I passed!
December 4, 2007 at 8:51 am | Bike, Trip | No comment
My nerves were wracked all weekend, I felt as though tiny worms were wriggling slowly underneath my fingers.
It made me short with Kim, and it made me make stupid little mistakes on my Monday lesson.
They were compounded somewhat by Martin’s style of teaching, which is blunt and to an exceptionally high standard, and at times seems to try and exonerate him of responsibility.
One of the biggest things he kept picking me up on was my U-turn.
To me, I was executing the u-turn quite nicely, a little wobble occasionally, but nothing to worry about.
For Martin on the other hand this would not do, I would rev high, slip the clutch massively and use the back brake for controlling the speed.
Which is a great method for doing a u-turn don’t get me wrong, but if I deviated the controls even slightly while doing the u-turn (speeding up or slowing down while cornering isn’t the greatest idea I’ll admit) he would repeat the reasons I was going wrong (which went back and forth between a number of issues, I would concentrate on getting one right and the last problem would crop up again).
Eventually he realised that I was doing my turns too tightly, and subconsciously this was causing me to do all manner of things which were bad for a controlled turn.
I set myself up and aimed for the opposite kerb.
Hurrah! Beautiful, controlled, perfect every time!
I was still making silly mistakes like leaving my indicator on after turning (which if done for too long will fail you for making false signals!), but Martin’s style of teaching was quite effective for making me completely paranoid about leaving the signal on!
Tuesday morning came, and once I was on the bike, the world seemed to relax, everything was going to be fine, I was going to pass no problem!
In the hour or so warm up before the test Martin berated me slightly for my U-turn which I tidied up quickly, and gave me a little more coaching on the emergency stop.
We rode into the test centre and parked up, getting there a bit early I had to wait for 15 minutes which did little to settle my nerves.
Eventually the examiner came out and took my documents and fitted me up with a radio (which oddly enough went around my waist and sounded much clearer than the ones we’d been using to train with.
He took me outside, to do the tellme/showme for which I’d memorised a long list of procedures and bullshit answers.
In the end, all he asked was for me to demonstrate the front brake, and where would I find the correct tyre pressure rating?
Piss easy! So we got on with the test.
Everything was going very well, I would even have gone so far as to say I was enjoying myself, until he told me to go right at a roundabout and I bizarrely went all the way around (I think I was in another world thinking about how well I was doing!).
Unfortunately the examiner saw this too late and took the exit I was meant to take, which resulted in me losing him quite significantly.
Before he went out of range he told me to pull up on the left and wait for him, which was easier than it sounded on a 60 mph road with no pavement.
There was a bus stop, but I was almost certain that I would fail for pulling up in an inappropriate place, so I chose a side road.
Which he went past before he saw me in it.
I was getting a bit flustered by this point and didn’t know whether to wait for him or to go after him.
I waited for a little while and then went after him, which was of course the worst of both worlds as by this time he’d turned round at the next roundabout and was going in the opposite direction to come back on me!
He went past and repeated his instruction to find somewhere on the left to pull up and stop.
It was the same situation, nowhere to pull up and stop. So I did a u-turn at the next roundabout and pulled in to another side road.
Of course this resulted in him going past me again in the opposite direction and tutting very loudly remarking that I was like a bloody goldfish.
I was screaming on the inside, “Fucking hell I’ve failed, what a stupid thing to fail for”.
But still, I’d been told by every instructor I’d had that it was rarely as bad as you thought and either way worrying about it on test would only make you make more mistakes.
We went on with the lesson and I did reasonably well I felt, no major fuck ups as it were.
In the exam room, I heard those beautiful words, “I’m pleased to say you’ve passed.”
Thank Christ for that, I couldn’t stand having to do that build-up again!
Plus I can re-assure Alex that the test is not that hard, and that they seem to want to pass you!
Even so… 8 Minors…