someone

I was not especially fast on corners, and still had a problem needing to fight a sense of panic on sweeping ones, but I think I was generally okay. But last October I was going around a 90° right turn and caught a patch of mud I thought I had avoided. The bike slid out in a smooth movement, giving me no time to react, and I landed on my elbow. Having been back on the bike a few times since surgery I am now too cautious on corners. An early bad habit has also returned of instinctively positioning myself on the inside of corners. I am not even sure why I do that, aside from poorer visibility it also makes them tighter and more difficult, but obviously I am fighting that instinct. Mentally I feel fine, I know the accident was part bad luck and part that I should have just been a bit further wider. There was no sense of fear or doubt about getting back on the bike. But when riding now it feels like it did early on when nothing felt easy and I felt like I should just give up trying. So does anyone have any tips or advice on rebuilding confidence, or is the only way just to keep riding and let it happen naturally? I would not mind just being slow and safe, and taking things in my own time, if it did not cause others to do stupid things.

tht happens to me alot The "banging on" or wanting to get away? I have HFA but am the latter, except the point after which I cannot get away from a situation is the very beginning of one.

What is your knickname? Do not have one. Who do you live with? I Live alone. What was the last song you listened to? House of Fun, Madness. What was the last film you watched? Cannot remember the last time I saw a film, it was that long ago. What was the last meal you ate? Soya roast things, with roast potatoes and vegetable casserole. Skateboard, space hopper or Pogo Stick? Not sure I have ever done any of them, but if I could do it I guess skateboard. White, milk or dark chocalate? choose.... As a vegan there is no choice there! Dark. What is the best pet you ever had? Apparently my parents had a dog when I was very young, but I have no memory of it. Who is your favourite comedian? Difficult, maybe Steven Wright or Tim Vine. What is your favourite tipple? Depends on mood, but will say tequila. Where would you rather be? New York maybe, only been there once so still more exciting, and never been to Tokyo to know. Microsoft, Apple or Unix? Apple, but Mac OS X is officially a version of Unix. If money was no object, what bike would you buy? No idea, I know nothing much about bikes beyond the one I have! Only fools and horses, Newsnight or Masterchef? choose.... Do I have to? Then Newsnight, I suppose, but usually would rather not. How many tv's do you own? Two. Not including an old Woolworths 5" black and white portable. How many radio's do you own? Two. Also excluding the above, as it also contains a radio. What is your favourite fruit? Satsuma (winter) or mango (summer). A real book or an e-book? choose.... e-book for narratives, real book for manuals and guides. Real ale, lager or a nice glass of Vino? choose.... Real ale, but cold. What was the last book or magazine that you read? I keep starting Let The Right One In, and one day will keep at it. Tatoo, body piercing or nothing? choose.... Would easily choose body piercing, but sadly none. A night in the pub or a meal out in a restaurant? Meal out.

The jacket and trousers that Aldi had this year got a very good write-up somewhere for their quality. I bought the trousers, but being sold in spring I did not get much use out of them because the lining is not removable so a bit hot for summer. They feel strong though. Anyway, I got a free helmet with my CBT last year so wore that initially, but thought it would be a good idea to buy a Lidl one anyway so I had a spare. Plus it gave me a flip option. The visor on my free helmet disintegrated though so I switched to wearing Lidl one. Although I meant to get a "proper" one I just never got around to it. Recently I ended up sliding off at 30mph dragging my head along the road a bit. Messed my elbow up (even with armour in the jacket), but despite pieces of plastic scratched out of the helmet it remained intact and my head was fine. And given they are instantly unusable once you hit the ground, there is nothing a more expensive lid could have done any better. Although in this year I bought another Lidl helmet as my new spare, this experience has finally made me buy a branded one. Mainly though as it should be a bit lighter, hopefully a bit quieter, and for supporting pinlock. I never found the Lild one to feel too heavy, but I suffer from arthritis in the neck and so hope it would help anyway, and have no experience really to compare on noise. So the only complaint I had with the Lidl was with it fogging up. But I doubt it is any worse that any other without some sort of protection on the visor, and there are stick-on options that could be used with it anyway.

I would say go for for the full A licence. As you are not under 24, so would have no choice, there is no real benefit to restricting yourself to the A2. The tests are the same either way, the only difference is the bike they are taken on: An A2 test is on a bike of at least 395cc and between 33 and 47bhp. An A test in on a bike of at least 595cc and a minimum of 53.6bhp.

Why did you fall off? I failed the CBT on U-turns because I took the instruction to "look where you're going" to me mean to look where I was going. And where I was going was into a spot between a fence and a cone. So that is where I was looking, at that piece of ground where I was expected to stop. What I should have done was look "through" where I was going and into the distance. To look where I would be going were I not to stop, at the portacabin class room and office. Effectively breaking it down into two phases: the u-turn to be heading off into the distance (well, a wall made of metal), and then braking once I was heading in that direction (to not go into a wall made of metal). I wish someone had explained all that to me (but I guess no one else thinks that way where "look where you're going" does not mean look where you are going) but luckily they said to come back in a week and with time to think it through I worked it all out for myself. Then after passing I had a few problems early on where I fell over going very slowly around corners due to the engine stalling. Unfortunately having been suggested I do the CBT on an automatic I had poor clutch control caused by not using the clutch for control. Using the clutch causes the engine to speed up, using the back brake (automatic style) causes it to slow down. Both can be used depending on the situations when you understand that. If that is the problem then you just need to pull the clutch in slightly so you hear the revs increase, then open the throttle a bit more to keep your speed. Then use the clutch very slightly to control the speed. Just a quick light tap on back brake can help if you revs are high and you feel you are going too fast and want to loose some speed. If you can go in a straight line okay I would think the problems is one of those two. Mind, that all said I practiced U-turns all the time before getting the confidence to start riding further distances and was really good at them. But in real situations I have probably only managed one without putting my foot down so try to avoid them. So I know nothing. (There is always enough space to waddle into a three-point turn and make it at least 7-shaped in not L-shaped.)

Incidentally, I think you can only ride bigger but restricted bikes on an A2 licence, so not on an A1 let alone a CBT. And even then, the restriction cannot be more than half the bike's power. So you would still fall foul of that even were were you allowed to do so on a CBT. The CBT (and A1 licence) only allows you to ride bikes up to 125cc and 14.6bhp, whilst the A test requires a bike with a minimum of 595cc and 53.6bhp. That would mean needing a restriction of nearly three quarters for a bike to meet both. You should not lose any money buying a 125 for a short period just to get some experience then selling after. But if the hassle of that is too much maybe there is somewhere near you you can rent something from on the days you are free to ride. Also try asking your school if they can do it, some do precisely for situations like yours, but renting should also include insurance so has none of the hassle.

I use four fingers to brake, but if downshifting while braking I use my palm to blip the throttle. Then just let the clutch back out and come off the brake, as engine braking sets my speed, and back on the throttle. It is done more like a twist of the hand poisiton so the fingers go up and the palm goes down, that way the palm pushes the throttle open and the fingers can keep the same pressure on the brake to avoid pulling harder on it. With two-handed braking I think you just do something similar using your fingers on the throttle; lifting them up so they pull the throttle open, whilst keeping your hand steady on the brake. Ideally though I suppose you should have your speed adjusted in good time to not need to still be on the brake when reengaging the engine, so come off the brake when pulling the clutch, then just shift down like normal. It is only when I misjudge a corner I need to do both together.

Actually it is illegal because the law says you need to keep a solid line to the "off side of the vehicle." Also, the law interprets a vehicle by its widest reach, which for a bike is most likely the handlebars, but could be luggage. So even with your wheels inside a solid line, the "off side of the vehicle" could still be over or crossing it.

Took a dirty blanket and some broken shoes for a ride around Woking today. All went well, so ordered a bigger net and a pair of Rok Straps as I now feel confident the bad should work without needing to commit to proper luggage yet. (I would have taken them to the seaside, but forgot to load the route onto my phone and could not be bothered to go back indoors to download it, so used a West Surrey one. Had various types of road though, so a good test.) The bag was only half full, only two gloves long and very squidgy, so I just crossed a pair of bungees in the middle, and then another wrapped around the rack. I wanted to pass the latter through some of the straps and have them pulling forwards, but the pillion pegs were too far forward that I had nothing long enough and nowhere else to hook to. As I thought my net was too small, I could just get one pair of hooks on both sides of the bike, but it was far too taut to trust. Still not sure I trust myself just passing some bungees over a full bag, so hopefully a bigger net will be better. And I would feel more confident about tightened straps than bungees if not. The things I did not think of, the bag formed a backrest for my bum. Was quite nice! And getting on and off was a bit more awkward with having to get my leg over the bag too.

I guess ratchets are just another way of doing the same sort of thing as Rok Straps? The latter seem easy to attach, quite recommended, and not too expensive, so I will probably get some of those anyway. Even if a net works out best for a bag it will be good to have options for the future. It took a while for me to accept my cheap tank bag will stay on with just magnets, so I am still in a "glorified elastic bands will not be enough" stage. Like however I do it will either fall off or tip me over.

What about fog and glasses? Wiping the visor with my hand was okay, until I had to stop or crack open the visor for extra visibility. Inside of the visor covered in droplets (presumably a Pinlock or similar would have prevented that) but so were my glasses. Kept having to stop by the side of the road to dry everything just to see. At times I even ended up having to have the visor high enough and my glasses low down my nose enough that I could see between them to find a safe place to stop. In hindsight I am an idiot and should have stayed in bed, I knew the forecast but when I set off it was perfectly clear so it being so bad took me by surprise.

I have a net too, the regular Oxford one, but I think it might be a bit too small for a full bag as it is only about 10". Easy to hook that under the seat though, so a bigger one should fit too, using the wee rack if necessary. So you think a net is better than cords? I plan to take some laundry for a test ride before committing to actually going somewhere so can give my net a test as well as cords, then buy a bigger net if necessary.

Before I buy dedicated luggage I want to see if I can strap my usual rucksack onto my bike as an option. The bag is a 55L one, I think, but fairly standard with a small bottom compartment, big middle one, then one within the top, and with straps everywhere. Unscientifically measuring the bike's seat from behind me to the outer edge of the luggage rack on the bike is two gloves long, and the bag is two and a half gloves tall. So that should be fine, it would overhang as much as a top box at worst. But how do I strap it securely? YouTube has let me down, I thought there would be videos showing how other people do it, but I could only find one, and it was not much use. (And YouTube had plenty showing how to buy petrol, which were very helpful at the time.) Is it literally as simple as running some over the top and just letting them squeeze it, or does more need to be done so it is pulled in various places to stop it sliding off?

It is so obvious, but it never even occurred to me I could just take my usual bag and strap it to the seat! Would like some proper luggage as I would feel more comfortable with it, but maybe for the first time I should just do that and see how it goes. For my laptop, I would feel more comfortable with it wrapped in the middle of my clothes than in a backpack. In an accident it should protect both it and me better! Obviously though then you definitely cannot leave it unattended, where with just clothes I may take the risk where it does not seem too high. Helpful suggestion for the tank bag too, thanks. I probably need a bigger one though. Currently I just keep my chain, DSLR camera (which is the main reason I wanted the bag), some wipes, and bottle of water in it. And at this time of year whichever of my winter or summer gloves I am not currently wearing. Too easy to go out and get frozen finger in the morning and sweating ones in the afternoon if you get them the wrong way around!

So it sounds like the straps would need to be removed when not attaching the bags, as even adding zips there would be nowhere for them to go. The seat is fixed and though not difficult to remove, you have to take off the side panels to get to the bolts. Which is fine before and after a trip, but a bit of an annoyance if I just want to explore the area whilst visiting. My tank bag is only a small cheap Aldi one with a rain cover, but I went out in what became a heavy downpour recently without using it and it somehow remained completely dry inside. It confirmed my opinion they are not worth the bother as I always wrap anything that needs protecting inside carrier/bin bags as a precaution anyway, regardless of how I travel. I am not tied to any particular sort though, the Oxford First Time ones just seem to be the highly recommended "budget" option and suitable for small bikes. And, at least for now, I only need to get between London and Lincolnshire so something basic should be able to protect my pants from the wilds of the Fens!

It suddenly occurred to me that me that I could use my bike to visit my parents, about 165 miles away, but that would mean needing luggage. When I go on the train I normally take a big camping rucksack and a messenger bag. With the small tank bag and backpack I currently have, something like the Oxford First Time panniers or similar should be enough. I have been searching to find out information but I still have a couple of questions unanswered, probably because they are too dumb for anyone else to ask. Soft bags are obviously secure enough to leave unattended, so are they easy to detach, carry, and reattach if necessary when stopping off somewhere? And can you just leave the strap(s) that go under the seat attached to the bike without the panniers? Presumably if they would dangle dangerously you could at least strap them together over the seat? Thanks.

Oh, absolutely I was in the wrong gear. There was no gradient sign at the bottom (yet there was at the top) so I was taken by surprise. Now I downshift at the first sign of losing power and it has not happened since. But that experience of how easily all power was cancelled out scared me off want to risk disengaging the engine at low speeds when I at least have some.

Having ground to a halt going uphill from far more than a couple mph, I wish I shared you confidence that my wee bike could have held its own against the forces of gravity.

All the advice I have heard has basically been to only go down as far as second when moving, then first when stopped. No idea how good that suggestion is, but from my repeated failure to follow that advice I completely agree with it! When slowing as I approach a red light and going down the gears I tend to go into first. But if the lights change so I do not have to stop then letting out the clutch (which I had been slipping) causes more engine breaking than acceleration, so you have to really open the throttle too and it all feels a bit jerky. When I do stay in second it is a lot smoother to accelerate away. The only time I deliberately go into first is when traffic is moving so slowly it barely registers on the speedo, even though I am also slipping the clutch and feathering the brake it just feels a lot more stable than in second. I was once going up a reasonably steep hill in town, so doing 30 mph, with lights at the top. The lights went red and the car in front of me must have been in a terrible remake of Speed as, presumably to avoid stopping, it quickly slowed then crawled very slowly. Not the way many people crawl to a light hoping to beat it, but far earlier out and slower. It worked though, as by the time the light went green and it still had loads of space between it and the stopped traffic so just sped off. And that was when I remembered I was still in third gear as I had hardly any acceleration. But at that speed I was too scared of gravity to pull in the clutch to change down, so just had to crawl to the top with the throttle fully open. Still not sure whether to feel like an idiot for being in that situation, or proud of being able to comfortably ride so slowly up a hill in too high a gear without noticing.

This is my understanding of how it makes sense. At low speeds when you turn the handlebars the back wheel pushes forward onto the front wheel, which rolls it in whatever direction it is pointing. All as you would expect. But as speed increases, the bike becomes more unstable with the wheels out of alignment. So with more pushing force it instead loses balance and falls over. By leaning the bike, various forces cause it to turn in the direction of the lean. This means you can use that "falling over" to get the bike into a leaned position to turn that way instead. When you turn the handlebars to the left, for example, the front wheel is positioned so that the front of it (the furthest part from the bike frame) is sticking out to the left and the back (nearest the bike frame) to the right. The bike will fall down the shortest, easiest, direction, so along the side of the wheel nearest the bike, it will fall to the right. So with the handlebars turned to the left, the bike falls to the right. And so as it is leaned to the right it turns to the right. As you say, you only need to do this to get into the turn. If you keep the front wheel out of alignment like that it will keep falling and eventually completely fall over. But the gyroscopic effect also means the bike will try to straighten back up, so you still need to keep the pressure on the handlebars to counteract that effect and remain in the lean. To come out of the turn release the pressure and the bike will sort itself out. Obviously you only turn the handlebars a small amount compared to what you would do for a slow speed turn. As I say, that is only my how I understand it, from working it through myself from YouTube videos and forum posts. Sadly it seems the only explanations I ever found though were either anecdotal (how it works but with no explanation of why) or required understanding the physics in effect. Nothing in a simple layman form like the above. So I could have some parts technically wrong, but it is an explanation that made sense of it all to me. Not that it makes too much difference because you do it instinctively anyway. I am just someone who needs to know why things work to be able to understand them, and this gives me that. But then the only thing I am worse at than going in straight lines is corners, and do not think I have ever consciously counter steered to turn anyway. In a turn, though, I do intentionally push on the bar to the inside of the turn to tighten it on occasions. Presumably this is where knowing about counter-steering actually helps, as you can then use it in that way to control the bike rather than coming off the throttle. Which I wrongly still do most of the time.

The distance between me and the car felt safe enough, and honestly cannot say with certainty now precisely how large it was, but I tend to leave a larger gap than necessary in front of me so I take the point about the safety margins. The car driver should have seen the filter lane, the road was bending to the left so they would have seen it before me, and there had obviously been a big sign for the junction being on the right. I would also hope they knew I was aware of their presence as I turned my head twice to do a shoulder check, before and after indicating, before starting to change position. But the consensus seems to be I was not leaving them enough room, so happy to accept that. And in terms of anticipating the junction, I could have changed lanes in readiness after passing the sign rather than then waiting a little longer until seeing the filter lane appear. I tend to stick to the left lane as much as I can as I try to keep to the limit (usually meaning a few miles over what the speedo reads as 30 seems to mean 28mph) but used to being regularly overtaken by others no matter how safe. Going on a road where I am expecting some to be much faster than me my attitude was to keep left as long as possible. But I guess being too cautious in situations like that can be more dangerous than not and I just need to be more assertive. So, get in position earlier and give more space, that way if necessary only a small change in speed would be needed to create it. Thanks all.

Would appreciate some advice for a numpty with a CBT as I have still not got much experience with big roads as we just do not have those in south London. But on Sunday morning I decided to go to Kingston via Wandsworth and the A3 for a bit of experience. It only uses a 40mph section but it means having to cross the 'fast lane' on a major route to turn off so I had always gone via Raynes Park, which is slightly shorter anyway but slower. There was literally only one car behind me and somehow I still messed it up! I was in the left lane doing 40 on the speedo, so around 37mph, the car was in the right lane a short distance behind and had been gaining on me very slowly. Seeing the filter lane ahead I look in the mirror and did a shoulder check. The car is still a couple car-lengths behind and had not changed speed so would have not caught up with me by the junction. I indicate, mirror and shoulder check again, start to move over but the car honks at me. To be safe I pull back, drop speed to 30mph so it will pass, and then move over. What should I have done? It was not a problem on the day given how oddly quiet it was, but had there been other traffic behind me then I would not have wanted to slow down like that causing others to do so. The car had been just sitting in that lane without attempting to overtake but I cannot do anything about that.