bigger bike (say 500cc) and, as long as you pass your road test on that power of bike, can ride any size bike thereafter. If you take your test on say a 125, then you must wait something like a year before your licence evolves into a full blown big bike licence.

Anyway, me and direct access added up something like this:

1) new to biking, limited road time on the direct access coaching course..

plus

2) turnng into a bag of kittens upon being watched..

equals

3) stalling the bike on mid radius on the u-turn, dropping it and sprawling across the tarmac right on front of the examiner, as I rolled past him I thought he was going to give me a round of applause.


I can't believe I actually did the following though...

I asked him if I had failed!