For more than three years I have been trying to pass my motorcycle test, and when lockdown started I saw it as a golden opportunity to get the experience I needed.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when my mates in the sixth form and at university were passing their motorbike tests, it was a piece of cake - a ride around the block examined by an official who wasn't even on a motorbike.
At one point in the test he would jump out in front of the student who had to perform an emergency stop. Not many candidates failed.
My road safety-conscious father was wisely very agin motorcycling. It took my mum some persuading for him to agree to me riding my push-bike on the main road!
And when I finally took up motorcycling, some 35 years later, the law has moved on and the full motorcycle test had become very difficult.
I took my CBT - a one-day course that everyone has to take to wear an L Plate and ride a machine of up to 125cc engine capacity on the public highways - with a nice guy in Eastbourne who went on to become a fridge repairman.
There were two students that day, me and an 18-year-old lad, and we were both rubbish. I couldn't get the hang of the gears and rarely got the motorbike above 15 mph; the lad had no road sense and kept charging through junctions without looking first.
It seemed like a miracle that at the end of the day we were both given certificates.
It took me a long time to get used to riding the Vespa, with her beautiful little wheels and handlebar gear shift. For the first three months, I rode round the block in first gear.
Through my cat, the late Mr Cheeky, I met another motorcyclist, Nick, who was young and confident. We started riding out together, although I was still too slow and hesitant.
In November 2016, after redoing my CBT (you have to retake every two years if you haven't passed the full test), I decided I needed to move up in the motorised two-wheeled world. I plumped for a feisty firm of motorcycle tutors in Worthing, paid a substantial sum and booked onto a course to take the full Direct Access licence, allowing me to ride a motorbike or scooter of any size.
At that point, I had ridden about 1,500 miles on my Vespa, mainly up and down the Brighton & Hove seafront, to and from
Madeira Drive, a place that would come to be a major part of my life.
As usual, I was being vastly over-optimistic. I had no motorcycling experience - riding a scooter is very different - and the gung-ho company I'd chosen was not the one for me.
I had three different instructors over the four or five days of the course and was left traumatised by the experience - scared witless by the experience of riding on fast roads like the M23 and M27 - and struggling to control the bike, a 650cc. Kawasaki, which anyway seemed to have developed malfunctioning gears.
Needless to say, Test Day was a nightmare. I scraped through the "Mod 1" exercises - emergency stop, swerve, U-turn etc. done on a big courtyard at the Burgess Hill test centre - to the evident disgust of my instructor, who had developed a dislike of me, but then made numerous errors on the 40-minute "Mod 2" ride around. I left the test centre shaking and did not try again for two years, by which time the written test I'd taken had expired as had the Mod 1 pass!
At this point, I repeated my CBT day - for the third time - but with a new motorcycling school,
Saferide, which near Brighton & Hove at Southwick Football Ground, Southwick. They seemed a lot gentler than their Worthing rivals and more willing to work with my fear of motorcycling and other anxieties. Indeed, they seemed to specialist in fearful students!
I had a day toying with the idea of my taking the motorcycle test on my Vespa PX125, which would have meant, if I passed, I could only ride motorbikes up to 125cc, although without an L plate and with a pillion passenger. I had an enjoyable day riding my PX125 on Sussex countryside roads. Unfortunately, I failed to get it up to the 62mph required for the motorbike test - with its current set-up it just wasn't fast or powerful enough.
Once again, it was late in the year - November - but I embarked another attempt my motorcycle test. This time I had Saferide's Chief Instructor and Owner, Tony Iles, a very pleasant and jovial guy (with a stock of terrible jokes, puns and Spoonerisms).
This time I was on a 650cc Yahama MT07 motorcycle which was massively powerful with incredible torque. It has a maximum speed of around 130mph and the ability to accelerate at, for me, a shockingly great rate.
The worst part of learning to motorcycle is the lessons. Regardless of the skills of the tutor, if you are of a nervous disposition, you always end up frit.
I think three days of tuition, losing about half a stone in weight. On the final day, Tony and another instructor, Alex, took me out for a 100-mile ride going through Petersfield, on the way to Winchester, and ending at a biker's cafe. It was a beautiful day and I finally started to enjoy it.
I had already retaken the written exam (and passed with flying colours again) and now had to retake Mod 2, which I had passed just over two years before. This time, I excelled myself - and managed to fail, by one kilometre per hour on one exercise. I could not believe it!
I left the Burgess Hill test centre feeling despondent but, luckily, Sue, Saferide's very capable administrator, had another date lined up for me. This time, with the same examiner, I passed Mod 1 and went on to Mod 2 - the 40-minute
ride around. I was a bag of nerves and somehow got on and started up the wrong motorbike - another motor-riding school's Yamaha MT07!
As the examiner was telling me through the radio to move off , I realised that the motorbike was a different colour from the one I'd arrived on.
Hugely embarrassed, I switched off the engine, put it back on the side-stand and dismounted, to go in search of my MT07. Totally flustered, I cut the corner coming out of the test centre - a serious fault - and had failed before I'd even reached the road!
With my great dislike of riding in the wind and the rain, I decided to retire from motorcycling for the year, and pick it up again the following spring. I planned to have another crack at taking Mod 2 in April or May 2020.
Tony Iles advised to buy a 125cc motorcycle - as opposed to a scooter - to get some proper experience with foot gears, which I had always struggled with.
I raided my savings to buy a slightly used Yamaha YS125 from the
On The Wheel, an excellent motorbike superstore at Fishersgate, near Brighton & Hove. It had been previously owned by a female police officer who, remarkably, had only done 122 miles before she sold it back to the store. I guess she was a very fast learner! It was as new and surprisingly like the MT07 without the high power and speed.
I vowed to teach myself to motorcycle by the spring. I took it out once on the A22 and got it up to 62 mph. The monsoon season then started. It seemed to rain continually for all of January and February this year. The YS125 was undercover in my yard - I did not ride it once.
In early March I went on a couple fo rides, and then, as the sun came out, you-know-what happened. The world went into freeze-frame. Death stalked the streets. An no prizes for guessing my test date was cancelled.
Like everybody else I found myself stuck at home with an uncertain future as Government-fuelled paranoia swept the country like wildfire. I thought to myself: 'This is my time. It's my golden opportunity to overcome my fear of motorcycling!' On 13 March 2020, I embarked on my motorcycle odyssey, vowing to ride every day until I passed my DAS motorcycle test.
Rain or shine, I would go out, morning, noon or night. When the weather was all right, I'd ride to Seaford, Eastbourne, Shoreham or Worthing. If it was really horrendous, I'd go to George Street, Hove, or the Lanes, Brighton, braving high winds and horizontal rain. I forced myself to do it.
Everyone I know was very supportive of my efforts. My lovely neighbours, in particular, often asked me where I'd been that day, how many days of riding I'd done now and how many miles. Their son, Lowen, liked to sit on my motorbike and wanted to set off with me on his wooden bicycle (pictured earlier).
At first, I was a bit worried about the vague guidelines around lockdown - exactly what they meant. I always had shopping bags in my rucksack and usually bought something essential if I stopped. I was totally socially distanced, with a helmet rather than a mask on. It was my daily exercise.
In the early days, it was perfect. The weather was generally good and the roads almost empty. I encountered police vehicles but, as I stuck strictly to the speed limit, they didn't trouble me at all.
As the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, my fear of motorcycling started to dissipate. I was still cautious but it became routine. The foot gears were no longer a problem - gear changes became second nature, as they are for me as a car driver.
During the working week, I had to stay fairly close to Brighton & Hove while at weekends and on holiday I was able to head off to Littlehampton or Bognor Regis. However, I was sticking to the B-roads and avoiding fast roads like the A23 and A27. I had not entirely conquered my fears.
I came to cherish my daily excursion. It was a way to escape the madness - and the less one stopped the better. Day-trips can be tough without open cafes, so I took to taking a flask or a bottle of water in my rucksack. Wherever I went I witnessed almost empty streets - a nation in hiding.
I came to really admire that the shopkeepers who had stayed open for essentials or takeaways. I liked the trader in Madeira Drive, Brighton, who stayed open for customers during lockdown, although very soon Brighton & Hove City Council closed the road to make life doubly tough for him and other traders who later joined him. And I would often ride to Worthing to buy steaks at the superb discount butcher,
Guildbourne Meats, in the otherwise deserted shopping precinct.
There were places like Worthing and Shoreham that became second homes to me. More welcoming to motorcyclists than Brighton & Hove has become under its extremist city council, it was always a pleasure to scoot off to Shoreham for a cup of tea, overlooking the River Adur.
I also discovered how lovely Shoreham beach is and the nature reserve and enormous lake beside it. I also liked Shoreham Airport.
Over the 150 consecutive days of motorcycling, I rode around 2,100 miles. At weekends, I would ride to Eastbourne, almost totally deserted in lockdown, or Littlehampton, which is beautiful around the river, or Bognor Regis, which has a fast and quite scary road leading to it.
Such peacefulness and tranquility I found in these locations.
Seaford, I also liked, Newhaven less so. The road to Birling Gap and through to Eastbourne is wonderful, beautiful landscapes and seascapes, winding roads, a feeling of being on top of the world.
I also loved riding over Ditchling Beacon to Lewes and visiting my allotment.
Eventually, after months of practising, lockdown started to lift - and the motorcycle test centre at Burgess Hill came back on tap.
Sue got me a test date - 16 July 2020 at 11.06am (the Government is very precise on this, if nothing else) - and informed me of a draconian set of rules introduced to combat the Bulls*it). So, I braced myself to go into battle again. I insisted on having only one day of prep on the MT07 - I felt any more would leave me too traumatised for the test - and was assigned a new instructor by Saferide, Graham, a gentle giant and former marine.
Graham did a lot of good, sitting me down for a couple of hours to talk about roundabouts, signalling and lifesaver checks. I have to admit I learnt a lot. Even though I have been driving a car for 40 years, there was plenty I didn't know. He was also very good on how to avoid "serious faults" - which automatically cause you to fail the motorcycle test. I realised my strategy had to be avoiding "serious faults" while accepting that, at my level of competence, I was going to pick quite a new minor faults.
As with all my instructors, he was fairly shocked at my unwillingness to ride fast on roads such as the M23 and M27 or to overtake other vehicles. In fact, Graham found enormous numbers of faults with my riding and bombarded with new techniques and tips.
After my day of tuition, I was feeling considerably less confident than I had done before. I realised that my 124 consecutive days of motorcycling had only taken me so far. I was far from guaranteed from passing. I could tell that Graham probably thought I wouldn't make it. But I kept thinking that there must be a big backlog of tests, which surely would make examiners a little more tolerant on borderline candidates.
However, I did not sleep at all well. I must have dropped off at midnight and woken up at 4am. Even with copious amounts of coffee, I was dog-tired and struggling to hold it together.
I asked Graham to lead me the scenic route to Burgess Hill from Southwick, avoiding the M23. 'My nerves can't take it this morning," I said. So, we went over the Beacon and for two hours rode around country roads, with me stubbornly refusing to get up to speed in my half-comatose state. 'You'll fail for not going fast enough,' Graham warned. I replied: 'I'll lay on the speed for the test.' But I did learn a lot about tackling slow junctions super-cautiously.
More coffee at a cafe, and it was time to go. At the test centre there was no longer a waiting room. You lingered outside, in a mask, or my case a snood, until the examiner introduced himself. Because of his mask, I didn't recognise him at first as the examiner who'd failed on the previous occasion. At least this time there was less chance of me getting on the wrong motorbike!
Courtesy of Her Majesty's Government, I was led to a cave in the side of the building where I had to lay out my driving documents and withdraw while the examiner, Niall, checked them. There was then a lot of messing around to sort out the radio apparatus - all done socially distanced through masks. I was striving to stay awake and alert.
It didn't start well. For the "show and tell", I struggled to find the front brake fluid container, although I chanced upon it in the nick of time.
Off we went on the ride. I was extra careful not to cut the corner again coming out of the test centre, and tried to bear in mind everything Graham had taught me. In my earlier tests, I had been in hurry and reluctant to stop for fear of stalling.
This time I took a different approach, stopping at most junctions, before moving off and accelerating fast up to the speed limit. I was aware that I was making mistakes but focused on not making any "serious" or "dangerous" errors, which bring with them an automatic fail.
The radio kept cutting out and the examiner asked me pull up on the M23 slip road so he could fix it. We had a bit of a chat and then I had quite a long wait for a break in the traffic. When it came I accelerated up to 70mph in second gear and was doing the speed limit when I entered the M23 - a first for me!
Most of the test was a blur. I was painfully aware of my riding limitations, but just about holding it together. The weekend before, my biker friend and neighbour Chris had led me round some of the test routes. There was one with a long winding stretch on a country lane at national speed limit (60mph) that I particularly disliked. Even in my car, I wouldn't drive it faster than 45mph.
Sod's Law dictated that my test took me down this lane. I accelerated up to 60mph, following a speedy car, and threw that MT07 round the bends, hanging on for dear life. That may sound like fun but I hated every second of it! But it was soon over.
Back at the test centre, I was pretty shaken by the whole experience and bracing myself for the inevitable words signifying my failure.
When the examiner said I had passed, I literally could not believe my ears. However, then he reeled off a seemingly endless list of minor riding faults. 'You are getting what we call a PWB,' he said. I asked: 'What does PWB stand for?'
'Pass With Bollocking!' he replied. I said that was fine - I was totally delighted to pass under any circumstances. I knew full well that without the coronavirus crisis, I wouldn't have been good enough to even scrape thorough.
My therapist had also helped, persuading me that there was no earthly reason why I should not pass. To my surprise, she said that as a young model and actress, she'd passed her motorbike test - before, unfortunately, crashing into London's Parliament Square!
The day I passed - 16 July - was my 126th consecutive day of motorcycling. Why didn't I stop there? Partly because I wanted to show off my motorbike and my scooter without L plates on, partly due to the yearning to end on a nice round number.
Once I had the test pass, I started riding the Vespa more than the Yamaha, joining the original Mods who don't ride around with L plates on.
By that time, the Campaign to Reopen Madeira Drive was getting into full swing and, it was appropriate, that I completed the 150 days of riding with a rally at Madeira Drive, well supported by the Mods and the Rockers. Since then, I have taken a bit of break from motorcycling epics!
Finally, I can thoroughly recommend Saferide as a motorcycle riding school - no matter how hard you find motorcycling!
When I have found a suitable bigger bike to tackle the fast roads on, I will be back for more lessons - to get my big motorbike riding career off to a good start!
Labels: Burgess Hill, DAS, Mod 1, Mod 2, motorcycle test, Saferide
