Afternoon,

Just wondering if anyone on here has done a bikesafe day?

I'm booked on one here in lincolnshire for the 8th may and just wondered what I can expect

It's taken me ages to get round to actually booking it now I've finally done it I'm well excited

Just for booking I got given a free high-biz rucksack

Did one in 2008, hosted by Warwickshire Police, at Gaydon.

This one was a two-day event costing £100 & worth every penny

I was paired up with an airline pilot, piloting an R1 & a RoSPA/RoDAR observer/instructor (on loan to the constabulary), on a shiny new 'Blade.

We started with some introductions & then some classroom tuition. Then it was onto the road.

The instructor led us to a parking place a short distance away & asked the other guy to lead off (to place a few miles away), & to ride as he normally does, only to observe the rural speed limits.

WHAM! He was off! Now a few people here know I don't like to hang around, but this fella was something else. At one point I saw 90+ on my speedo, on an A road.

When we stopped, all the instructor had to say was about road positioning & the likes. He had lots of good info, with positive feedback & no disparagement at all.

We blitzed our way around Warwickshire for the rest of the morning (taking turns to lead), making plenty of stops, where the instructor (I wish I could remember his name) would continue giving feed back.

This continued for the rest of the morning. We returned to Gaydon for some lunch (all paid for). Then back on the road.

Sunday was pretty similar, but we got back to Gaydon about mid afternoon, for debriefing & say our goodbyes.

The whole experience was a blast, & helped me in a number of ways (particularly my method of overtaking). I'm looking to do another one next year. But this year I'm off to the National Event in Sheffield instead.

So is it any good? You bet Helps you with real world riding & is a lot of fun too.

Enjoy it mate.

Do it , there's nowt like blatting round some lovely raods at speed chased by a biker bobby who ain't gonna do ya for speeding

but do make sure your bike is otherwise legal

My bike is fully legal which means I don't have to mess around with anything prior to it

Cheer for the responses, hopefully it'll be £35 well spent

What a throughly enjoyable and worthwhile day

Bit damp and cold forthe time of year but hey ho.

Got loads out of it, I just need to perfect my skills and possibly look into an IAMS/RoSPA course now

good to hear you enjoyed it

I thought you'd like it. I've not met anyone who didn't

I know I'm jumping in a bit late here, but I've done two bikesafe's.

The first was with Blunderside <cough cough> I mean Humberside Police, (which is a part of Lincolnshire police), and to be honest I wasn't impressed. I paid £80 for essentially a 2 day course which turned out to be mostly in the class room being lectured and an afternoon out on a bike being assessed.

It was OK I guess and the advice given was kind of helpful but there were aspects I didn't like such as the advice to swing out towards the white lines on a left hand bend to improve visibility. I can see the sense in this but to me that relys on on coming traffic sticking to their lane which few do so in my opinion it puts a rider at the risk of being clipped.

The 2nd was with North Yorkshire which was brilliant! A proper 2 day course mainly on the bike with an assessment ride followed by instructed rides for £50.

One of the Blunderside cops was firmly of the opinion I'm an organ donor waiting to happen and I should have my licence ripped up. North Yorkshire however called me a "middle of the road" rider who isn't adventurous or overtly ambitious but a very defensive rider who rode at appropriate speeds for the road ahead.

They even bought me and the three other riders I was with a cuppa tea! Can't be bed eh?

North Yorks did push me a little in the respect they felt my ability was I could go into bends a bit quicker than I was, but when I pointed out I was going into them at a speed I felt safe and confident at they told me that was the right attitude to have!

The ride back from the road side cafe was a lot of fun too, despite the warning if we went above 66 they'd nick us, they didn't But then we were following a police bike with one "boxing" us in at the rear so we were following the police bikes lines.

All in all it was a brilliant day, much more enjoyable than with Blunderside who I think use it as a ploy to get to know local riders rather than a mechanism to improve rider safety.

if you knew the time, planning, paperwork etc that goes into these things i'm sure you would realize the cost would be too prohibitive to use as a ploy. much cheaper to turn up at the local biker haunts, cafes etc

if you knew the time, planning, paperwork etc that goes into these things i'm sure you would realize the cost would be too prohibitive to use as a ploy. much cheaper to turn up at the local biker haunts, cafes etc

the old swing out to the right chestnut seems to confuse a lot of people, if you are out to the right & something oncoming is a bit close to the white line, you have all that space on your left to move into if you feel the need.
i've been doing it for 35 years now, and i'm still here

Which they do, there's always a heavy patrol around Seaways as well as plenty of officers with pocket tape measures to ensure that our road safety is in place with the correct letter and number plate size



And what about someone who's newly passed the test or only riding for a couple of years? Do you think they'll have the skill and reactions to suddenly change a corner line at 60mph+ because some imbecile has two wheels over the white line?

My own view on this is if you stay more or less the centre of your side of the road then a nice curved line can be taken and any avoidance action due to an idiot coming the other way who is cutting the corner won't be as violent.

If your looking far enough ahead you'll see there's a car going to be arriving at the corner the same time as you do, so you have plenty of chance to adjust, I'm tall so you kinda need to consider twating your head off a car so I dunno I allow for that as well
Most accidents are cause by object fixation, so if you focus on the car thats going wide you'll hit it, there must be 101 pictures of bike accidents on corners and the rider hasn't even attempted to get round the corner, the skid marks go straight on coz its were they were looking at the wall they were likely to hit
The condition of the roads nowadays forces you to pick a more off centre line, try riding from Northallerton to Darlington the centre of the side your travelling on is aweful.
Any way DP knows what he's talkin about, by sheer good luck I've not binned a bike on a country road since 1978 I don't think there's much skill involved on my part lol

I'm not going to get into an argument in here, this is not what this section is for,
however.

For those who dont know, i have ridden bikes for the last 36 years, been a DSA instructor for 12 of those years,
been a former Senior Observer & Vice chairman/chairman of the local IAM. I'm still alive, despite many, many attempts by other road users to change that.
my current bike is the ZX12R that i've had since 2005 & it gets thrashed regularly. i'm not the "pipe & slippers that smell of wee" type of rider & i have the points to prove it!

Even at CBT level i used to teach "right of centre" (of the lane you're in) on a left hand bend-simply because it affords you a much better view of the limit point, you can see any obstruction sooner, hence more time to react to any situation.

Krash, you ride whatever position you like mate. please dont try to use this section to impress your views on less experienced riders. as far as i know i'm the nearest thing to an "expert" on the forum & as such i have a responsibility to make sure advice is "safe" on here .

I haven't done a 'Bikesafe' as such but when I was first riding the GT (2 wheels) I went out for a couple of days with a Police rider and one of the things that made a lot of difference to my riding was this kind of positioning - it made riding so much easier as I was more aware of what the road was doing and what was coming towards me.

That, and learning to use the right gear (for me that was usually a lower one) made a huge difference to me.
Also, it can't be stressed enough how confidence boosting it is to follow a rider who really knows what he's doing!

This was a subject I wasn't going to comment on as I like to 'ride my ride' (for better or worse) and let others ride there's.

But I must say that my instructor always taught me to stay in the middle of the road, although I suspect this may have been because he didin't want to push the learners on too quickly.

My reason for saying that is that through development of my riding skills (of which I can thank some people on here for putting me right on a few points namley Biker Gran). I sit right of centre in the lane. I agree with DP that it helps with forward observation, affords time to react to a situation that may be developing ahead and gives a little bit of thinking time.

But it's not like I sit 'right of centre' religiously. priority number one is to look far enough ahead so that I can adjust my riding position, speed and so on for the situation developing ahead i.e. on-coming car too close to centre line, giant pot-hole that I need to go around, etc, etc, etc.

But like I said i 'ride my ride' so it's only my view.