If you’ve been following these posts you will know that I signed up for the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists / Motorcyclists) route to an Advance Motorcycle Test, a method that relies on the talents of local volunteers to check over your standard of riding.

The terminology they use is that currently I am an “Associate”, with Membership coming with a successful pass of the Advanced Test. Volunteers that help with the process are called Observers, and there are also Senior Observers and a Chief Observer who coordinates standards. Trainee Observers start by being Members, and work through the process of learning to set routes for Associates, talking through their ride, how to watch what we are up to etc.

While I’m in the process of waiting for an allocated Observer, I’m tagging along to make the best of the weekly opportunities. Today worked out quite well for my tagging along, I joined an associated that was well along in the process to his test, together with a Trainee Observer and one of the Senior Observers.

Being on the third week of this process means I am still on the learning curve with how things work, and I was a bit slow in the uptake today. I don’t know the parts of Southern Edinburgh well enough to match the descriptions to places I know, and frankly some places I’ve never ever been to anyway, so it is mainly a case of keeping someone in view and then getting on with the ride. But I got into the stride of things and tagged along with the ride, the Associate up front, Trainee Observer behind, then me and the Senior Observer too. And once I got into things it went well, the first part of the ride was fine and I didn’t feel too left behind. Then when we parked up in an industrial estate, the Trainee Observer talked through the ride, and then the Senior Observer did a followup.

The Observer system is deliberately not called Training, for historical reasons I haven’t looked into fully yet and is a ride and debrief model along a chosen route. The debrief plays back the ride, observing how the Associate rode compared to Roadcraft and the highway code. Then as an Associate you see what you need to work on, then off on another stretch again. And repeat! I seemed to get on ok, and had remembered the bits I hadn’t done so well, like wandering over the lanes in a roundabout a bit without checking my blind spots. I’m also sharpening up on looking before a move or change in speed, and not the other way round. I also got asked how long I’d been riding, and I think I need to come up with a simpler explanation of my situation. I passed my test 10 years ago, and didn’t ride again until I got my own bike last November. I’ve been riding each month since, but that is really it.

Then a run down to Peebles with opportunities to practice positioning and one or two overtakes, I’m happy ish with positioning, but overtaking is still an experience after being a car driver for years. The accelleration of a bike is still something to get used to, and also understanding the difference to safe overtakes that this makes. Basically, in one or two areas I need to get on with things and not dawdle.

A stop in Peebles with another double debrief, then off to Penicuik, a stop there to chat and then off. The stop in Penecuik was a good stop to talk about Observations with the Trainee Observer, and really illustrated the difference in what can be seen by moving position just a pace or two to the left. We looked at a slight right hand turn in town, and moving to the left showed a number of extra items to see.

Another particularly enjoyable run.

To help with my learning of the highway code, I tried the free theory test online. Picked the motorcycle test and got 34 out of 35, which was encouraging. The one I got wrong? Bearing in mind that the theory test is for learners, I got the “what should you do if you break down in a tunnel”, instead of picking the “put on the hazard lights and go for help” I picked something else.

Small note – not very many motorcycles have hazard lights, mine does (being a big fat BMW) but your little DAS or CBT 125cc doesn’t generally.

And don’t get me started about the question on towing! An excellent service nonetheless.

A discovery I made recently when loitering around Boots the chemists waiting for my wife to buy stuff, was eye drops for contact lense wearers. And on today’s results I think I can recommend them as an option if your eyes get a bit dry or irritated. Made all the difference to me, being an occaisional wearer.

I guess they’ve always been around, I just hadn’t know it.

So I’ll use my blog to help me learn the stuff for my advanced test I thought. One question that came into my head this week followed a crash report on one of the Internet bike lists. They spoke about one of those crossings that has a green man, and a green bicycle. I couldn’t remember if it was a Toucan or a Puffin that had that.

So here goes, for me and you. Be quiet and listen 🙂

All this stuff is online as well as in print, so you can check and see if I got it right.

Well, to begin with, the crossing which allows cyclists to go is called a Toucan. On those, there is a wee green man standing beside a green bicycle.

Pelican crossings have a button for the pedestrian to push, and if you cross after a while they have the bit where the wee green man flashes to indicate that you should do that comedy effect of appearing to hurry but actually walking at the same speed. What the flashing actually means is that you shouldn’t start to cross, but you have enough time to finish if you are already on the crossing.

Puffin crossings have a button too, but have pictures of wee men right beside the button as well as up on the traffic light. These show red when you are to stay where you are, and green when you can go. There is no flashing stage, the wee men behave themselves on these crossings.

Thankfully the weather turned out good today, though I was happier with my ride out last week. Today was limited due to holidays etc, and because of that there weren’t enough Observers to do individual rides. So we all had a group run, which is basically a bimble along off somewhere into the country and back.

I must admit to a bit of nervousness, I’m still pretty new to this lark, and I normally ride solo with noone else to bother about. I’ve also got a bit of an aversion to driving with other cars too, bothering about others rather than the drive is too much of a distraction. But, its all about learning, and picking up safe things to do. I kept telling myself to concentrate on my own ride, not to get dragged in to anything I wasn’t happy with.

And the run was fine, it was a lovely day today and a nice run into the borders. There are lovely roads down there, and they’ve even put some signs up for us bikers to remind us not to fall off the road on twisty bits. It showed up weak spots that I know about, I’m not that confident with parking up. I’m hesitant enough in the car, but with bikes all around I’m still looking for car sized spaces! And the run back from Peebles showed up my reticence in overtaking, there were a few safe opportunities, but I’m still trying to tune my speed sense for the bike. The things accellerate so quickly that I let some opportunities go, but all in the name of safety. The main thing is not to crash, making progress can come with training.

I was second from the back on the way home, which meant the Observer at the back was able to see what looked like either a bad connection or my foot resting on the brake. Having checked the bike I think it is the latter, with my big size fourteens I have to tuck them in to avoid clicking the brake switch on. I’ll see if I can consciously stop, otherwise I’ll adjust the pedal down slightly.

I’m itching to get my own Observer and really practice this stuff, hopefully that will get going before the end of the year – my Sunday mornings next year are already committed.

Had my first meet up with the local IAM bike club this morning, I started out early, and promptly turned back at the next village. With the pouring rain I had rubbish visbility and my neck was getting a bit raw. So back to the house to spray a couple of coats of my Hein Gericke rainy visor stuff, and to zip the flappy bit on my jacket that goes around my neck to keep it out of the draft (or hooks round the front of my chin, but that just gets tangled up with the chin strap on my helmet). There were one or two moments in the rain with slippery drain covers on corners and tricky roundabouts, but it is all practice.

There are a number of groups affiliated to the IAM around the country, run by volunteers, who support others to get through the advanced tests. They don’t train but “Observe” and each run is a ride with a stop off for some observations, then off again etc. After one of these runs I’ve got to brush up on Roadcraft and the Highway code, and got the usual blind spots probed. So off to learn the bits I couldn’t remember, and so on.

It’s early days, but hats off to them for volunteering their time to do this sort of safety related stuff, I chose it as the most economical way of improving my riding and it had a good start.

So I’ve got the elements of the system (from Roadcraft) to get in my head, the highway code (e.g. horn use), bike checking drills and stopping and starting drill. Other specifics include sacrificing the visibility line on left hand corners when there is oncoming traffic, proper lifesaver checks (i.e. almost chin on the shoulder). Lots to remember, but good fun.

And the day after Watson’s Wind Up we went to see Bill Bailey at the EICC on Saturday night. Twas good too, though he doesn’t half wander up and down. I felt the urge to shout at him to stand still, but then he might think there was a sniper in the audience. Last time I was at the EICC was years ago, the first was for an MSDN event with Cedalion doing the regional director bit. And right enough, Bill Bailey kicked off by pretending he was doing a gig at a Computer Conference, oh how I laughed.

Coolest new instrument was a telescopic alp horn, which sounded like an alp horn.

And took the family for a meal before the show at Giuseppe’s across the road, which was nice.

One of the items on my sometime/maybe list of things to do sometime in my life was to attend the recording of one of my favourite radio shows, Watson’s Wind Up. Jonathan Watson is a Scottish comedian who specialises in impersonations of Scottish footballers, management and political figures. My kids might not have an interest in current affairs, but they know the impersonations of Cathy Jamieson, Tommy Sheridan and Chick Murray.

The recording is made on the Friday of each week of their run, based on news stories in the Scottish Media and wider from the preceeding week. We took a day from our holiday and headed through to the Glasgow Film Theatre, joining the queue. They record in Cinema 2, a fairly small screen with about 100 odd seats at a gentle slope up from the screen. Just in front of the screen was a table, three chairs and three microphones for the voice artists. There were four microphones dotted around to record us (and other folk there too) chuckling along to the jokes.

And we had a good laugh, the producer introduced the session and asked if anyone hadn’t been before – most appeared to be regulars, but one or two including ourselves were there for the first time. Then we got the folks on the proper show, Jonathan Watson who did a bit of a warm up and introduced his fellow performers. Then we had a series of sketches with targets from Scottish MSPs, Hollywood actors, Tommy Sheridan (of course) and a few laughs at ourselves, the Scottish. All compressed into their 30 minute ish slot, I reckon they edited our bit.

And the tickets were free, superb.