Motorcycle riding: the story
Hello everyone,
As promised in my previous post, here is the whole story of me getting both licensed to ride a motorcycle on the road and the motorcycle itself. But first, I know some of you are craving some photos so here is the first batch, along with a promise to take and upload better ones soon.
The saga starts somewhere at the beginning of June 2009, when I took the decision to follow classes for a driver's license. It is as of yet unclear what caused or influenced this decision but there are speculations that a certain change (to the better) in my personal life is the culprit.
I chose this school for my driver training because it was close to where I live (a 20 minute walk) and because it looked the most trustworthy of all driving schools in this area. I submitted my application on Monday, June 15th; got scheduled for the psychology test the next day and I attended the first driving law theory class the third day, Wednesday, June 17th. The first motorcycle riding class was held on Thursday and the first car driving class the next Monday.
According to local laws, the psychology test must be taken (and passed) before any driving school attendance. Following that, the theory course must then be completed before any actual driving/riding takes place and only after completing that last part are you allowed to submit you application for the government-administered driving license examination.
As you all know, laws are treated as advisories here so the school only enforced the amount of time that had to pass from the date the psychology test was passed to the day they would sign your file and thus allow you to submit your application to the authorities.
Moving on to the schooling itself, the law theory classes were a good idea and I attended about three weeks of them (and since the classes were held three times a week, that would sum up to about 9 2-hour classes). Unfortunately, the local view about laws is that you will obey them if you are made sufficiently aware of their content (and not their meaning and/or applicability). On the same note, the theory exam contains 20 multiple-choice questions for future riders (26 for future drivers) which can have one, two or even all three correct answers and it's light years away from being at least psychometrically correct, let alone well balanced, normalized and entropy-masked.
The questions cover what you would expect: signs and markings, right-of-way, speed limits, highway driving; what you would less expect: preventive driving, ecological driving, automotive mechanics; and even what you would not expect: detailed aspects from the text of the law itself.
The law theory class consisted of us solving sets of 26 questions (picked from the same database that the formal examination draws them from), checking our results and then the instructor explaining the correct answer for any and all questions that we've messed up. It is a good method for gaining enough knowledge (read: experience with question-type fingerprinting) to pass the exam but it has nothing to do with learning and understanding the law itself (not that there would be enough meaning in any local law to warrant understanding it).
Moving on to the driving and riding classes which were also held three times a week. Driving was on Monday, Wednesday and Friday whereas riding was on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. As you probably know, local laws mandate that the practical examination for a future rider consists of performing a fixed choreography in a closed court within 4 minutes and without making more than 3 mistakes. As opposed to that, the practical examination for a future driver consists of driving a car in live traffic, following live navigation orders from the exam judge.
Because of that, practical training for the two disciplines follows differing paths and methods, rendering both training efforts insufficient and incomplete -- something which is not readily obvious unless you do what I did and take up both riding and driving classes. The reason for drawing that conclusion is that operating a device is one area of interest while using a device in a context driven by usage laws and populated by other users is a totally different thing.
So, if you are to take up driving classes, you are going to end up knowing how are you supposed to drive a car in traffic, obeying all rules -- but being unable to drive the car itself proficiently and master driving itself as a skill; while if you are going to take up riding classes, you are going to master controlling the motorcycle -- but you will remain totally unprepared for riding in in the wild, on the open road and unforgiving weather.
Moving on to the more hand-on part of the classes, the driving part was held on Citroen C1s which (both the vendor and my instructor) called "a car". I really beg to differ on that ... but it was enough of a car for me to learn driving. The riding part was held on a pack of Suzuki, three GN250 (yes, there is a typo in the first post, claiming they were "GZ" 250s), one GN125 and one Marauder 250. Even though not exactly right for all people, the attitude of the riding instructor was perfect for my way of learning new things: after making sure we mastered "how not to drop the motorcycle", he left us to roam freely around the court, practicing the exam choreography in whichever order we felt comfortable with, giving us a chance to discover the art behind motorcycle riding ourselves.
It is at this point that [om3ga] (or Sixx as he signs his posts now) suggested David L. Hough's books as compulsory reading, which I have read one-per-night and which I hold directly responsible for me understanding (and learning how to apply!) enough motorcycle physics to pass the practical exam with no sweat. My thanks and gratitude go to both of you!
Moving further, after completing all paperwork for the final examination (which included a thorough-wannabe medical examination), I have submitted my application on August 11th. The dialogue with the clerk remains a landmark of local flavor:
I decided I shall put driving on the back burner and concentrate on riding and so, on the 26th, I took and passed the practical examination. I got my license the next day and so I was now legally a motorcyclist :-)
That's about it for now. I'm sure I must have missed some details -- please ask and I shall answer.
@Dexter
As promised in my previous post, here is the whole story of me getting both licensed to ride a motorcycle on the road and the motorcycle itself. But first, I know some of you are craving some photos so here is the first batch, along with a promise to take and upload better ones soon.
The saga starts somewhere at the beginning of June 2009, when I took the decision to follow classes for a driver's license. It is as of yet unclear what caused or influenced this decision but there are speculations that a certain change (to the better) in my personal life is the culprit.
I chose this school for my driver training because it was close to where I live (a 20 minute walk) and because it looked the most trustworthy of all driving schools in this area. I submitted my application on Monday, June 15th; got scheduled for the psychology test the next day and I attended the first driving law theory class the third day, Wednesday, June 17th. The first motorcycle riding class was held on Thursday and the first car driving class the next Monday.
According to local laws, the psychology test must be taken (and passed) before any driving school attendance. Following that, the theory course must then be completed before any actual driving/riding takes place and only after completing that last part are you allowed to submit you application for the government-administered driving license examination.
As you all know, laws are treated as advisories here so the school only enforced the amount of time that had to pass from the date the psychology test was passed to the day they would sign your file and thus allow you to submit your application to the authorities.
Moving on to the schooling itself, the law theory classes were a good idea and I attended about three weeks of them (and since the classes were held three times a week, that would sum up to about 9 2-hour classes). Unfortunately, the local view about laws is that you will obey them if you are made sufficiently aware of their content (and not their meaning and/or applicability). On the same note, the theory exam contains 20 multiple-choice questions for future riders (26 for future drivers) which can have one, two or even all three correct answers and it's light years away from being at least psychometrically correct, let alone well balanced, normalized and entropy-masked.
The questions cover what you would expect: signs and markings, right-of-way, speed limits, highway driving; what you would less expect: preventive driving, ecological driving, automotive mechanics; and even what you would not expect: detailed aspects from the text of the law itself.
The law theory class consisted of us solving sets of 26 questions (picked from the same database that the formal examination draws them from), checking our results and then the instructor explaining the correct answer for any and all questions that we've messed up. It is a good method for gaining enough knowledge (read: experience with question-type fingerprinting) to pass the exam but it has nothing to do with learning and understanding the law itself (not that there would be enough meaning in any local law to warrant understanding it).
Moving on to the driving and riding classes which were also held three times a week. Driving was on Monday, Wednesday and Friday whereas riding was on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. As you probably know, local laws mandate that the practical examination for a future rider consists of performing a fixed choreography in a closed court within 4 minutes and without making more than 3 mistakes. As opposed to that, the practical examination for a future driver consists of driving a car in live traffic, following live navigation orders from the exam judge.
Because of that, practical training for the two disciplines follows differing paths and methods, rendering both training efforts insufficient and incomplete -- something which is not readily obvious unless you do what I did and take up both riding and driving classes. The reason for drawing that conclusion is that operating a device is one area of interest while using a device in a context driven by usage laws and populated by other users is a totally different thing.
So, if you are to take up driving classes, you are going to end up knowing how are you supposed to drive a car in traffic, obeying all rules -- but being unable to drive the car itself proficiently and master driving itself as a skill; while if you are going to take up riding classes, you are going to master controlling the motorcycle -- but you will remain totally unprepared for riding in in the wild, on the open road and unforgiving weather.
Moving on to the more hand-on part of the classes, the driving part was held on Citroen C1s which (both the vendor and my instructor) called "a car". I really beg to differ on that ... but it was enough of a car for me to learn driving. The riding part was held on a pack of Suzuki, three GN250 (yes, there is a typo in the first post, claiming they were "GZ" 250s), one GN125 and one Marauder 250. Even though not exactly right for all people, the attitude of the riding instructor was perfect for my way of learning new things: after making sure we mastered "how not to drop the motorcycle", he left us to roam freely around the court, practicing the exam choreography in whichever order we felt comfortable with, giving us a chance to discover the art behind motorcycle riding ourselves.
It is at this point that [om3ga] (or Sixx as he signs his posts now) suggested David L. Hough's books as compulsory reading, which I have read one-per-night and which I hold directly responsible for me understanding (and learning how to apply!) enough motorcycle physics to pass the practical exam with no sweat. My thanks and gratitude go to both of you!
Moving further, after completing all paperwork for the final examination (which included a thorough-wannabe medical examination), I have submitted my application on August 11th. The dialogue with the clerk remains a landmark of local flavor:
Clerk: "So, which exam to you want to take first? Riding or driving?"The theory exam can be taken at any time from the day you submitted your application (inclusive) until the day of the practical examination (exclusive) so I came back the next day and did them both. The results were no surprise: I passed the riding part and failed the driving one.
Me: (large grin) "Riding first, please!"
Clerk: (after typing at the computer) "Soooooo, we have riding examination on the 26th and driving examination on the 19th!"
I decided I shall put driving on the back burner and concentrate on riding and so, on the 26th, I took and passed the practical examination. I got my license the next day and so I was now legally a motorcyclist :-)
That's about it for now. I'm sure I must have missed some details -- please ask and I shall answer.
@Dexter
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