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Sharon's Biking Blog
CBT again - Chipping Bike Time - Aug 2013
Another Monday morning and another day of CBT. After having a good day the day before I am in a much better frame of mind than I was on my first attempt a week ago. The weather is much better too and without the need for the welcome chat this time around I have a later start of 9.30am.
Ren rides my bike down to the test centre and I follow in the car. Karen is waiting alone. The young lady I was training with last week has work commitments today so it will just be me. After a quick coffee and chat its time to show her I know the various controls of my own bike and have a practise ride on the pad. This goes well and before I know it it is time to go out into the big scary world of roads and traffic. It is a big jump from the nice secure safe world of the pad and I feel the butterflies flutter in my tummy.
The radio is another new experience. Now I will have Karen talking to me giving instructions as well as my own voice telling me to be stay calm and be positive. As I ride slowly out of the test centre onto the road I can also hear my heart pounding in my ears.
To be honest it is hard now to relate to you the whole on road experience as most of it is a blur and probably very dull if I went through it step by step. So I will just give a brief account of what it is all about.
Traffic lights and roundabouts and junctions are all tackled. Karen gives nice clear instructions but that does not prevent me turning left instead of right on one occasion, durgh. It all goes fairly well, I am not super smooth and sometimes I fluff my gears such as hitting neutral rather than second gear. I break a little too sharply at first but this gets better as the day progresses. Occasionally I stall. I know I am not great but neither am I disaster. So when we finally pull into a side road to do a u-turn I am feeling fairly ok.
I had done u-turns on my bike only the night before so I am not to perturbed by the prospect of doing one now. So I pull beside the kerb do my checks and begin the manoeuvre. So far so good but just as I am about to complete it I clip the kerb with the edge of my front wheel and DOWN I and the bike go. Ohhh that was not in the planning. My first thought is the bike. I hit the kill switch and survey the damage. I now have some nice scratches to both the left mirror and the indicator. The handle bars, clutch level and foot pegs are all scuffed and now lacking in paint. The gear lever is bent. No doubt if I had laid it down on the flat road it would have not been quite so bad but hitting the kerb gave some extra edge to the damages.
I am surprisingly quite blase about it. I am not hurt. The bike is scratched and scuffed but I remind myself that when I bought the bike I was expecting to scratch it anyhow. It was bought for the the purpose of learning on and very few of us will learn without a few chips and scuffs along the way. What is done is done and now I have the hard part to do. Get on again, try to forget what as just happened and do a correct u-turn. Thankfully I do just that.
We carry on with some more road work and after 3 hours we come back to the test centre for lunch. Karen says she is happy with my progress and would be happy to sign my certificate but she would like, if I am willing, to go out again for a another half an hour or so after lunch just to iron out any rough areas. Part of me wants to say no just give me the certificate but I know in the end all practise should be good so I agree to go out again.
This however proves not to be the case. Karen wants to know if my evil twin has now got onto the bike. I am making silly mistakes now I never made at all before lunch. Oh my god where has my head gone. It soon becomes apparent that this is not going to get any better, it is all going pear shaped rather quickly. So after about half and hour we come back.
It is clear that I am now just too tired. I simply do not have the stamina as yet to concentrate for such a long time. A lunch break usually wakes you up but for me that just was not the case.
I excitedly go to collect my certificate while the bf straightens out my gear lever. I debate whether I should let the bf ride the bike home and I take the car. I decide to sit and rest for a while to gather my thoughts. I am so made up to get my certificate but I am tired so it is not really sinking in. It was hard work for my poor old brain to make new connections and learn something new. It has been hard work on my body too, god I have got aches in places I never knew I had. But as I sit here here with that all important certificate in my hand I know it has been more than worth it. The rest has helped and I decide to not wimp out and to ride the bike home myself. After all it is my bike and I have got the cert that says I am allowed to ride it. Whoop wee.
I was not perfect on my CBT but it is just the first step in a long learning curve. I still have much to learn, lots of areas to smooth out, more mistakes to be made no doubt and hopefully lots to things to improve on. There is only one way I will ever get any better and that is to get some miles under my tyres and RIDE.
I finish my day off by riding that night to my bike club Swan2Wheels. My smile says it all.
Reader's Comments
John said :-
I already knew about your cbt due to me being at the club that night............but well done lady :) Like you say, its all a learning curve and for some it is slight but for others it is steep.......keep plugging away and get those miles under your belt and things WILL improve. The main thing is to RELAX................:)
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Melissa said :-
Way to go, Sharon! It will only get better from here. Love seeing you smiling on that bike :)
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
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