My Little Journey - Mod 2 PASSED!!

[gulfman]

Hey Madcow

I had my licence back in the post today [emoji4]

17 days after I passed.

Guess it's official now so off to buy some Leather chaps

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[madcow87]

So I was going to post up my experiences of the tests and training that I went through and haven't posted anything since my Mod 1 training. So I'm gonna make a series of posts to finish this thread off. Hopefully in the future someone may be in a similar situation with similar questions/thoughts and might find some useful.

So Mod 1 test day....

I drove an hour or two up the motorway to Carlisle (nearest test centre ) with two other lads doing their Mod 1s. Two lads were meeting us there with the instructor and bikes (one of them was doing Mod 1 and Mod 2 in the same day).

It was a long and wet drizzly drive up there and I was bricking it the whole way up there. Was shaking like a s***ing dog getting my gear on when we arrived and was just generally not overly enthusiastic. I'd never ridden in wet weather either so this was one more obstacle for me to overcome as I'd read all the horror stories about locking up wheels on the emergency stop, locking the front and the bike washing out under them....wasn't too keen.

The instructor got us set up and took us down the road to a small car park for some U turn practice, and just some general confidence building, did nothing for me as the other lad was riding about with no problems and I couldn't string two successive U turns together, mostly running wide and getting nervous.

Back to the test centre and we watched the first lad sail through with 1 minor on the speed for the emergency stop (he'd also not rode in rain and was maybe a little hesitant with it. The other thing that bugged me at this time, was that during our training we'd only practiced the circuit with the high speed manoeuvres to the right, but it seemed that the examiner was doing a lot of left hand circuits...very small thing but it was something I wasn't sure off.

So it came to my turn and I suddenly started relaxing a little, my instructor knew I was so nervous and came and sat with me in the waiting room (didn't do that with anyone else) and just chatted with me for 10 minutes whilst I waited for the examiner. I went in got suited and booted and made a joke about it being my "first time", I think the examiner also tried very hard to put me at ease as well. Can't thank them both enough for this!!

So the test it self. I don't think I've ever concentrated so hard in my life. Every word the examiner spoke, and every manoeuvre I did I took loads of big breaths and took as much time as I could and just kept repeating "one step at a time" in my head. Talked to myself through every manoeuvre to make sure I didn't forget something.

Everything went kinda smooth, the slalom/figure 8 I was revving the absolute p*** out of the machine but while it may have looked a little sloppy it wasn't enough for him to mark any minors against me at least. The U turn was what I was really dreading, and by this point I'd noticed that the spacing between cones and on the U turn area was much larger than what we'd trained with. I felt a lot more relaxed at this point. The U turn was where I picked up my only minor as my front wheel just ran onto the white line a little. I had it in my head that touching that line was a fail, immediate. So I was gutted. Thought that was that. Gave it a good thrashing around through the high speed manoeuvres and after the swerve pulled to a stop and the examiner explained about leaving the test pan. It was over.

Only it wasn't over. I'm going to point this out because one of the other lads picked up a minor here. The examiner opened the gate and I approached, only in the car park (it was the hub for driving and riding tests) was one learner coming in behind a tree (slightly obscured from my view) and another in the car park reversing around. Both cars just stopped what they were doing what do I do now?.....*looks at examiner, he's still smiling like a fool in the rain*....look around...edge out...pull into the bay...everything continues. I was as cautious as I could be because I literally had no idea what I was doing at this point and still thought I'd failed.

Into the room and I'd passed.

So the line incident was nothing, the examiner said that to fail there he needs to see tarmac between the back of the wheel and the white line, I basically just rode on the white line an inch or so. I asked about the end of the test. He explained that at that test centre, all the instructors have an agreement that if those gates are open and there's clearly a test concluding that they'll stop their students wherever they are until the motorcyclist is parked. But I was 100% right to be cautious and edge out carefully. Later that day one of the other lads picked up a minor because as soon as the test gate was open he just sailed out and into the car park without giving much thought to the cars around him. Oops!!

So that was my experience. Overall it wasn't as scary as my brain had made it. The rain was pretty much non existent despite it throwing it down and it was all fine. I don't know if its a standard practice, but my instructor purposely makes his training a little tighter than need be, train hard, test easy he told me on the day.

[HardlyDavison]

Good write up and well done.

Looking forward to your write up of your Mod 2 experience.

[Bungleaio]

Great stuff, I think the U turn is the maneuver that most people feel the least comfortable with.

How are you getting on out in the real world now? I bet you've got a fair few miles under your belt now.

[madcow87]

Cheers guys I'll try to get my Mod 2 write up done over the weekend.

Bungleaio - I haven't unfortunately had much chance to do any real mileage. I noticed an issue last big ride I went on, took it back this afternoon to have it looked at...long story short its still in the shop and I've got a brand new Yamaha MT7 as a courtesy bike for a few days!

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[Bungleaio]

Make sure you get some miles in on the MT07, I've really enjoyed learning to ride on one of them. Thats why I've been dragging out the learning process....