This post is a long time overdue. On the 17th of September 2009, I passed part 2 of the Direct Access (DAS) Motorcycle test.

I’m a very happy bunny now – I am entitled to go out and buy whatever bike takes my fancy (and that I can insure )…..

The test itself went well – I was stressed totally in the run up to it but made it through. The most interesting aspect is that the examiner did my test while following in a car. This was unexpected! Apart from dropping him a bit when accelerating into a 60mph limit it was all fine. One advantage being there is often a car between you and him – lessening the pressure of close observation. The only manoeuvres left in the test are pulling out from behind a parked car and a hill start – everything else is in the Motorcycle test Part 1.

I struggled with 1 junction – I’m never sure if I should wait for a gap big enough for the examiner to get out into or just to ride normally. In this case I realised I was hesitating and just got on with riding normally.

After a 30 or so minute ride taking in some of Harrogate town centre and some national limit roads, we returned to the test centre and I was told I had passed. I got a single minor for observation.

So there we go – L plates removed and time to go buy a bigger bike.

2 Weeks ago I took and passed part one of my Direct Access (DAS) motorcycle test. This is the new test that received a lot of medai attention and took well over a year longer than planned to roll out.

The entire test takes place in a specialised test centre, off the road. Its like an advanced CBT, but requires more space as two components involve speeds of 30mph plus – the emergency stop and the swerve. This test removes the need for some elements of the on road (part 2) test – the emergency stop and U-Turn are dealt with along with pushing the bike, using the stand, slow riding, a slalom and a figure eight.

I did the test on a 500cc bike to enable me to go straight into a full licence. Training wise I did 4 2 hour sessions of training with 3d Motorcycle training of Harrogate plus a half day on the road to get used to the bike a little more. Its was all about clutch control and balance for me as I have become lazy and tend to use my feet where I end up going slowly. I also did a lot of U-Turn and figure 8 practice on the 125 to supplement.

I passed with no minors . I had to redo the Swerve as my first attempt clocked 49kmh – the minimum is 50. Attempt number 2 was dead on the 50 – so a pass. The swerve is nothing severe – perhaps moving 1m to the right at 30mph and then correcting back onto your original line. I would say it simulates the kind of avoidance you would quite realistically have to perform should a car edge out in front, or a pedestrian or a car door opening etc. To have a problem you really would have to brake hard while steering – but thats not stopped broken arms already! Those taking the test on 125cc bikes have to accelerate quite hard to hit the required speed in the available space as well.

Next up is 3 more days of on road lessons and a part 2 on road test. Then I can buy a big bike!

Today was the first properly wet day that I have commuted into work on the motorbike for. Getting motivated was tricky, but I parked my car in a seriously small space last night and did not fancy trying to extract it either so the bike won . I have a ALDI armoured waterproof jacket which does a good job, with the lining zipped in today I was warm and dry. I have not yet bought equivalent pants, so it was my leathers with waterproof over trousers. My gloves and boots do a good job of keeping the water out and I was comfortable all the way. My neck is the only unprotected area and I plan to buy at least a Buff to my collection of gear for riding.

My Alpkit Gourdon 20 rucksack maintains its 100% waterproof record – an excellent bit of kit by a great company. The tank bag with rain cover also did its job, allowing me to bring in a full set of work clothes.

All in all really not a problem. More money saved, more time saved and more time spent on the motorcycle which I enjoy. Commuting is going well! Its still hammering down anyway, so I’ll be back out in the rain in half an hour.

I have now been commuting 20 miles each way to work on a 125cc motorcycle for about a month now. I have come to some conclusions:

• It’s cheap – 110mpg
• It’s fast – filter through the traffic
• It’s more fun

What I really wonder about is why so few people use motrobikes to commute. Travelling in South East Asia recently you see huge numers of motorcycles – Vietnam has very very few cars but millions of little Hondas. I’m saving money, the enviroment and also saving all the lazy people in cars a bit of time as I’m not making the queues 5m longer.

First of all here are the rough costs:
Bike: £400 for a 2000 Suzuki GS125 – simple, reliable and capale of doing 70mph flat.
Clothes: £100 odd for second hand Leathers, boots new gloves and a cheapo rain suit.
Luggage: £50 for a waterproof rucksack and a simple magnetic tankbag.
Helmet: £50 for a basic flip front lid.
Insurance: £110 for the bike in Harrogate.
CBT: £80 for a days training.
So thats less than £1k all up, and the bike should fetch most of what I paid when I sell it.

Running Costs, Weekly, 40 miles per day, 99.9p for unleaded
Car (1992 Golf GTI) – 32mpg = £27.90 in fuel
Bike (Suzuki GS125) – 110mpg = £8.25 in fuel
Thats a big saving of £19.65 per week, or £943 for 48 weeks per year of work. That covers the full cost of the bike and equipment after year one of commuting – including tax (£15), training and insurance. In year 2, the savings would be around £800. The bike needs servicing every 2500 miles – a liter of oil, a filter and some mechanical checks cost the DIY mechanic around £10, so thats abig saving as well.

There’s more to come on this issue. One of the major concerns is horrible weather. Thus far my water proofs have been fine, but the purchase of a nice waterproof / warm / protective suit will be nice before winter. I’m also interested to see how economical the XJ600 I have my eye on will be on my commute.

Not posted since my Birthday, but quite a bit happened… I moved to Harrogate for a start. I had to get out of the Parents house, so managed to negotiate a move to our Leeds office and move in with friends in Harrogate.

The side effect of this has been my purchase of my first motorbike – a Suzuki GS125 from Mat. Hes got the GSF600 Bandit now . Since getting it I’ve travelled 1000 miles on her, averaging 111mpg and generally enjoying myself. It takes 10-15 mins off the typical commute as I can ignore Queues in the main. Obviously there are some issues like all the extra kit I needed to buy for riding it, but I got some good deals from eBay etc. The rain sucks, but not as badly as I had feared.

I have passed the Theory Test now as well, and start my Direct Access Course tomorrow. Bring on the 500!

Download festival was good. No puctures were taken however. Climbing Helvellyn for the Summer Solstice was fun, but ended up in a surreal 50 people in a grey dawn in a cloud kinda way. On the plus side some nice people offered us sausages off the barbie (at 4am). Driving the Kirkstone in the Golf with its new engine mounts was FUN – nobody got in the way (aside from Sheep, who don’t count).

I’m back on the diet as of today also. Fun fun fun, but 13 st 4 lb is a bit of a FAIL.

Did my PADI dry suit speciality last Sunday with Tigerdive. Capenwray was mad busy!

The day started off poorly as we were bent over and rogered for £27 each just to get in – £15 to ‘register’ with Capenwray and £12 to dive. The school really should have told us about this… Pure luck that Mat had cash. I never do.

After breakfast we finally found the school. Tricky as the usual big yellow van had broken down. It took till about 11am before we hit the water for the confined dive. The aim here was to do a fin pivot and hover on a 2m platform. I had a lot of difficulty with this.. I was overweighted with 12kg and therfore could not hover in a position i felt comfortable in. To get neutrally bouyant meant having lots of air in the dry suit and the neck seal was a bit loose for me. This often ended up with air dumped into my hood . I eventually passed this phase and we went back in.

After a snack we were back into the first open water. For this we were sent out with someone who was doing an adventure dive for his Advanced Open Water, so we would be assisting in a search and recovery dive to make it more interesting. This dive went well with some patterns, working with a lift bag etc while maintaining neutral bouyancy. This time I had 8kg and was struggling to stay down in some of the exercises… When swimming around with a DSMB towards the end of the dive, I lost bouyancy control – dumped the air from the suit, emptied lungs but still came up. Probably underweighted.

The final dive we only just made tot he water before the gates were closed. Capenwray was so busy that air fills were taking an age to get done. This time we descended onto the wessex helicopter and did the roll procedure to correct excess air in the legs of a drysuit. after this we swam over the the transit and metro they have dumped in the quarry, this was an interesting dive that allowed us to begin exploring Capenwray. Finally we did a scuba unit removal and refit on the surface, followed by weight belt removal and refit. I suck at the weight belt, again because of the way i float. The sooner I can get my own kit and get everything trimmed out to my satisfaction, the better.

Overall a good course and an interesting venue. Just be aware of the extra costs (especially if you have never been to Capenwray before) and make sure you know where to meet the school.

Getting old

Made it to Delamere last night for a ride with a few guys from Craig’s work. This was my first time there (in this decade) so I was interested to see what its like. Flat was my first impression! There’s some small rises and a wee bit with some interesting drops and steeper stuff – the loose soil and lack of grip were a new challenge compared to trail centre grit and stone.

My lighting rig held up OK. Currently running a 10W halogen on my head (homebrew MR11, overvolted 20%) and a tesco C cell Cree 3w on the bars. I was totally out gunned by Jan with his homebrew triple LED rig. Oh Well. Lets not get into an expensive arms race here eh?

Riding went well, until we got a little lost and Rich detoured into a ditch, removing his rear mech, snapping the dropout and bending the chain. One new singlespeed conversion later we got our bearings and headed on out of the woods, snagged a McD’s and I got a class run from Formby home – Golf thrashed without remorse .

Lee Quarry is on the list for the next night ride.

‘Last weekend I took the BeOne Nirvana up to Lee Quarry in Bacup, Lancashire. Theres about 8km of trails that have been made up at the quarry, covering XC, DH and trails riders. In short I’m impressed by the quality. The trails stuff looks big (to a man who canna trackstand). The Black (read DH) section is apparently enough to get pulses racing, but I didn’t do it this time out. Come back with my wuss pads!

The red XC loop makes up the majority of the riding, with a nice balanced loop. As usual its up up and away up a wide fire road style climb, the berms, rocks and single track. Some of its quite exposed, there’s some small step downs and some rock garden style stuff. The loop ends on a fun descent with a jump line (nothing big) and some fun single track.

The short lap length means you can do several laps and by riding sections 2 or 3 times you will see improvements in technique. For the beginner it’ll be hard and scary, for the intermediate rider its a great place to develop.

There’s even a race series being organised by BrownBacks here.

All in all worth a look for local riders, and promised further developments at other local quarries could make this a great place to ride. Make a full day of it and hit the Rossendale Dry Ski slope with its freestyle bits as well.

Simply awesome.

On another note, the BeOne is still untested – I went to Llandegla, but about 10 miles away a con rod came through the bock of my Mums Saxo (Borrowed as the Golf was in the middle of a bit of work). 30k thats done and then bang. I WILL get out at least one day this weekend. Hopefully both as theres a Delemere bash on Sunday morn.