Second Lesson

Today's lesson went much better than Tuesdays. I was put on a Suzuki Van Van (officially known as a RV125, by Suzuki) for this lesson. Okay, so it's ORANGE - definitely not cool. Me thinks, as the van van is a type of trail bike, Suzuki are trying to make it look like a KTM...THE name in trail bikes. All KTM's are ORANGE.
Anyway, never mind the colour. As soon as I sat on the van van I felt much more comfortable. I think it having a side stand, so I could get on and off the bike with it deployed, made a difference, as I wasn't constantly thinking "Am I going to get on/off of this without dropping it?". As long as the side stand is deployed, it will hold the bike. No more worries on that part.

I felt so much more in control than Tuesday. Today I felt I was riding the bike, not the other way around. That said, I am still having a couple of issues, which are more about confidence than anything else (that is a quote from my instructor).

At the end of my lesson, my instructor discussed my progress with me. He was pleased with the difference in my riding. However, he still recommended that I take my test on the 125 and be restricted to bikes with a 33 BHP for 2 years. Although on Tuesday I thought about pushing for doing my test on the 500, I now think that would be the worst thing I could do for my confidence. I now see that I can ride a bike, but I think I would be struggling to fully control a 500. Even if I did pass my test on a 500 - which I doubt I would manage - I think if I had a wee incident (i.e. a car pulling out in front of me) it would knock my confidence so much that I wouldn't want to ride a bike again. Which would totally defeat the purpose of getting my licence. So, I'll now have another 8 hours of lessons on the van van and my test on 31st July.


Now, when I pass my test, I'll want to get a bike, strangely enough! If I had been sitting my test on the Honda CB500, I was planning on getting a similar type of bike for my first bike. It's cheap to insure, will take a reasonable amount of abuse (that's why it's used my bike training schools), but will go some when you want to play. Now that I'm sitting my test on a 125, I will not be able to get a CB500 for 2 years.

As anyone under 21 can only sit their test on effectively a 125, there are restrict or kits that are available for many bikes, that will restrict the BHP of the bike to a maximum of 33BHP. Personally, I don't see the point of that. The engine of the bike to be restricted has been desgined to give a particular BHP for a reason, so restricting the BHP is going to have some kind of affect on the bike, over and above power. Besides, there are bikes on the market that have a bit more welly than the van van or CG125 (the CG has 14BHP), but are still less than 33BHP. Now all I'll have to do is find those bikes then find one I like, am comfortable with and is within budget. So, watch this space for how things go on my next couple of lessons.