Johannesburg - There I was, early on a Tuesday, at the Zwartkops Raceway. In front of me was a BMW 1200 GS, the SUV of motorcycles, a behemoth. I prayed I wouldn’t have to ride it.
I’d signed up for the novice’s course at BMW’s Motorrad Riders’ Academy. I could lie to you and tell you it was because the increasing traffic congestion in Joburg was making me seriously consider two wheels rather than four, but I’d be lying. It was a bucket list moment or, in the words of our last-born, a 13-year-old going on 30, it was a mid-life crisis moment.
Of course it was.
But I’m not alone.
Upstairs in the classroom, the three of us novitiates introduced ourselves, much like alcoholics at a meeting.
“Hi, I’m Kevin,” I said.
“Hi, Kevin,” chorused everyone led by our instructor, Marco Marais, who looked young enough to have been one of my kids.
“Erm, I want to learn how to ride a bike. I’m hopelessly unco-ordinated,” I confessed. “The last time I did try to ride, it didn’t end well.”
Sarah, to my left, had just bought herself a Harley and wanted to ride it without killing herself. Mike on my right had just gone into the courier business and wanted to find out about scooters.
We were all much the same age, all on the same quest. Marco is used to it; most of his trainees are in the 35-plus bracket. It’s a bit like Facebook; the silver surfers have colonised it.
We were all a little scared. It wasn’t made any easier by the drumming in of safety, heightened by the fitting for full-face helmets, gloves and those nylon jackets stuffed with Kevlar plates.
GETTING THE SEQUENCE RIGHT
Trooping down to the little pit lane adjoining the racetrack, we found our steeds: Yamaha 250cc motorbikes, much like you see running deliveries. They’re so retro, I felt I should ride off to Maboneng, that hipster paradise.
We started slowly. There’s a proper way to get on a bike, first turning the forks away and pulling in the front brake. There’s a way to dismount; turning the forks the other way so the bike doesn’t fall over. There’s a proper sequence to start it, to stop it with the kill switch or the key. Marco made us practise on the 1200 GS. My hip cramped swinging my leg over. I blushed. Luckily no one could see under the full-face helmet. The 250 was a breeze by comparison.
Mounting up, we started our engines and then walked our bikes in first gear around the pit lane. When Marco was happy, after about 15 minutes, he let us put our feet up; then we got to change up to second gear. The next test was to ride the clutch and use the rear brake to keep the bike at walking speed. You’ve got to weave through the cones without losing balance and putting your feet down.
By the time lunch came around, we’d finished the first part of the course, which can also be run as two half-day sessions. We were now “riding with confidence” or, in my case, overconfidence.
THINGS GET SERIOUS
Back in the classroom, we started our “refresher” course, designed for those who can ride but haven’t done so for a while. Now it was serious.
The DVD was all about defensive riding, because it doesn’t matter how well you can ride, it’s the other people on the road who are terrifying: how to see as far as you can on the road while being seen by as many people as possible; the importance of keeping a three- second following distance; and counter-steering, the counterintuitive skill of steering away as you drop the bike into the corner.
My lunch roiled in my stomach. I’d just got used to the clutch, changing gear without revving the engine like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, now lay the true horror of horrors, buried for more than 30 years: I had borrowed a bike, boasting I could ride. I missed the first corner and hurtled into the veld until I hit an ant heap, bending the bike. I don’t know which was worse, the physical pain or the agony of my shattered ego, pushing the bent bike beside the road.
We’d practised hill starts before lunch, now we had to hare up the hill and stop on a patch the size of a small rug. When we had mastered that, we had to do it all over again as if it was a yield sign, stopping and pulling off without putting our feet down. Repetition until it becomes instinctive – even with counter-steering, but first a lesson in physics.
IMPORTANCE OF BRAKING DISTANCE
A bike and a car have the same braking distance at 60km/h. Marco stopped the 1200 with just the rear brake, locking the back wheel and skidding for almost 20m. With his second attempt he used ABS with the back brake for less sturm und drang, but took 15m to stop. Using front and back brakes, he stopped in 5m - or two seconds.
The lesson was stark and simple - keep three seconds between yourself and the vehicle in front.
Finally it was time to graduate.
“Pull over,” said Marco. “Do you want to try that one?” pointing to a BMW F800R - the embodiment of every self-respecting midlife crisis.
Try it? Seven hours ago, I would have crept under a bush and wept.
Handing out the certificates, Marco looked at us. “The next course is safety and, and then we do advanced cornering on the racetrack itself that afternoon - on your own bikes. When you complete that you’re ready for anything.”
I’ll be there.