Motorcycle advanced riding courses – any recommendations?

There are loads out there, IAM, ROSPA, Police BikeSafe, Bikeplus… etc.

Any experiences? How do they all compare? Do any of them stand out as the best?

Ta.

I’ve done a local police one (Cambridge) and it was excellent – highly recommended.

Have done the IAM course it was pretty good mostly common sense tbh no ‘miracle’ riding tips. The examiner bloke was a policeman & a real motorcyclist he made good progress where appropriate and while he didn’t condone ruthlessly breaking the speed limits he didn’t hang about either. Smooth, smooth, smooth & v fast

Worth the effort to get an insurance discount.

Bikesafe was great, and good value for a day including lunch. Some classroom stuff, a couple of hours ride around town, lunch, bit more classroom then a couple of hours of country roads. Picked up some good tips (especially on what is and isn’t legal for filtering), the police guys were very relaxed too.

I hear good things about Rapid Training and will probably do a day with them soon. Other than that, doing a trackday (even without tuition) did wonders for my cornering. Just starting slow and working up, having read some things about correct body position and working on putting it into practice. Much more confident moving about the bike even at slower speeds now. Worth doing, even if you’re not some sportsbike nutcase.

Another IAM rider here. Well worth the £120 (or thereabouts) I paid for it. The only downside to joining my local IAM group was the club itself. Not particularly welcoming of new members and an odd attitude to non-IAM motorcyclists. However, this was not the experience of a mate of mine at the other end of the country. His club was superb.

Bikesafe is well worth doing too.

I’ve done a local police one (Cambridge) and it was excellent – highly recommended.

Same here, but Tayside. 1 Session in a presentation room with film and chat by the cops, then a run with a cop on bike behind you who pulls you over and gives a crit on your riding style. free as well. did have a chat with a Grampian bike cop, they charge £30 but a police mechannc gives the bike a once-over as well.

Contact your local cop shop and ask what they do.

The one I did was six evening sessions using Video and white board with the Police instructor. This was spread out over 6 weeks so you could practice things on your own. Then at then end, we each had two hours one on one with a Police rider to pick us up on things. The course focused on observation, anticipation and subsequent road positioning.

hire an experienced reputable instructor to teach you lots of advanced stuff like vanishing points, target fixation etc etc then go and do a track day.

you’ll learn more about your bike on a track day than road craft but it will get you in sync with your bike and you’ll have soooo much fun

I have been learning with Thames Valley Advanced Motorcyclists. The club pairs you up with a trainer who you go riding with and you get a different person at club meets once a month too. When your ready you get a cross check with another club instructor then you do the iam test with a copper. Riding is the best way to learn.

Track days are a good shout. Do one with “No-limits[/url]“. It’ll cost you about £120, you do it on your own bike, you get an instructor and get to play on some of the best short-circuits in the country. I’ve done a couple and they’re an absolute blast – even on my big old heavy Blackbird 😆

Cant see a track day helping too much with road biking tbh. Cornering on the road and track are very different.

99 quid at Cadwell with them today 😉
Seven sessions of rain mind you!

anagallis_arvensis – Member
Cant see a track day helping too much with road biking tbh

It’s all about being smooth and getting to know how your bike behaves. Track style cornering knowledge can do a lot to get you out of trouble if you over-cook it. Saying that, it’s best not to over-cook it at all! Handy to know that your bike can out-corner you though.

on overcooking, is there a method or technique for finding the limit of a bike in the bends? Does it breakaway like a wildgripper or go steadily like a firexc pro? If the former can you do closed circuit experience with a protected bike that it’s OK to drop? Im trying to find a method for knowing what’s too much and what’s not. The affects of the former over the latter arent quite as easy to shake off as a duff set of MTB tyres 😉

You can find the limit of the bikes cornering ability, but best to do it on the track. Generally, if your hero-blobs are down then you are about there. You can take it further, but you will be pretty much at the edge of your tyres.

EDIT: As for it breaking away, it depends very much on the tyres, your speed and the road surface. Bottle (or lack of) has stopped me from finding mine – do get the blobs down on occasion though; it’s also nice to know I’m getting good value for money by using the whole of the tyre.

Tbh if you work on vanishing points and being able to stop within your view you dont need to know about limits of grip. I can see how it would be worth doing cornering technique on a circuit but riding a motorbike fast on the road is not about limits of grip and apexes, limits of view are whats important.

hero-blobs

I ride a scooter, for now.
But I look forward to the day that I drop my knee on it 😉

is not about limits of grip and apexes, limits of view are whats important.

at topped-out 60mph, its 50:50… I just have no reference point for breakaway on the scooter other than MTB riding, and I just dont think its close enough for comparison.

I would imagine if the scooter is grounding out you might be getting close.

Absolutely right A_A. Nothing beats forward observation. You’ll get to fettle with levels of grip when you start your observers training – riding off-line to get the best view of your observees can be interesting to say the least 😯 😀

I would imagine if the scooter is grounding out you might be getting close.

really? 50-60mph in a, say, 30m radius(90deg) bend (using the lane) would be doable?

*puts on helmet and two pairs of undies*

really? 50-60mph in a, say, 30m radius(90deg) bend (using the lane) would be doable?

You’re a braver man than me ! 😆

but how does one know when you’re coming to the edge. You can feel it on MTB, hell I can even feelit on the road bike, but how do you “feel” it on the scooter, or do you feel it and I havent yet got there? (without binning it)

It should start to slide. But it depends upon the road surface and the quality of your tyres.

If you’re lucky, you’ll lowside – the bike will lie down and slide away from you, you’ll slide along after it wearing away at your protective clothing before going through and onto skin.

If you’re unlucky, you’ll highside – the bike will start to slide, the tyres will find grip and kick you off. You will be catapulted into the air and land hard…. Followed by more of the above rolling and sliding.

I’ve done it on a track but really wouldn’t want to try on the road.

If you’re lucky, you’ll lowside – the bike will lie down and slide away from you, you’ll slide along after it wearing away at your protective clothing before going through and onto skin.

If you’re unlucky, you’ll highside – the bike will start to slide, the tyres will find grip and kick you off. You will be catapulted into the air and land hard…. Followed by more of the above rolling and sliding.

dont mean to sound a know it all, but had worked that bit out 😉

but what do you feel before it goes tongy?

dampness spreading across your nether regions

😀

Cheers for all the replies. I’ll see what the police are doing near me and check out IAM as well.

I ride a scooter, for now.
But I look forward to the day that I drop my knee on it

if you slide forward off the seat, and you’re flexible enough, I bet you could get your knee down going in a straight line!

Not used them per se but Andy Morrisson at http://www.rapidtraining.co.uk taught me to go from slow touring motorcyclist to Police Advanced many moons ago(proper course rather than IAM)in a few weeks – very good instructor

rocketman – Member

Have done the IAM course it was pretty good mostly common sense tbh no ‘miracle’ riding tips. The examiner bloke was a policeman & a real motorcyclist he made good progress where appropriate and while he didn’t condone ruthlessly breaking the speed limits he didn’t hang about either. Smooth, smooth, smooth & v fast

Same here. I’d read the books beforehand and practised the mostly common-sense approach before I joined-up and took the course. My riding was reasonably good beforehand, so there was nothing complicated or ‘road-to-Damascus’ in IAM, but it was good to be observed, assessed and given some advice/feedback about some things.

The test was the best part. My examiner was as described above

I’d recommend doing it.

freddyg – Member

Another IAM rider here. Well worth the £120 (or thereabouts) I paid for it. The only downside to joining my local IAM group was the club itself. Not particularly welcoming of new members and an odd attitude to non-IAM motorcyclists. However, this was not the experience of a mate of mine at the other end of the country. His club was superb.

I didn’t sign up to IAM to join ‘a club’ and, having tried and failed to get involved with them afterwards, didn’t bother renewing IAM or club membership the following year.(I like motorbikes, but I do prefer getting out mountain biking on a nice Sunday morning)

Th membership was generally ‘older’ and I didn’t have much in common with many of them. I and one of the observers (early 30s at the time) were by far the youngest people I encountered.

RoSPA people appear to commonly believe that they are superior to IAM as they have graded passes that require re-taking every few years.

From my experiences of RoSPA (car, but I didn’t bother with the test) and IAM (bike and a 1 day ‘corporate’ car course) I’d say that there is actually very little difference between the 2.

Incidentally, the bike versions seem more user-friendly, more about positive outcomes and less dogmatic around rules about the specific use of the controls -possibly due to the slightly less-close observation possible.

You can find the limit of the bikes cornering ability, but best to do it on the track. Generally, if your hero-blobs are down then you are about there. You can take it further, but you will be pretty much at the edge of your tyres.

EDIT: As for it breaking away, it depends very much on the tyres, your speed and the road surface. Bottle (or lack of) has stopped me from finding mine – do get the blobs down on occasion though; it’s also nice to know I’m getting good value for money by using the whole of the tyre.

bikes handle differently, an R1 will snap away quicker than a Pan european….

My relevance with track days was relating to gaining confidence with your machine. When you’re comfortable getting your bike on it’s side doing 100mph you’ll feel more confident when you approach a bend on the road at a lower speed, you know what your bike is capable of and how far you can push it.

As for hero blobs, I used to get my tall Buell Ulysses right over on it’s side.

I assume that’s not you in the second picture?