The CBT

I did my CBT a few weeks ago with MCT Services in Chesterfield who were excellent. The instructor, Stuart, is I believe an ex-police rider and he was patient but not too soft on me! Unlike the first time I did the CBT where I was in a group of 4, Stuart only does 1 to 1 tuition, which is definitely the best way as you have the instructor's undivided attention. The morning was spent in a car park getting to grips with the bike controls, safety aspects and manoeuvring. The hardest things to master were pulling away slowly in first, then changing up to second still very slowly before coming to a controlled stop. I couldn't get the hang of smoothly releasing the clutch while giving it enough revs to start moving forward...I either revved much too hard or stalled! I tried to remember how it first felt when I tried to do it in a car with my feet, I suppose it felt just as strange back then! My other issue was keeping balance while doing a U-turn. The length you have to do a U-turn in the test felt ridiculously small, and despite Stuart's good advice ("make sure you grip the petrol tank tightly between your legs, it will help with the balance!"), I still kept having to put my foot down part way round.

Then in the afternoon it was out on the road for a good 3 hours which was brilliant but really tiring. We first road out to a bike shop + cafe in Clay Cross where I had a jolly good bacon sandwich, then we hit the mean streets of Derbyshire. I'm not going to pretend otherwise, it was TERRIFYING at first; doing 30mph felt about 90, and I stalled countless times. But once I got a bit more used to it and was able to concentrate less on the controls and more on actually riding it was much more enjoyable. It was an absolutely glorious day and the sense of freedom riding around the Derbyshire A roads was just fantastic. I'd been frustrated with my lack of progress in the morning and had been having a few doubts about whether I should really be doing the whole thing at all, but as soon as I got that feeling I knew I'd done the right thing and I'd been well and truly bitten by the biking bug. Before I knew it though, it was all over and I was back at Stuart's getting my CBT certificate.

Driving back from Chesterfield I had a kind of nervous excitement, the same feeling I had after I'd done the previous CBT eight years earlier. But this time it was different...instead of letting my CBT expire, it was time to seriously investigate getting a bike.