Bonneville vs. the rest at the Experienced Rider Course

Ten bleary-eyed riders assembled before 7am on Friday June 8th at the Massachusetts State Police Training Ground in Ayer, MA to submit to a gruelling 5-hour training followed by a handling skills test to get the Motorcycle Safety Federation card for experienced riders. In my case, the objective was to get some useful skills (in my 42 years of riding I have NEVER been trained - scary eh) as well as to qualify for a full Massachusetts bike driver's licence. The other guys were a mixture; some who have always ridden on a learner's permit (and now want to be able to ride out of state, or in the dark, or with tottie on the pillion), and some who already have the full licence but want the insurance discounts that completion of this course enables. The Bonnie appears in the opening shot here, hiding behind a Coke bottle.

The course was excellent and worth every penny of the $150 fee. Paul the instructor (baseball cap and clipboard) together with Neil the demonstrator (baseball cap and Honda VT500) gave individual feedback to every one of the riders throughout the dozen or so set piece driving exercises which we performed on the 200mx100m exercise area. Things warmed up a bit during the morning but everyone saw the course through. However the same could not be said for the bikes. Apart from the Bonnie they were all Harleys or Suzukis with one Honda I think. One Suzuki (Intruder) and one Harley (nice-looking bobber) gave up the ghost halfway through the morning, the Suzuki with clutch failure and the Harley with... - well it just stopped. Needless to say the Bonnie never missed a beat. However it did have one senior moment when the float jammed in the left hand side Concentric whilst waiting in a queue, sort of minor incontinence you might say. The resulting tsunami of petrol/gasoline stopped after some frenzied tapping of the float chamber with my cellphone, and from then on there was no more trouble.

The other photos show a resolutely stationary Harley and Suzuki, the bikes in a group toward the end of the morning (note the 2x 250cc Honda Nighthawks borrowed from the trainers to replace the failed bikes, and Neil's demonstrator Honda in the foreground) and Paul Luevano debriefing us on our scores at the end of the test. Yes, we all got to hear how each one of us did. And which rider/bike combination do you think passed out top of the class with significant lead over the rest of the pack?

I heartily recommend Ironstone Ventures (www.ironstoneventures.com) if you are on a learner's permit in Massachusetts. Passing the course automatically exempts you from the official RMV test. If you pre-pay the fee (which you can do by phone) you don't even have to go over to the RMV afterwards - they mail the full license to you. I can't wait.