This is a really mixed bag experience.
I feel like it helped me gain some experience and confidence, but it was at the same time kind of a mess, with very conflicting attitudes from instructors who didn't seem like they quite had the teaching experience to understand how to present methods and ideas for consumption in a friendly manner.
One in particular (awkward, tobacco stained tooth guy..) was honestly, a grump. Right from the very get go.
I'm sure it happens all the time, judging from his attitude, but a group of us were waiting at the front door (silly us, eh?) and he poked his head around the corner and scolded us, stating in the most unnecessary tone that the back door was open and we shouldn't have been there. We weren't late.
It was the front door, with 'ENTRANCE' written above it. A completely logical place to be standing.
Others were friendly and nice..
There were instances where the other assistant trainer would need to handle one branch of direction, and the grumpy guy handled the other. One being a right hand turn splitting in the middle of the lot, and one branching off to the left to his side.
Despite the semi seriousness nature of the training, I did find it pretty funny that the left hand people were avoiding him like the plague and turning right, leaving the nicer instructor with a huge line of people to deal with.
One student did mention at one point that he was making her extremely nervous with his tone, and to his credit, he did mellow slightly and apologized, but.. Why was this necessary? In my experience, a gruff tone doesn't help anyone learn anything, ever. We weren't unruly kids. We'd all paid to and were interested in being there.
Also, the size of the class..
There were only roughly 10 people in my class, and it didn't seem to leave anywhere near enough time for each chapter of development. In some cases, the slower people. The ones who were having the most problems took up so much explanatory time, that I literally got 2 turns of certain disciplines before they called us over to park the bikes and moved on.
This is not enough, and I heard several people muttering the same thing. I feel this was partially because they lumped scooter learners together with motorcycle learners. I may not have been struggling as much as some of the others, but I still don't have the confidence yet to feel that I nailed that bit if I only get to do it twice.
This not only leaves out the scooter people with essentially automatic bikes who have nothing to do on any matters to do with gear changes and clutch control, but they also run a lot slower, leaving people on motorcycles not able to pick up enough speed at times to get into second gear, to perform tasks asked of them. I was using a 250cc bike that was really chugging along in second when I was asked to use it, that also had a huge varied friction zone on the clutch that wasn't right.
I mentioned it to grumpy guy and was told that it was just me.
Not to be a poor student, but it wasn't. And this left me all over the place with slow speed maneuvering while I tried to find it's sweet spot of the moment. Perhaps on a properly warmed up bike, it would have settled in, but it was cold, and we kept on stopping, so I couldn't get there.
Another instance of this was when they tried to explain counter-steering to us. I could NOT get up enough speed to practice counter-steering due to a scooter rider in front of me.
I asked an instructor about this, honestly not sure if it was me or the speed, and he sheepishly admitted that it didn't look like we'd be able to get up enough speed to try it, which means we were really creeping along. This same thing happened when attempting to score one another while leaning on corners.. Massively too slow. Same scooter rider holding the entire half of the class up to his speed.
Nothing was done about it. We moved on, regardless. Again.
There's a gap between what I learned and the ability to actually ride on the street with other motorists.
They offer an experienced course, but this is for 1000 miles plus riders. There's nothing for license holders who need street experience.
If you're not a stone cold learner, or someone with a fair amount of experience I guess you're good here, but I don't think they quite have the material focus right, and in searching for these aspects from other schools, I notice that many other places in the country do offer exactly these balanced lessons. Ones that go from private property, to out on the street, and structured in such a way that move you from one to another, and avoid the abandoned grey areas in an appropriate time to ensure method isn't lost to stagnation. These bridging factors need to happen in a timely fashion to avoid the issues listed here.
Helpful, somewhat, but ultimately disappointing and wish I hadn't had the grumpy, skinny white haired guy teaching me. read more
