Based on the advice of seemingly every motorcycle publication I've ever read, I took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation of America's Basic Rider Course. Well, sort of. I actually took the Rider's Edge class offered by Harley Davidson, which is the MSF class with some Harley marketing on top. The material is the same, they just redid all the video clips so everyone rides Harleys and Buells. The other nice touch was the bikes we trained on. Rather than a smattering of random 125-200CC dirtbikes, we got to ride Buell Blasts around all day. Not exactly a super-machine, but they had enough go to keep everyone happy. I was lucky, I signed up in early July and wasn't scheduled to go until mid-September, but I requested to be on the waiting list, and after some cancelations early last week, I was in. More course details below.
So, how did this whole thing break down? Here are my impressions:
Thursday Night, 6-9PM: This was the first night of the class, so introductions, class info, and a "history of Harley Davidson" speech took up the first hour or so. The remainder of the class covered motorcycle protective gear, and finally an overview of primary motorcycle controls. V=IR: Helmets are Good.
Friday Night, 6-9PM: Night two started off where we had stopped the night before, basic controls. Pretty basic stuff, but some people needed to hear it. A few more hours of "SEE", "T-CLOCS", "FINE-C", "press left, go left", and "slow, look, press, roll", and we were all done with the classroom stuff. V=IR: Brakes are good, both brakes are better.
Saturday, 7:30AM-6:00PM: Man, this was one long, hot day. And it started freeking early. I had to be at Alltel Pavillion (the venue formerly known as Walnut Creek, aka "Blossom in NC"), a 45 minute hike, by 7:30 in the morning. Two days in a row. It was rough. Everyone gets there on time, gets a bike appropriate to their build, and the fun begins. Things started off slowly, everyone power-walking, then eventually riding, their bikes in a straight line, stop-go-stop-go-stop-go-stop. The exercises continued all day, and progressed nicely in difficulty. I was very impressed with how well laid out the "course" was for each exercise. There were always 3-4 things going on in each one: shifting, turning, braking, swerving, etc, and always two symmetrical routes through each one, so you always got to do everything in both directions. By the end of the day, everyone was zipping around the parking lot, weaving through cones and cornering like they were on rails. Around 4:00PM, we headed back to the classroom, hosted by Ray Price Harley Davidson. Two hours of "Drinking and riding a motorcycle are bad" and we wrapped things up for the day. I went home absolutely exhausted. V=IR: Head up, wrist down.
Sunday, 7:30AM-4:00PM: Man alive, up at 6:30 two days in a row? That's got to be some kind of record for me. The day started out just where we left off, doing more exercises over and over until we got them right. Finally around noon, they laid out the "evaluation" course in the parking lot, and gave everyone some time to pracitice. The evaluation course consisted of a long straightaway with a timed & measured hard stop at the end, then a figure 8 in a very small box, followed by another straightaway with a random right/left quick swerve at the end, and finally two wide corners that were measured for speed with a nice straightaway in between. Points were deducted on in each section for things like not stopping in a small enough distance, putting a foot down, hitting a cone, etc, with a maximum of 20 points off to still pass. I placed second in the class with 2 points off, since I missed my stopping distance by 2 feet. Some other joker only missed it by 1 and consequently beat me. I hate that guy. We headed back to the classroom around 2:00 for our written test. After a grueling 10 minutes answering multiple choice questions like "How many wheels does a motorcycle have?" and "Is it a good idea to drink a bottle of Crown Royal and then go for a spin?", I passed my test without missing a question, and that punk that stopped a foot shorter than me missed one, so I guess you could say we tied. Everyone passed both evaluations, they passed out a bunch of freebies from the dealership, and we all headed home to watch Easy Rider. V=IR: That motorcycle will turn a lot sharper than you will.
Conclusion: Spending 16 hours in full-length shirts and pants, with a helmet on, sitting on a running bike, on a giant, shadeless slab of parking lot, in 95 degree heat, is a great recipe for the meanest back-of-the-neck sunburn you can imagine. And heatstroke, but I avoided that one. Other than that, I had an absolute blast, and feel tremendously better on a bike now. I had previously mastered going fast in a straight line, which I have to believe is the easiest of the motorcycle skills. Turning, braking, swerving, and about ten other things really needed work, and I think I got that this weekend. Things started a little slowly, but they do have to cater to the lowest common denominator. I'm glad I did it, it was worth the sunburn.
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