I grew up on a dairy farm and at the age of 8 had to learn to drive the tractor because my Dad had accidentally poured boiling hot Caustic Soda down his Gumboots
and someone had to drive the tractor while Mum moved the irrigation pipes. When I was 15 Dad got a Yamaha a AG175
to get around on the 500 Acre property and I loved it. I would offer to go round up the cows, change the irrigation pipes as long as I could head out on the bike.
As soon as I turned 17 and 9 months I was at the local Police station in a country Town NSW in 1979 and got my learners for the car licence.
Went and joined the Army and went on to get an Army truck licence and went into Albury and upgraded my Car licence to a Truck licence. At that stage I think it was a 2 tonne limit. Got posted to QLD and they didn't have a 2 tonne limit they had a 2.5 Tonne Limit, so my licence was "upgraded" to 2.5 Tonne
. Gor posted back to NSW and their next limit was 5 Tonne so again an "upgrade"
to 5 Tonne. Back to QLD on leaving the Army and the next category for the truck licence was Heavy Rigid (HR), so another 'upgrade'.
On my birthday in 2006 I had to take my wife's 50cc Scooter in for a service and wait around to bring it home so asked if I could do the Q-ride test while I waited. I hadn't been on a motorcycle other than the wife's scooter since I was 17-18, however for many years I had been riding racing bicycles at breakneck speeds and understood cornering, emergency braking and the hazards of locking up the wheels. The lovely lady at Q-ride was very thorough and was adamant she wasn't going to give me a teh paperwork to get the licence if I didn't display the appropriate abilities.
So after watching the video, asking a lot of questions and talking through a lot of the Hazards we set out on a Honde VT750C so I could go for the Open R licence. Rode out to a Carpark of a local Park and did slow riding, figure eights, and emergency stops. Teh last one was a bit more difficult than I had anticipated, because whilst doing the test it started to rain and the the Car-park was full of loose gravel. Eventually I was able to pull it up with in the required distance from 60 km/h without locking up. She then got me to put the bike on it's stand and made me walk a further 12 metres from where I had stopped. Apparently she had deliberately made the stopping distance shorter than required because she believed that the regulation distance was too long in a true emergency.
We then went on a ride for about 30 minutes through traffic and out onto the Bruce Highway and then back to the shop.
When we got back she asked me if I thought I had done anything wrong. The only thing I could think of was I knew I had forgot to indicate leaving a roundabout, and she was pleased to know I was conscious of that error, because she said it was the only one I'd made. She filled out the paperwork and I picked up the Wife's scooter after the service and rode to the Department of Transport and got my licence.
14 months later I bought my first bike a Yamaha V-star 650 Custom.
6 weeks later I stacked it on a bend
because I entered a bend too fast. I then rode it almost daily until August last year. Back in November last year I bought the ST1300
and 13 days later in the wet going what I considered very slow (80 km/h) through the bend at Deagon Deviation flyover had the rear tyre let go without warning
. These mistakes I think I would have made if I had been on L's or P's because the first one was an unsigned bend and looked wider than it was and teh second one, I suspect, was a combination of tryw quality and spilt diesel or oil in the wet.
I've had many instances where motorists have not seen me and required emergency breaking, and every time I'm grateful of the extra effort my instructor put in to ensure I could do it safely.
Cheers,
Gadget
