Hello again,
For todays post I thought I would talk about my experience on the motorbike and the process I went through to get one.
Back when I was 22 I went and got a learner permit for the motorbike. When I got it I discovered that the lessons for the motorbike were extremely expensive, around 800 euro. I was a struggling student back then, so I decided to go get a car instead. This worked out cheaper. Fast forward to 2019 and I was finally in a position where I could go get a motorbike as well. So I went and sat my theory test for the learner permit. Christmas was coming up and I had a short trip to London a couple months after so I put the lessons off for a bit. Then the pandemic kicked off. This meant lessons were no longer allowed. Then last September there was an easing of restrictions. So I rang up an instructor and booked in the lessons for me and my friend. Motorbike lessons are a bit different to car lessons. You only do two days of lessons, but they are 9 hours each day!
The first day you start off in the classroom where the instructor shows you a short video, he then goes through some theory stuff, roundabouts, rules etc. Then we went outside to the bikes, we learned how to move them without starting them and putting them on and off the stands. Then it is time to gear up and head towards the compound. So we went down to the compound, got changed in the changing rooms there, had a quick bite to eat as there is a cafe there. Then it was on to the bikes!
So my friend went first. He got on to the 125cc Suzuki gn125. The instructor is talking to you through a radio in your ear, he gave instructions on what to do. It was mainly getting the bike going and stopping. Then came my turn. So I jumped on the bike. Revved too much, fell over! Great start...
I got on again, did much better this time. Got the bike moving, stopped, moved off again and stopped again. This continued until we both felt we had it down.
Next step, we moved onto the 600cc Suzuki Bandit. Both of us were going for a full A class license. There is also A1 and A2, which have lower power and cc restrictions. My friend went first again, a pattern that continued for everything! We learned slow speed manoeuvres, figure 8s, u turns, slow speed control(he walks beside you and you have to try stay with him as best as you can)
Towards the end he gets you to start at one end of the compound and go to the other end accelerating and changing to 2nd gear. This was the end of day 1.
The 2nd day we arrived early in the morning. Again we had some theory stuff to go over in the classroom. This was about an hour. Once all the classroom stuff was done we got changed again into our gear. The 2nd day is a day of riding the motorbike on the road! I started on the 500cc Kawasaki er-5 with my friend on the Bandit again. We left the instructors place and headed towards the old roads, as learners are not allowed on the motorway, and we rode. We had some stops along the way for a break, drink of water and a vape(the instructor smokes so he had a cigarette) and for me and my friend to swap bikes. Most places only have 1 600cc bike so we both got to experience the 600.
We stopped off in a town for some lunch and coffee then continued our journey. We encountered roundabouts, corners, straight roads, some overtaking and then finally a stretch on the dual carriageway. We finally turned around and headed back. We got back and the instructor signed our certs to say we had completed the lessons to a satisfactory level and we went home.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and my friend and I had been searching for motorbikes, my friend finally found one. It was a 2001 Suzuki Bandit, just like the one we did our lessons on. After he insured it and the price was very high I decided I didn't want to pay that so I started looking at slightly smaller bikes to start on. I looked at a Honda CB500, Suzuki GS500 and a Kawasaki er-5. After searching for another couple of weeks I settled on a er-5. So off I went to look at it and agreed a sale. The seller was nice enough to deliver it to my house for me. He had use of a van and I didn't want to ride it across the city so early in my motorbike life!
We started off doing short spins in our locality, slowly moving further out. Until we were doing longer spins. We had a lovely spin from our area, out to the Sally Gap(wicklow mountains) down to Glendalough(it was so busy that day we turned around straight away!) and then up to Blessington for some amazing pizza at a place called the big blue bus!
Since then I have done a couple of spins for charity which are fun in a different way. Lots of bikes show up! I did a group spin where there was 88 bikes present!
I would highly recommend to anyone who is thinking about learning to ride a motorbike to go and do it! The experience of riding a motorbike is so different to a car but absolutely amazing!
Thank you to anyone who made it to the end of this post and I hope you enjoyed it!
