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How good does an advanced instructor have to be?
There have been a couple of interesting threads on TheRevCounter.com recently about advanced instructing, one about whether riders felt they needed training if they believed they were "good enough", and
the other about whether or not some advanced instructors were themselves good enough riders to train others.
Whilst I kept my head down in the trenches and avoided the shrapnel that was flying, it doesn't mean I don't have some thoughts on the topic.
How good are qualifications as an indicator of a 'good instructor'? That's a tough one to answer.
Personally, I've gained CBT and DAS qualifications, I'm provisionally accepted onto the new Register of Post-test Motorcycle Trainers (RPMT) pending the despatch of a large cheque to the DSA, I'm National
Motorcycle Escort Group qualified (for escorting events like top class cycle racing), as well as holding a NVQ level 3 in e-tutoring. I've also got a bit of teaching experience in secondary schools and a
Masters degree in a totally irrelevant biological science.
I'm less than convinced the RPMT will be a good indicator of instructor competence. One of the routes onto the RPMT gives DAS instructors 'direct access' without prior assessment, though I have to admit
to taking advantage of Grandfather Rights myself. Also a police riding qualification is unsupported by any teaching qualification, good riders though they may be. I can see the RPMT diluting the pool of
competent advanced instructors rather than concentrating it.
Having said that, the career development path mapped out by the DSA; CBT instructor -> DAS instructor -> Post-test instructor isn't necessarily a bad idea in principle. Personally, I think an
advanced instructor should have a working knowledge of basic training for two reasons;
1) to know what's actually taught on basic training and why, and to reduce conflicting and confusing messages to the trainee
There's a fair amount of ignorance in some areas of advanced training about what basic training constitutes, as well as some very dismissive attitudes to the basic instructors themselves and what they
have to be able do to teach people to ride in the first place. The result is frequently heard in that old fallacy "forget what you were taught to pass the test and now really learn to ride".
Trust me, teaching CBT with a 16 year old on a moped is far tougher than anything any civvie advanced instructor or observer will EVER do, given that CBT covers the basic road skills that stop them
killing themselves first time out.
2) to allow them to spot and fix basic riding faults that have sneaked through training.
It happens, even with the best instructors and I have to admit there are some basic trainers who aren't quite so good and some are pressured by the school to do things in a rush.
On top of that, there are still plenty of new riders who do CBT, no further training and test on their own 125 and don't ride QUITE badly enough to fail. I've seen experienced advanced instructors fail to
to identify a simple problem like incorrect front/rear brake balance because it's not something they see frequently, or are even necessarily aware of.
What's experience worth? The core of what I know about riding comes from 16 years and half a million miles of despatch riding. Good, solid, practical riding experience in all traffic conditions, in all
weathers.
Experience isn't everything - you can be taught to ride, so you can be taught to teach. I've seen some excellent instructors with a fraction of the mileage that I've done.
But arguably, someone who's been taught to teach AND has experience will have an edge. Hoping I don't sound too big-headed, I doubt there are many instructors with the experience I have in big city
traffic.
There are certainly areas I don't feel qualified to teach; I know the basics of suspension set up but am not an expert, I certainly wouldn't claim to know any of the finer points of track riding let alone
road racing, and I'm a complete numpty off road and would put myself in with the beginners in any class on dirt!
But if we stick to road riding, then I've not found anyone on a road course I couldn't teach something and that includes riders with a RoSPA 'gold' qualification - arguably the highest civilian rider
qualification - and police riders and drivers.
That might sound big-headed as well, but I get a good mix of students through the school all through the year. From newly qualified - I've had two riders in the last couple of weeks still on the running
in period on their brand new bikes post-DAS - to highly experienced riders with advanced riding credentials. The better the rider, the bigger the challenge to me.
How good does an advanced instructor have to be? The obvious answer is better than the trainee he's teaching. But that's a red herring. One of the more astute observations on that thread was that the
rider can be "better" than the trainer - yet the trainer, or rather coach, can still give useful insight to others who are riding at a higher standard than the coach can achieve. Even the top sportsmen
and women still use coaches!
What about background knowledge in related areas? One of the areas where I've done quite a bit of research is into sports psychology and I've been able to apply a lot of the learning techniques like
visualisation to motorcycle riding. Another area I've looked at in some depth is research into accidents; not just where and why they happen, but also into drive psychology and the fascinating area of
visual and mental perception.
Certainly there comes a point where there's nothing technical I can teach a rider, yet I've had a number of police riders and drivers out on courses and they have commented that because of my different perspective to what they've experienced before they've learned new wrinkles to things they knew and to look at things from a different perspective.
That ability to communicate knowledge does of course depend on the student wanting to listen, and that doesn't always happen, even when riders ask for advice. I can think of two recent online discussions
about accidents where there was a reluctance to accept sensible suggestions.
In the first a rider supposedly laid it down to avoid hitting a car that had stopped a bit unexpectedly in front of him. Nothing could make him admit that a bike sliding on its side goes further than a
bike still braking on its rubber so actually avoiding falling off is a good idea, nor was he too keen on admitting that a bigger gap would have solved the problem in the first place.
In the other, the rider was too close to parked cars and fell victim to an opening door. Unfortunately an admission of liability by the driver and the prospect of a payout seems to have cemented this
guy,s opinion that he was doing nothing wrong himself.
We have to deal with a fair few of these people on basic training: "I've been driving 20 years and there's nothing you can teach me about the roads". Mostly they change their mind after a couple of
hours on two wheels, and suddenly the instructor starts hearing: "I never realised, I never thought, I never knew".
Having said that, if a rider turns up to do a post test course, they are doing it voluntarily and the fact is they will nearly always be receptive to new ideas. Being receptive doesn't guarantee they will
agree with me, and in fact I don't expect them to. Rather more important is that they listen, question and consider, which is all I ask.
Another reasonable question is how good a rider does the instructor have to be? One of the more dismissive replies was about the writer's ability to out-ride the instructor, the inference being that he
couldn't be much good if he couldn't keep up with the writer. One thing that that the trainer has to consider is that riding on the wrong side of the law puts his livelihood at risk, not just his licence
- and of course, there's always the chance that the trainer had a rather more assertive self-preservation gene than the writer!
So, how good am I? What yardsticks have I got to measure by?
On the track? I once did a lap of Spa that would have put me on the back row of that year's world championship 24 hour endurance race, so if you asked I'd say I'm reasonably competent if rather unlikely
to worry anyone in MotoGP, but racing is not my idea of fun and I've only done a handful of trackdays; I usually get bored by lunchtime.
On the road? A police riding instructor gave me an assessment a number of years ago and said "for a road rider, fast but smooth and safe - but nothing left when I pushed him to police speeds".
That's good enough for me. Subsequently I've been assessed a couple of other times. Interestingly what I got picked up for was "lack of progress". A second police assessor was surprised that an
ex-courier didn't go for it more often. Well, that's the 16 years of despatching experience, looking for easier places to pass, rather than pushing hard just because it was possible to pass.
Stunts? I got my knee down in the early 80s on a CB250RSA on Avon Roadrunners if that counts for anything. That was in the days before kneesliders (I've still got the leathers with the gaffer-taped
knees), and I'm quite fond of stoppies, though I can't wheelie.
So there are plenty of riders who are better than me. What does that mean?
Some are genuinely better technical riders than I am. I ride with a couple from time to time. There's a guy in Thatcham I've had on a few courses who I've got to know and like and who is blisteringly
quick and there's a 60 year old Dutch rider whose bike handling skills were awesome on his VFR (though he mostly riders a classic 250 BMW these days). I got completely blown away by the pair of them in
Provence a few years ago. That was road riding at its best.
Some of the guys on my training courses turn out to be surprisingly good, very good on occasion. Even on my chosen roads which are quite technical and thus don't allow warp speeds, some trainees push me
hard to stay with them.
But on the whole, the riders I encounter out and about at random on the road who are faster than me are nearly always riding well over the limit on roads where it's possible to do so without much effort.
Let's be honest - anyone can twist the throttle on a nearly straight road.
Or they are taking a lot more risk in areas I choose to go slower. Outdragging me round a roundabout doesn't always mean you're faster, it usually means I'm asking "what if a car pulls out?" Some near misses going too fast on roundabouts since I first got my knee down on that roundabout in Rickmansworth nearly 30 years ago means my level of risk taking has dropped off.
Overtaking is one area other riders are likely to pass me. Like the bunch of riders last summer who were champing at the bit to pass me and the slower cars ahead of me, and finally overtook on the
approach to a blind bend. They were expecting to dip into the gaps just before the bend, but they hadn't predicted a pair of tractors and trailers round the corner that caused the cars to bunch up. Their
gaps vanished, and they ended up having to squeeze along the outside of the cars against 60mph oncoming traffic.
What had I done differently? I'd spotted the brake lights successively coming on as the cars disappeared into the bend and anticipated something slower ahead and ducked out of the overtake myself.
That kind of observation isn't rocket science, it's just a matter of thinking "why is there a queue?" in the first place, and then asking what might go wrong. A queue closing up is hardly an unusual phenomenon. But they didn't spot it. Why? Perhaps because they were focusing on â 'progress' rather than thinking "what might go wrong if I pass?".
And that observation really leads us to an answer to the original question about why a rider who is happy with the skill level they've achieved would get something out of advanced training.
Can anyone honestly say they have never arrived in a situation on the road and thought "I never knew that... I never thought about it that way... I never considered that might happen?"
Also we need to ask what are the goals of training? Some riders would only consider track-based training because they ride at speeds that aren't legal on the road.
I can't do anything about their 'need for speed', but training doesn't have to be "Bigger Better Faster" to be meaningful.
How about taking training that allows you to do exactly what you are still doing but with bigger margins for error? After all, one way of looking at riding is as a ongoing exercise in disaster management.
And that's the kind of training I try to offer to students. Once they have the core advanced skills in place, and we've thus covered the fundamentals of better riding, I try to get riders to have a
greater awareness of the pros and cons of any technique, and then to be able to use that knowledge to bend the odds in their favour.
In simple terms, what's the gain and what's the pain?
Advanced riding is about BOTH aspects. If you are asking "what's the gain?" as you ride and not thinking about the potential for pain, then perhaps advanced training might be for you after all.
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