Garry...I belong to my church's FAITH Riders ministry and am also the director
http://www.eastpickens.org/ministries/faith-riders. Me and a buddy decided this sort of thing would be beneficial to a lot of bikers so we planned it all for the first time last year. We took almost all of the pointers and exercises from Jerry "Motorman"Paladino's "Ride Like a Pro" DVD set. It proved to be very beneficial to everyone involved so we scheduled it again this year, with a few modifications that didn't work last year. We had a slow race, 16' and 12' cone weaves, the offset cone weave, a 24' circle, 24' figure eight, emergency braking, 90 degree turn from a stop, 24' 22' and 18' U-turns. All were great this year. We also had the motor officer change a few things up on the more advanced riders at the end of the day. His exercises were the most fun! We'll do it again next year in April or May.
We plan on modifying the event to be sort of like the Goldwing riders association's Top Gun event...which will be most of these exercises plus some...and in a timed point system. This will be a competition, whereas the skills day was just individual events at your own pace to get better.
Pickerbiker...I couldn't get my wife to try it with me, but we did have one or two to do it with passengers. One in particular said it changed a lot of what he was doing solo...like a quicker reaction time necessary. But not many took advantage of that.
Foiler...last year was about 8 months after buying the LT so I was still pretty green at the low speed handling. Over the past year, I'd try different things in parking lots and stuff and then at this year's event, I was much more comfortable from the beginning. By the end of the day, even the motor officer told me he was impressed with how I handled the big bike (he tried it too and talked about how heavy she was). I found by the end of the day I felt very little intimidation at the slower speeds.
Amazing what practice can do! For confidence as much as actual skill.
Thanks for all the comments!
