The seductiveness of power..

IMO, you need to practice & build up slowly. Perhaps that’s the old biker in me, but almost 30 years of biking (none with a beard or Harley) have taught me to be slow in, fast out.

The IAM is a great wake-up call for your attitude & skills. I can also recommend an HGV course/test, but it’s a bit of an expensive option for your average rider (but if I had my way, the car/bike tests would have 5 hrs in an HGV to appreciate their problems).

And get into the habit of checking behind/over shoulder/mirrors before making your move - there are plenty of idiots going much faster than you & you might find one behind you.

I’ve had a couple of these in the last few months, with bikers behind me doing stupid things. Once, a biker overtook me and turned left across me, and had I not done a mirror check and instinctively backed off the throttle then I would have T-boned him. The other time, in a 30 limit in a village with lots of bollards, I was overtaking cars one at a time when starting to pull out I checked my mirror to see a biker flash past me in shorts & T-shirt doing a suicidal speed with no regard for me, the bollards or the cars that he forced into the gutter - madness. Took me ages to get my trousers clean again.

Ian

What 'fro said… Give yourself a margin and look for that exit route should it start to go t!ts up:cool:

Hey Ian, I do have an Artic licence (got it last year) and I do think it was brilliant as it gives me a whole other angle (bit like riding a bike after driving a car). You never quite think of 90 km/h (~ 55 mph) ever the same again once you have experienced what a breakneck speed that is when you are hauling 25 tonnes of stainless steel in a 15 tonne vehicle and trailer combination :w00t:

Plan to do the IAM at some point as well :wink: