Motorcycle Boot Camp
Well, folks, I've been away at motorcycle book camp for four days. Its real name is the Basic Rider Course and was developed by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, a national, not-for-profit organization sponsored by BMW, BRP, Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Honda, Kawasaki, KTM, Piaggio, Suzuki, Triumph, Victory and Yamaha. (MSF also provided the content of the NC DOT Motorcyclist Handbook.) About 4.5 million riders have taken the course somewhere over the years. The folks at Harley-Davidson dealerships sell the course for $300 as one of the Harley-Davidson Riders Edge training programs. When I bought Buster from the guy who won the motorcycle, a coupon for taking the course was a part of the package.
Now the program is composed of both classroom and hands-on training and testing. Classroom training, totaling 8 hours, was held at the Ray Price dealership over all four days of the course. Hands-on training, also totaling 8 hours, was conducted the last two days on a training range in a paved parking lot at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre. One instructor was an IBM retiree who conducts training programs for both motorcyclists and pilots of private aircraft. Nice guy but anal retentive as hell. The second instructor was a former Marine and retired Highway Patrolman who conducts training programs for both motorcycles and firearms. Also a nice guy but once a Marine, Sir, always a Marine.
Now, I've taken a 600-level course in Quantum Thermodynamic. I've taken preliminary and final exams while earning my PhD in Materials Science. But, I've never been involved in anything as difficult as this Basic Rider Course. It was only this morning after all was said and done that I figured out why. But, to explain, I must digress.
As the Vietnam War was winding down, the Selective Service provided me with my one and only day of military life at the Induction Center in Charlotte. The objective was (as near as I could tell) to ascertain your draft status and determine how you might best fit into the military. A part of the evaluation involved two written tests. One was an "academic" test to determine if you were smart enough to calculate the proper trajectory of an artillery shell or perhaps write training manuals. The second was a "aptitude" test to determine whether you knew what a carburetor was should you not be a candidate for trajectory calculations and might be better at some other line of work like repairing jeeps or firing M-16 rifles into the jungle. After completing both tests I was called to the front of the room. The test giver told the class that he just wanted to see what I looked like because he had never had anyone make a perfect 100 on both tests. His problem was that he had no means to categorize me. I was both black and white and he had no way to deal with that.
So it was with the motorcycle course. Everything was black and white with no shades of gray. And, an understanding of why it was black or white or even dead wrong, didn't matter. If the book said it was black, it was black. Accordingly, the classroom part was a drill in learning the correct answer to questions. Now, that's not to say we didn't learn a great deal because we surely did. Rather, it is to say that we learned what we learned in a military fashion or, since I was only in the military for a day, what I perceived to be military fashion. It was in total contradiction with my academic background in which one is trained to question everything you are told. I followed the study procedures, reread the book, took the test exam, ignored the stuff totally wrong from a physics standpoint, and passed the written exam with a perfect score of 100.
The work on the range may have ruined me for life. Indeed, the hands-on coursework was one of the most difficult and humbling things I've ever done. At the time I didn't understand why and nearly walked away several times. Once again, it was "my way or the highway" with no explanation of why you were doing what you were doing. The one answer to all questions was "to develop good riding habits".
The one exercise that nearly broke me was the "Sudden Stop" drill. At a distance of perhaps 50 yards, one started from a dead stop, reaching a speed of 12 to 20 mph. When the front wheel reached a pair of red cones (one on either side), the idea was to make a stop with maximum breaking effort using both front and rear brakes (right hand and right foot) simultaneously while shifting down into first gear (left hand and left foot). Now, I could use the technique without any difficult. But, make we wait until the front wheel got to the cone to apply it and the technique broke down completely. Sometimes I stopped even before the motorcycle passed the cones. Other times, I passed the cones and nearly crashed trying not to pass a white line on the ground.
The exercise, you understand, made no sense to me. Don't tell me where to make a sudden stop. Tell me when to make a sudden stop. When riding a motorcycle, one never knows where a sudden stop will be made, only when. So, it seemed only logical to signal when to make the stop as had been done when learning to make a regular stop.
The net result was that I became so frustrated that the instructor sent me to the "time out" corner to recover. Then just before the final exam, he told me to just make a normal stop once I got to the cones and I would be fine. I did and was.
So what happened? Well, making a stop has three parts. Part 1 is recognition that a stop needs to be made. Part two is doing the mental processing (which hands and feet, etc.) to do the stop. Part 3 is actually using the motorcycle to make the stop. Accordingly, the exercise itself was done in order to eliminate Parts 1 and 2 (in which the motorcycle itself plays no part) and to measure the riders ability to stop the motorcycle within a prescribed distance (Part 3) during the exam. A stopwatch was used to time how fast you were going at the moment the motorcycle wheels passed the cones and a ruler was used to measure how far it took you and the motorcycle took to come to a stop beyond the cones.
A simple explanation that the final exam would measure your ability to perform Part 3 of a sudden stop would have been all that I needed. Instead, I was told that the Motorcycle Safety Foundation prescribes how the test was to be done and I suffered much anguish because of it.
Anyhow, the final hands-on exam was a palm-sweater for everyone. Each rider received penalty points for things done incorrectly during the exam. Twenty-one points and you failed. I scored 14 with 8 of them from the sudden-stop part because of distance penalties for my longer-than-normal stop. I received 5 points in the U-turn box for putting my foot on the ground once (which everyone does in real life for safety purposes) and 1 point in cornering for going too slow.
(The highest score was a 17. A youngster (17) who races dirt bikes scored a perfect zero ... after staying up until 3:30 am the night before. Oh, to be young again.)
So, I somehow managed to pass the course and now have a Motorcycle endorsement for my Vehicle Operators license. I'm still reserving judgement of riding Buster again but I needed the endorsement anyhow for Big Alli.
Should you plan to ride a motorcycle, the $300 will be money well spent. Just be prepared to go to boot camp with an empty mind and be willing to be broken and humbled. It's the easiest way to survive.
Trust me.
Now the program is composed of both classroom and hands-on training and testing. Classroom training, totaling 8 hours, was held at the Ray Price dealership over all four days of the course. Hands-on training, also totaling 8 hours, was conducted the last two days on a training range in a paved parking lot at Walnut Creek Amphitheatre. One instructor was an IBM retiree who conducts training programs for both motorcyclists and pilots of private aircraft. Nice guy but anal retentive as hell. The second instructor was a former Marine and retired Highway Patrolman who conducts training programs for both motorcycles and firearms. Also a nice guy but once a Marine, Sir, always a Marine.
Now, I've taken a 600-level course in Quantum Thermodynamic. I've taken preliminary and final exams while earning my PhD in Materials Science. But, I've never been involved in anything as difficult as this Basic Rider Course. It was only this morning after all was said and done that I figured out why. But, to explain, I must digress.
As the Vietnam War was winding down, the Selective Service provided me with my one and only day of military life at the Induction Center in Charlotte. The objective was (as near as I could tell) to ascertain your draft status and determine how you might best fit into the military. A part of the evaluation involved two written tests. One was an "academic" test to determine if you were smart enough to calculate the proper trajectory of an artillery shell or perhaps write training manuals. The second was a "aptitude" test to determine whether you knew what a carburetor was should you not be a candidate for trajectory calculations and might be better at some other line of work like repairing jeeps or firing M-16 rifles into the jungle. After completing both tests I was called to the front of the room. The test giver told the class that he just wanted to see what I looked like because he had never had anyone make a perfect 100 on both tests. His problem was that he had no means to categorize me. I was both black and white and he had no way to deal with that.
So it was with the motorcycle course. Everything was black and white with no shades of gray. And, an understanding of why it was black or white or even dead wrong, didn't matter. If the book said it was black, it was black. Accordingly, the classroom part was a drill in learning the correct answer to questions. Now, that's not to say we didn't learn a great deal because we surely did. Rather, it is to say that we learned what we learned in a military fashion or, since I was only in the military for a day, what I perceived to be military fashion. It was in total contradiction with my academic background in which one is trained to question everything you are told. I followed the study procedures, reread the book, took the test exam, ignored the stuff totally wrong from a physics standpoint, and passed the written exam with a perfect score of 100.
The work on the range may have ruined me for life. Indeed, the hands-on coursework was one of the most difficult and humbling things I've ever done. At the time I didn't understand why and nearly walked away several times. Once again, it was "my way or the highway" with no explanation of why you were doing what you were doing. The one answer to all questions was "to develop good riding habits".
The one exercise that nearly broke me was the "Sudden Stop" drill. At a distance of perhaps 50 yards, one started from a dead stop, reaching a speed of 12 to 20 mph. When the front wheel reached a pair of red cones (one on either side), the idea was to make a stop with maximum breaking effort using both front and rear brakes (right hand and right foot) simultaneously while shifting down into first gear (left hand and left foot). Now, I could use the technique without any difficult. But, make we wait until the front wheel got to the cone to apply it and the technique broke down completely. Sometimes I stopped even before the motorcycle passed the cones. Other times, I passed the cones and nearly crashed trying not to pass a white line on the ground.
The exercise, you understand, made no sense to me. Don't tell me where to make a sudden stop. Tell me when to make a sudden stop. When riding a motorcycle, one never knows where a sudden stop will be made, only when. So, it seemed only logical to signal when to make the stop as had been done when learning to make a regular stop.
The net result was that I became so frustrated that the instructor sent me to the "time out" corner to recover. Then just before the final exam, he told me to just make a normal stop once I got to the cones and I would be fine. I did and was.
So what happened? Well, making a stop has three parts. Part 1 is recognition that a stop needs to be made. Part two is doing the mental processing (which hands and feet, etc.) to do the stop. Part 3 is actually using the motorcycle to make the stop. Accordingly, the exercise itself was done in order to eliminate Parts 1 and 2 (in which the motorcycle itself plays no part) and to measure the riders ability to stop the motorcycle within a prescribed distance (Part 3) during the exam. A stopwatch was used to time how fast you were going at the moment the motorcycle wheels passed the cones and a ruler was used to measure how far it took you and the motorcycle took to come to a stop beyond the cones.
A simple explanation that the final exam would measure your ability to perform Part 3 of a sudden stop would have been all that I needed. Instead, I was told that the Motorcycle Safety Foundation prescribes how the test was to be done and I suffered much anguish because of it.
Anyhow, the final hands-on exam was a palm-sweater for everyone. Each rider received penalty points for things done incorrectly during the exam. Twenty-one points and you failed. I scored 14 with 8 of them from the sudden-stop part because of distance penalties for my longer-than-normal stop. I received 5 points in the U-turn box for putting my foot on the ground once (which everyone does in real life for safety purposes) and 1 point in cornering for going too slow.
(The highest score was a 17. A youngster (17) who races dirt bikes scored a perfect zero ... after staying up until 3:30 am the night before. Oh, to be young again.)
So, I somehow managed to pass the course and now have a Motorcycle endorsement for my Vehicle Operators license. I'm still reserving judgement of riding Buster again but I needed the endorsement anyhow for Big Alli.
Should you plan to ride a motorcycle, the $300 will be money well spent. Just be prepared to go to boot camp with an empty mind and be willing to be broken and humbled. It's the easiest way to survive.
Trust me.
Hey, that's 3 points more than I scored in 1959.
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