Bikey

Oxford Heated Premium Hot Grips - Sports also good price on Sportsbikeshop.

https://www.sportsbikeshop.co.uk/motorcycle_parts/content_prod/101831

Good CBT story Bungleaio! The MT07s are cracking. Lucky you!

 

Cheers mate, almost 6 months ago now and I've now got a full license and an MT07 of my own now.

I wrote up my MOD 1 and 2 experience too if you're interested

https://www.themotorbikeforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=23633&start=435#p1003861

https://www.themotorbikeforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=23634&start=555#p1012315

Good reads, congratulations on eventually passing your Mod 2, what chaos the 2nd time you went in to get it done! Might have been different if you had turned up an hour late instead.....

Passed the 2nd time same as me, nice you got an MT07 though, cracking first bike imo and loved riding it.

In preparation for my CBT, I've enjoyed reading other people's experiences so I thought I would add mine. I'm no literary genius but I hope it's useful to someone.

Some history about me - late thirties and been driving for 20 years, fairly keen cyclist (both road and mountain bikes) but never ridden a motorcycle until the CBT.

My CBT was done after a couple of days of very hot weather, I was a bit worried about it being too hot for me but thankfully it was cloudy so it was ok. I didn't have my own jacket, gloves or helmet so I was borrowing these from the school which was fine apart from they had been used in the heatwave so were a bit stinky but after a couple of minutes, it was fine. I'm glad I didn't have to buy the kit as I wasn't sure whether it was something I would want to take further so I appreciated being able to borrow it even if it did smell a bit.

There was three of us on the course, I was the oldest and only driver, there was a lad in his early thirties who had a 125 a few years ago and there was a lad that had only just turned 16. The youngest lad was riding a 50cc twist and go moped so some of the exercises were different for him. I was training on the 125 so I won't mention what he was up to.

Before doing anything we did a sight check from a few meters further away than the legal minimum then we went through the talk about kit which took a while but I knew quite a bit of this from my online research beforehand. Then the main event for me really - hands on with the bikes. The school had Yamaha YBR125's.

We were run through safety checks, pre-ride inspections and how to get on and off the centre stand which was simple enough really. We then got to walk the bikes from where they are stored to the training area. This had a gravel base so we could experiment with the front brake to get a feel of how much was required to lock it up.

We sat on the bikes and learnt how to move away in 1st, slipping the clutch seemed bad to me from a mechanical sympathy point of view, I understand the theory but an engine at 2-3k revs and a slipping clutch really felt bad to me. It took me a few starts to get away smoothly. We moved onto turning right and braking, again more clutch slip then getting up into 2nd gear. The more time we spent doing this the more natural it felt to me. I was a bit worried at the start as it felt awkward. I just had to remember I was operating a bike throttle, clutch and gearbox rather than a car.

Next was onto emergency stop, I wasn't the best at this and stalled it a couple of times, I was also conscious of not locking the front wheel so I wasn't pulling the brake as hard as I could. The instructor got on my bike and gave me a demo and then I had another go and I was a lot better.

We then got shown how to set the mirrors and what shoulder checks were then we had a go at U-turns. I was getting a lot better with the clutch, and I'm also quite used to checking over my shoulder on my pushbike so this went pretty well.

This concluded the morning session at about 12:30. We went back to the training room and had lunch (I had lunch, the other two had ignored the instructions to bring a packed lunch so they didn't have anything) during this time we went through road positioning and junctions as well as don't drive when angry or drunk etc.

At the end of this we were then asked if we would like to go out on the road. I think we all felt a bit nervous but we all said yes. I was to go out with the other lad on the 125 but we were asked if we would like to go out on a bigger bike and we both said yes.

We were shown around the Yamaha MT07's and they immediately felt more comfortable, I'm 6"3 so had felt a bit squashed on the YBR. We had 15 minutes to toddle around the training ground then onto the road. This is where it all started to come together for me, despite the bike being bigger it felt so much better. We did 20-30 minutes of slow speed residential areas with loads of roundabouts then onto a NSL road. Feck me these things are amazing! The wind on the chest and helmet was a surprise, I'm not sure why I was surprised, a naked bike at 60mph is bound to be windy!

We were out for about an hour before we stopped for a 5 minute break. I was fine but the other lad looked worried. Turned out he had lost his wallet at some point. We were about 10 minutes from the base so we went back so that he could look for it there then we went out and retraced our steps. I was happy to do that as we'd been on a really good mix of roads. We didn't find it.

On the 2 hour+ drive i still stalled a couple of times but I recognised what was going on and soon got on the move again, it takes me back to my learner driver days.

When we got back to base the instructor said it was one of the best rides he'd seen on a CBT for quite a while. Seeing as I'd never ridden a bike until 5 hours before I was very pleased.

Overall I loved the experiance, theory is booked now and then onto DAS soon hopefully.

Good CBT story Bungleaio! The MT07s are cracking. Lucky you!

Congratulations on doing your CBT and onto the next stages!

FYI I much prefer contact lenses and wouldn't ride without them, I keep a spare pair in my jacket just incase.

Personally I went straight for DAS and onto the 600cc when I was ready, when I got a shot of a 125cc after that I wasn't too impressed having ridden the bigger bike, but it's preference on which you would rather, some people prefer having a 125 to use.

Happy bike shopping and riding

I failed my first Mod 2 for missing an overhead gantry sign somehow, approaching a roundabout then as a result was in the wrong lane coming off the roundabout staring down a motorway slip, resulting in having to move to the right lane too late. Hopefully lesson learned in forward planning!

Skip to my Mod 2 resit 3 months later:

Lost my instructor for the first time, 20 minutes before the test start Eventually made my way towards test centre and he caught up with me.

Briefed by examiner, number plate check and a few show me tell me questions, I rode off from the test centre being followed by examiner in an a car, into heavy traffic with traffic lights faulty again in a busy part of town. Sat in the traffic for 10-15 minutes and eventually instructed to turn round out of the traffic and continued on, so my test lasted around 50 minutes! Nothing to difficult this time round. Various stops by the side of the road, pulling in behind parked cars and moving off. By this point it was just starting to rain and it was freezing with my summer gloves on! *Remember to go shopping.....*.

Eventually made our way back to the test centre after some pretty congested areas and routine junctions and the examiner asked me to park my bike up and stand next to it. All in all not a bad second round I thought, once I kept the nerves at bay. The examiner then invited me inside, and after a minute or so asked me into the debrief room, and said 'Happy to let you know that you've passed, congratulations'.

Riding back to the training school afterwards sporting a massive grin, never been more happy to ride in the rain than that moment.