I’ll add my two penneth worth if I may. (edit - more like a tenner - you may read this in installments)
Paivi - I doubt you’ll find courses that teach you how to save a front wheel slide on a wet manhole (ooo matron) or diesel patch. The purpose of Advance Training is to make you see them and avoid them safely and in good time.
I have been a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists for 4 years now, and qualified (although no longer practice) as an Observer - basically the guys who rides with you until your are a test-level when a Senior does a mock test with you to make sure. I would recommend joining your local group http://www.iam.org.uk/IAMGroups/postcode_search.php.
These groups are, it must be said, largely populated by the stereotypical older guys with tourers and so can be a little ‘dry’ for us younger (just) go-getters. But their real advantages are :
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Cost. Each ride you go on (lesson) costs only a contribution to petrol - about a tenner. Joining in the first place costs a nominal fee as does the actual exam. The point is that it is much cheaper than a £300 training day with an independant company.
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Frequency. The lessons are likely to be about and hour and a half, but are made between you and your observer. There is no preset number of lessons required, and no real hurry to do them.
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Group facilities. The group you join will without any doubt organise rideouts, specific training days, etc etc, ours even do holiday trips. All of which are optional and will only cost what it costs. You don’t have to buy the sweatshirts or caps, you don’t even have to attend the meetings, but they do good things and you’d not get the most out of them if you didn’t go.
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Technique. The important one. The IAM test is largely based upon the Police Motorcycle Roadcraft Manual. Many of the senior observers and group members are Police Class 1 licence holders (widely recognised as the best riding standard in the World), and all the examiners have to be Class 1 holders if memory serves me. Observers are assessed by Police riders, or a least I was, to ensure that we can walk the walk and we were also coached to talk the talk. We don’t follow Roadcraft exactly, but it’s ideas and practices are easy to spot. Personally, I don’t treat the IAM stuff as gospel, but it is a guide and does make you ride better and think about what you are doing, and more importantly, about to do.
So I think the IAM, taken in the right way and with the right attitude, is a very effective and economical way to improve your riding. I think it should be the bare minimum anyone thinks about in terms of ‘Advanced Riding’.
After that come the courses run by private individuals and companies. There is a lot of concern in the ‘advanced riding world’ that there is no real standard laid down for these companies. So there is a real problem knowing if somebody you are paying a lot of money to actually knows what they are talking about and can explain things to you in the relatively short space of time available (a day).
The compressed nature of these courses doesn’t appeal to me as I can’t listen to someone for a day and take it all in. No way.
So I am going to forget and lose the techniques over a period of time.
I think these things are the next step from IAM, which will teach you the fundementals of advanced riding much cheaper, and so you can go one to one with someone (minimum Class 1 and Rospa Gold, preferrably with coaching/teaching qualification) to move onto real high level stuff.
That said I recently had (at an IAM evening) a presentation from these guys, Rapid Training (.co.uk) who are based here in Bucks nr Aylesbury. The head guy, Gary Baldwin, is a Police Accident Investigator and all round sound guy. They are the company that produce the Advanced Lessons in Bike magazine and won the contract to train all the EMAP (who own most bike magazines) journalists. They know their stuff and I’d recommend them to anyone. And they do track lessons that are biased towards road riding.
And finally, or should it be firstly, Bikesafe. Why people haven’t paid their £30 or whatever pityfully small amount it is yet is beyond me. It will give an idea what constitutes advanced riding (common sense and appropriate levels of speed), show you that police are humans, and teach you things that you didn’t know. You will be a better rider at the end of the day. I’m soon to book my second, and I expect to see some LB’ers there.
All that said, unless you approach any of these training sessions with a wide-open mind, and are prepared to carry on listening when someone tells you that your riding is pants/dangerous/scary/top class, you’ll waste your time, money and worse, someone else’s time.
I’ve already been helping one member here with their riding, and he is a good listener and I believe he will show real improvements over the coming months. You must be able to accept criticism without stropping or crying.
But it does happen. You’re right in that more people should take further training, it really does help. There’s more than one way to do it as well. LB also recommends BikeSafe, the one-day observation/advice riding day with the Metropolitan Police. It’s a hugely successful service and a great day out is had by all. Forgot what you may think about it being a slow ride necessarily or for old fuddy-duddies, it’s not.
