Becky's Journey

I’ve always been a pillion and never considered riding myself until I saw a video on Instagram. The rider said “Just do your CBT” and I thought “why not, and just see if I like it”.

I loved it, immediately from that very first day. I didn’t have my own bike, so I could only ride on the training days, but I passed my CBT and the modules and got my first bike in September 24, a burnt orange Ninja 650.

I love the feeling and the freedom of piloting a bike and knew that passing my CBT was just a starting point rather than the end goal. I wanted to develop my riding skills. I did Bike Safe and Biker Down and then saw an ad on Facebook for an IAM Free Taster. During that session I learnt a lot and was fortunate to be offered one of the fully sponsored IAM courses.

I’ve now had 2 sessions with my 1:1 mentor and I am developing a different mentality to riding, I think about my riding, rather than just the act of riding my bike.

My next bike? I love my Ninja and I have no immediate plans to change it, however I would love a tricycle. My mother is from the Philippines and tricycles are the main form of transport over there. I’d like to get one, or build one with a more powerful engine than just 50cc.

Fast forward to Lesson 5

After I spoke to you, I don’t know what it was, maybe I was just tired, but we [my mentor and I] rode back to Cerne and it was just a horrible ride. It’s like you’re trying to focus on your positioning and then you get told ‘ok you now need to focus on this’,…it was too much for my brain to handle. I was focusing on one thing and then my positioning was being sacrificed. My brain and my coordination just couldn’t deal with everything at once, it was just a terrible ride. But then the last ride I did, things like positioning were just clicking. I just didn’t need to think about it so much, my pace was better and it just felt like a really good ride.

Annoyingly it’s the practice in between mentored rides that I’ve struggled with. I just haven’t had that much time, but I am really enjoying it. When I am riding on my own, or just driving and I see other riders, I can just tell whose done the advanced training and who hasn’t by the way they ride on the road. I can’t imagine going back to how I rode before. I also can’t image having a better teacher, with all his police knowledge I just love having that insight that you wouldn’t otherwise have.

On the ride here today, I was on familiar roads and I would always slow down on the bends, whereas in the car I would have been flying, but today I just noticed I was flying, and I was like wow, my pace through the bends is just so much better. So just to keep that up and feel that my pace is consistent on every ride I do would be great.

I think that the main bug bear I have had so far is the pace, on blind bends and roads that I just don’t know, so I’m taking things cautiously, but I think it’s now just a confidence thing, so hopefully week on week, you know, confidence in the bike, confidence in the leaning, and everything is just slowly improving.

Before I did the course, I was just distracted on my rides, I think I was thinking of things and not really prioritising the safety element so much and if it was roads I knew well, it didn’t really matter. Now if I’m riding familiar roads I’m like, that element of complacency is taken out. I’m just more aware of actually looking.

My Achillies heel is not enough time to practice, but I’m really enjoying the sessions so I really don’t mind if it goes on like this and I don’t take my test for a while. I think if I can just have a few more rides where it just feels a bit more at test standard, then I will be ready. Last ride I did, I think it would have been a good one for the test. It will be interesting to see after a couple more sessions with Gary [mentor], just how much is clicking, or if I regress backwards.

I’m planning to ride all winter, but I get cold really easily and I need to get some heated kit. I know that if it was a couple of degrees colder than today then I would be too distracted by just being cold, so I’m off to Motorcycle Live to see if I can find some discounted kit to take that problem away.