best (or most recommended) advanced riding course (London area)?

Bikesafe followed by Rospa

 

Miles, followed by more miles.

 

do the same thing a hundred times over and over again, or maybe seek advise and develop it and improve........

 

Those near me (who I've met) who claim to be 'advanced' riders, have all crashed more often than me, and can't keep up with me, and all do broadly similar mileages. Tell me how they're better riders.

 

Cause they have a piece of paper that says they are:wink:

 

you must be really so good then.....

 

I'm distinctly average andy, much like your good self I shouldn't wonder. My point is the people who claim to be better rarely are.

 

On your first point, they do say assume does make an ass of u and me! ill grant you there is a certain amount of truth in your second point, but better, better than what, who is to be the judge and what do we base the quality of the person being the judge on?

 

I have done two bike safe one dayers....IMHO a waste of time and money, ok for a nice day out and that's it.
However, I have a couple of mates that have done the residential jobbie and reckon it's pretty good...:smile:

Time in the saddle will of course help, but nothing like some good coaching in whatever passion/pastime one takes up.

 

Do you want to learn advanced roadcraft or advanced bike control?

 

On the first point, only a pedant would come up with such a phrase. On the second, there is no better or worse; if you can ride around with the confidence that you're not going to crash every 5 minutes, you're doing fine. If you do worry every time you go out, the answer is simply to look farther ahead. Riding is not a black art, it just takes a little concentration. And Miles.

 

Great question, and depending on answer depends on recommendation

and imho anyone who thinks they can improve just by doing loads more what they are doing mow, not knowing if its good/bad or indifferent, are at best setiing up for 20yrs of improvement which could be done in a year tops, and second kidding themselves

 

I did the IAM, you'd think only opinionated, pedantic, arrogant twats do it but....oh, hang on :biggrin:

 

Do what you always did...get what you always got!

 

I totally understand what you're saying Bradders, but it depends what you want to achieve. On track you can learn all sorts of new tricks - and I think this is what you're suggesting, but they're rarely transferable to the road unless you've got confidence in traffic. That confidence only comes with miles.

I think the OP is talking purely of being more confident on the road when out on a weekend ride. And I would suggest a company like Track Based Training ( have I got that right?) would teach the very basics of machine control, while simply getting out more on the bike would improve observation skills. It depends how nervous the OP is.

 

My suggestion would be try these Rapid Training

 

Fig..how did you learn to look further ahead? Chatting with someone or epiphany? (Love that word!)

Point is, my road riding came n massively when I started riding with some Hants mates, sure I could ride ok and keep up, mostly, but was always having 'moments'. So over the proverbial coffee chats, I got some education and also they showed me the ropes. So in effect, they taught me. They were rospa, pace, iam whatever...but knew what they were doing

So, I learned from mates who had years of great experience which came from training they did, if that makes sense. Now I'm confident I can keep up with most, rarely have any moments at all (unless I'm riding like a twat, so I deserve it) and find making progress too easy

So best advice for road; find some mates you know ride really well and easy, ask them what they do, follow what they do at a slower pace and build up the right experience on he right base of skills. Track is almost exactly the same

 

Bradders, I didn't look in the mirror one morning and say, 'hey, I can see further than anyone else'. I just noticed that the more I rode the more confident and less erratic I became, and then worked out the reason was that I was looking further ahead - and that actually came from wanting to ride faster through London, and trying to fathom out what every other road user was doing, or thinking of doing.

It wasn't taught - machine skills can be taught, human nature less so - it's just something you pick up from experience, and in my opinion there isn't any short cut to gain that experience.

I started riding when I was 11, so I had most of the basic motor skills before I hit the road. Perhaps that's the difference these days; people start riding at a much later age.