The techniques they drill in for looking over shoulders alone is worth the money.
I’m slightly confused ,I do this anyway as a cyclist prior to a manoeuvre or signalling should I be paying someone/somewhere £100 for this advice?
You are Chris Boardman, the Green Cross Code man and Steve Peat combined, and I claim my £5. If you think they teach you nothing else either, you are limited in your imagination, and i would presume you haven’t done one. I was focusing on one fairly invaluable bit of advice, which frankly is it was that simple, people wouldn’t be failing bike tests daily on.
Tell you what, don’t advise any extra training, just assume everyone is as awesome as you, or take some responsibility for your comments and his future. You know nothing about the Op’s skill levels, and it seems most of the bikers like Peter Poddy seem to think counter to you.
As a cyclist who cycles up the A23 through Coulsden, Purley and into Croydon, where its nasty, bumpy single carrigeway with a lot of side turnings, light controlled junctions and lane changes full of frustrated school run commuters, just about all the way, as a qualified heavy licence motorcyclist who also rides that way to work, and further as someone who works in personal injury for a major insurer, dealing with some of the heavier cyclist and motorcyclist claims, (becauae of my interests) perhaps I have the right to suggest I *might* be in a better place to inform the op than you. You may well be better qualified than me to comment, but if you were, I don’t think your advice would be the same.
For no other reason that I actually see the results of little/no training, I would heartily recommend some. Only this week have I repudiated 2 claims from crap cyclists, with serious injuries, including an ankle fracture with complications meaning a 20 something wont play football or run again, and a 45 yo female with multiple fractures and a brain bleed causing minor brain injury. The latter was particularly sad as she launched herself out into the path of a slow moving overtaking vehicle which had slowed and given her a wide berth. And why? she was off to the shops to buy a helmet. She lied to the police, said she’d looked, and indicated, but the matter was caught on CCTV which showed she’d done neither. So far turned down by 2 no win no fee solicitors, and I await her “claim shopping” for someone who will take the case on with interest.
Perhaps some training would have saved a permanent brain injury. Perhaps someone on a forum told her not to bother.
Being on a pushbike, you rarely hit speeds, on the flat, esp on a mountain bike, of even 20 mph, realistically. Your weight is so much less, and your ability to steer is enhanced, over even a 50 cc moped. On the flat, you will be doing double the speed of a cyclist on even a 50cc, and more on a 125. And with a mtb weighing 10 kg and a motorbike 200kg, with it doesn’t steer or stop the same way.
My crappy old Orange G2 with its discs can stop me quicker than I can think. Generally, on a motorbike, every NON-fault accident I have been involved with (2 over 13 years and 100k+ miles), the situations developed so quickly, I didn’t have time to think, let alone react. Even on a crappy 50cc Chinese import with drums on cheapo tyres, stuff often happens to you so quickly your brain wont process before you on the floor, even if your actually looking for these situations. Even at 15-20mph, like my last “off” if a car switches lanes, a moped/bike wont have time to stop/slow and swerve, when a cycle can. In my most recent case, the guy pulled out when I was less than 10 feet from his rear, and I hit him amidships, totalling my SV650 and his 306. And it happens so fast you cant believe it til the helmet smacks the side of the car and your skidding down the tarmac a few feet under the bike.
You also cant ride in the thoughtful cycle lanes, hop upon kerbs, go inside and outside as you see fit and the style of riding is therefore totally different to a pushbike in many ways.
Even if you were right, and to be honest, your not, whats the worst that happens? He gets a few hours with someone giving him training which it appears you think he already knows? Vs the Worst that can happen, that he’s ill-equipped with the basics, has no one to sit through his first couple of hours, pointing out his errors which could be life threatening? Mopeds and motorbikes are a serious grade up in the dangerous stakes from bikes due to the speeds and weights involved.
I am confused how anyone can make a case for not having additional training when trying out a new form of transport requiring new or different skillsets to ones they have.