Over the next few weeks I'll be keeping you all up dated with my Direct Access progress along with some pics to make it more interesting and to share my experience warts an all for you CBT guys looking to take the next step as I have just done.
I'm not doing a banzai full on DAS accelerated course as I felt that it would not suit me so I'm taking it at my own pace as I'm in not particular hurry to get this done at all costs. So I'm taking it easy so that i have time to reflect on my progress at my own pace.
Here goes.....
Day 1 29th May
Got up this morning and as I'd expected it was raining cats and dogs. Not to worry as I have full weather proofs. I would say that this is one of the most important bits of kit that I have except for my helmet as I was warm and toasty all day.
Arrived at 1st Class Rider You are not allowed to view links.
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Login in Cardiff to begin my big bike day at 9am to be warmley greted by Simon who was my instuctor for the day. Just a quick form to fill in on arrival then a quick saftey chat then off to the bikes. My steed for the day was a Susuki GS500.
We were shown around they bikes and shown the doos and donts about getting on and off. Sounds silly but actually quite informative as the bike was far heavier than I'm used to. The next part was some mod 1 training as we were shown how to maneuver the bike correctly by pushing it and reverse maneuvering it as in the Mod 1 test. Easy peasy once you get used to the weight and the positioning of your body. With that out of the way it was time to get on and complete some laps of the training ground to get used to the feel of the bike. I must admit I thought the bike was going to chew me up and spit me out at first but the GS500 is a cosseting little thing that doesn't bite.
After getting to know the bike we were taken to a smaller training ground to perform some uturns and some figures of eight to get comfortable with the bike before going out on the open road.
Our route from the training ground took us through Witchurch, Landaf north then out to Cowbridge to the Downs Cafe. After lunch we were given a full debrief by Simon as to our riding ability and then went through some scenarios on road craft.
After lunch we were back out on the road and took a route from the Downs into Pontyclun then down into treforest on the new bypass. Now this is were i really got the feel for the 500 as the roads were open and following nicely. Got to put the power down a little bit here on this run as I stayed back a little from the instructor and let rip on occasion whilst it was my classmates turn to lead for a while. I know it's only 500c but coming from a 125 it was like a catapult. This I like....
From time to time we stopped and all had a chat about our riding and were given pointers to were we were going wrong or more importantly what we could be doing better.
On the Treforest industrial estate we found a quiet area to practice emergency stops and more uturns over and over again. Not my favorite part of the day to be honest but absolutely necessary.
After another debrief, back to the training center via the A470. Here again I got to feel the performance of the 500 and loved it so much I had to be told to slow down, funnily enough that happened all day. Whoops!!!
Back at the training center we did some more traffic cone slow speed slalom and figure of eight practice to round off the day.
All in all it was a fantastic days training and well worth the £150. I recommend the Step Up day as they call it as I believe it will pay dividends come my test day having had the extra time and training.
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