Ok I am now what I hope is half way there, so its now time to look at steeds. Choosing a bike like a hair cut defines who and how the world looks to you and visa versa. Also as I am discovering it can well define ultimate what you do with your two-wheeled freedom.
The CBT seemed to initially to be have been designed to allow kids or those wanting to ride a small CC bike easy access to riding and learning on the go. Whilst 25 years ago this may have been a good idea and back in the day when a bike test was a quick ride around the block whilst your examiner stood and watched you ride buy, now its seems out-dated and ridiculous.
Kevin my great trainer from KDM training http://www.kdmtraining.com/index.html met me on the small square that pretends to be Nairn’s CBT training area and we walk towards two bikes, a rather beaten up 125 and Honda CB 500. Having asked me some questions; what do the brakes do? where is the oil filler? tire (tyre) tread questions, Kevin decides that starting me on the 125 is nonsense, and plonks me on the 500 cc bike.
Immediately the thing that surprises me is the weight of the bike, it’s unbelievably heavy and I almost drop it as I take it of the stand. My only experience of sitting on a Honda 500cc machine before was travelling though Edinburgh on the back of Judy Dean’s (I fancied her rotten) bike on the way from the grounds of Napier’s Photographic department, where we both studied, to my flat, where she refused to come “up for coffee”. So brief and frustrating it was and also a situation where the weight of the bike did not feature, as I was much too interested in experimenting with other unrequited things. Waist or Grab bars? Too late to decide now, I think.
Wobbling around doing figures of 8’s and mini cone slaloms soon saw me riding in the abandoned business park next to the CBT area. Quickly the mirror-signal-lifesave check routine was learnt and couple of emergency stops later, we headed off into the steamy metropolis that is Nairn. Having never ridden anything bigger than a 125cc Trails Gas Gas before, the sensation of speed even at 40mph was great, if not a little frightening and to start with but the oddest thing was changing gear whilst sitting down. The No-Seat trials bikes involve a mini-balancing act to be executed in order o change gear and the luxury of changing gear whilst sitting down was a pure pleasure. Having stalled the bike in traffic once, the afternoon settled down into a series of roundabout walk throughs and practise manoeuvres in the light town traffic. It was easy, the sun was out and the bike forgiving, but after a couple of hours I decided to call it a day, the old synapsis were just were beginning to fry. Back under a veil of screaming shite hawks (seagulls) Kevin sat me down in the back of his van and wrote out the CBT pass. Odd, I did not even know I was being assessed, "but hay", stage two completed.
The point is now I can legally ride a bike on the street, and I in no way did I feel ready or am capable of taking charge of myself in traffic on a bike of any size, this I imagine is the start of a very dangerous period…
I am surrounded by a pile of books and DVLA DVD,s and in the presence of these official publications, I feel guilty. A bit like a small boy in a classroom full of kids, where the pickpocket is asked to come forward and even though your totally innocent, you feel the pang of some deep seated culpability. It’s the humiliation of the L Plate and I have not felt this for over 30 years, it’s a rare meeting between state and confirmed individualist. I find myself here more by accident than design. A few years ago, I moved to the French Alps to a village where every third person seems to own a Trials bike. The hills in the off-season echo to the sounds of two stoke growling and gunfire, where the hills and trails and sheared between the wild boar hunters and the riders of the single cylinder blue smoke thumpers.
Opting to join the Gas Gas culture rather than the gun culture, the dividing line between an early morning Pastis or a petit café, is an exiting revelation for a once confirmed mountain biker rider and downhiller. But six months into this journey, the 125cc I have been riding is beginning to die under my weight, its high pitching whining, a sound often ignored in other aspects of my life, has to be respected. The owner of local bar, having chucked himself down a ravine attached to his 300cc machine has decided discretion "is the better part". His pride and joy, so easily given up, now sits in my shed. It waits for me to be able to (legally) ride across the short stretch of hardtop that annoyingly stand between my house and the mountain trails. Little did I know that this simple 200m stretch of frost cracked tar, was going to lead me into a world of GS’s and GPS, and a brave new world of Adventure bike riding.
I made the decision to sit my full licence in May 2011 and immediately set about trying to find a motorcycle school that could give me the easiest passage through the tests. Ok... so the criteria: not much traffic, in an area I know, and close to the "lady/partner/girl friend's house" (what do you call the person you share a bed with when you have reached a certain age?!!)
As ever, taking what seemed to be the path of least resistance proved to have many hidden and overlooked challenges.
I really honestly thought this would be a piece of cake. That was until I tried my online mock theory tests. http://www.all4bikers.com/theory/ . On my first attempt I scored 35 out of 50, a fail. I then spent the next two weeks sporadically working out what to do when approaching Toucan Crossing roads, old ladies on Zebras and what lights a Pelican waves at you when you scream up to them in a cloud of rubber smoke.
Ignoring the fact that some UK road makers have an exotic animal fetish, in turns out that the test is now less about road safety knowledge and actually more like a reading test. I now also understand the constant complaints from the oldies on why A-Levels are now easy. This test is not about driving but about how well you can pass it; it's simply 'exam technique'.
This is especially true of the “hazard perception test” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHS9vQlew_M which is a new addition to the whole process. So in a room full of spotty teenagers none of whom you would let near mummy’s “Beemer” or third hand Fiesta, I exercised my new-found knowledge on how to pass a modern test. Stepping out of the theoretical test centre and into the sun drenched Georgian Edinburgh streets, the score was, Me-1, EU test motorcycle test- 0.
I am surrounded by a pile of books and DVLA DVDs and in the presence of these official publications, I feel guilty. It's a bit like when you're little and you're sitting in a classroom full of kids and the pickpocket is asked to come forward. Even though you're totally innocent you feel the pang of some deep seated culpability. It’s the humiliation of the L Plate and I have not felt this for over 30 years. It’s a rare meeting between state and confirmed individualist. I'm not sure I truly belong as I have to admit that I find myself here more by accident than design. A few years ago, I moved to the French Alps to a village where every third person seems to own a Trials bike. The hills in the off-season echo to the sounds of two stoke growling and gunfire and are shared between the wild boar hunters and the riders of the single cylinder blue smoke thumpers.
Opting to join the Gas Gas culture rather than the gun culture, the dividing line between an early morning Pastis or a petit café, is an exciting revelation for a once confirmed mountain bike rider and downhiller. But six months into this journey, the 125cc I have been riding is beginning to die under my weight, its high pitching whining (a sound often ignored in other aspects of my life) has to be respected. The owner of a local bar, having chucked himself down a ravine attached to his 300cc machine has decided discretion "is the better part" of something...... His pride and joy, so easily given up, now sits in my shed. It waits for me to be able to (legally) ride across the short stretch of hardtop that annoyingly stands between my house and the mountain trails. Basically anything over 125cc requires me to hold a full motorcycle licence. What started as a simple fulfilment of legal requirements to cross a 200m stretch of frost cracked tar has ended up leading me into the realm of GS’s and GPS's, and onwards into the brave new world of Adventure bike riding.
Action Man 53
Throughout my school life in Dingwall Ben Wyvis loomed over me, its mass serving to act as a barrier between the known and civilised world to the south and the wild lands to the north. To the south the farms were green and lush then heavy with barley. To the North wild rolling moor land filled with small crofts and red nosed deerstalker tooting men with hands as craggy and hard as the countryside. Its cap of winter snow often lasts until mid June white gully shaded patches an ever present reminder of harsh winters a ahead and behind.
I had never thought of walking up it, its mass to imposing, too significant, too grey, a dominant feature of my childhood, kind of a spell which many excuses in early adulthood had kept me compressed in the valley under its shadow and unable to embrace its challenge. When I did find myself with time to play in the mountains when staying in Dingwall, I always escaped to the glorious west where sparkling sea, meets rocky coasts cliffs and mountains. To me the west coast represented a crossing of a physical and emotional watershed, to the east a childhood in a small northern town, restricted familiar and dull, a place where I was never fully comfortable, too many eyes and tongues. The west was freedom. It is the place where I discovered pubs, folk music, and love; Sheildaig, Applecross, and Skye, magnificent and shoulder widening. Bolstered by the youthful arrogance of the climber, Ben Wyvis seemed featureless, a lump of heather with no mountaineering value, almost an east coast disappointment. I used to bemoan the fact that the best of Scottish climbing was in the northwest. What a shame it was not nearer home, the hunger for rock and ice inexorably pulling me west, leaving the brooding mass of the east sitting in the clouds.
But I think the time has come. My car stops, almost of its own accord in the pull out where the main path starts from. The board walk floats over the soggy peat and leads to the huge rounded shoulder, where the mountain path begins to toil to the twin summits of the hill.
To walk on Ben Wyvis is a very monochromatic experience, there are no huge cliffs, gullies or towering peaks to animate and amuse your senses. Its just you on the mass of the mountain, one foot in front of the other. The details, of the walk are in the crunch of the snow under foot, or the grinding of a quartz crystal on an gneiss pebble. What strikes me is how ancient it seems, how ground down the landscape is, the movement of history, glaciers, frozen lochs and tree felled and cleared crofts. To walk on this mountain is not to celebrate the picture perfect beauty of Scotland, but it is a walk, which is about appreciating its solidity its ancient mass, it’s a subtle enjoyment. One foot in front of the other moving over history into the present. For me I am walking out of the shadows and the veils of youth, judgement of place, people and home, school memories and feelings of being somehow restricted. On the summit ridge I breathe in the air of the mountains of our magnificent land, the view is clear and vast, acceptance of what has been and what will be.
