And just to prove that things don't always go according to plan but that we manage to enjoy ourselves on these courses, read Steve Kelly's account of the training trip booked by Julian and he to France in October 99...

"Well I was up at 1am and looking at the moon at 2am thinking it was going to be OK. But the winds were howling around the garden. At precisely 04:10, the rain started hitting the front window. Really loud and enough to cause rivers to flow down the road.

By the time I got to meet up with Julian at the Little Chef/Shell garage next to M4 j11, I was already feeling it was worth abandoning the trip. But that would have been too wise seeing I hadn't slept all night and had a cold. So we pressed on into the darkness of the early morning.

On the A329 through Bracknell, I saw this BIG puddle, so indicated left hoping Julian would follow, but I noticed the blue glow of his headlight was aiming straight for the water. My bottom tightened as he reached the point and I was dreading seeing his headlight disappear to be replaced by a shower of sparks. Thankfully he didn't even see the puddle, so was relaxed as he hit it and came out of it with nothing worse than two bootfuls of water.

Passing the M25 exit I could see a glow in the sky ahead. It looked as though the cloud was thinning. 10 minutes later the rain had eased and daylight broke through. It was now a little cold. Lots of wind chill effect going. We managed to hit the M26 then M20 and now the winds took over. Trying to stay in a particular lane was a major feat of counter steering/balance.

Around Maidstone, the roads were dry in places. What was going on? Well I found the Maidstone services, but on slowing at the end of the slip road, I found my fingers had gone numb in the cold winds, and operating the controls was sort of interesting. Julian was even colder and thinks it was a highlight of the trip how he managed to coax the bike into the services whilst his hands/wrists/elbows/shoulders/back were frozen into position. We looked for Kevin's bike as we re running about 15 mins late. No sign. I kept thinking, perhaps he's cancelled it. I think I was hoping more than thinking. As we parked our bikes next to each other in a car space I saw the right hand storm pannier cover before Julian did. It was ripped to shreds. All he could do was play with the shreds of plastic like it was going to fix it and make it all right.

Never before I have relished the thoughts of eating in a motorway service area until that morning. I had prevented my feet from getting a good soaking by using plastic bags, and my hands were protected with surgical gloves, but my oversuit seemed to let water run down my next and soak the front of my sweatshirt. We sat in the services and luckily received one below my threshold of 'Rather you than me' comments from everybody that walked passed us! 25 mins later I heard Kevin going through the car park. He had the disappointing news that cross channel services were suspended.

We decided to press on. Of course, nothing running. On the way though I witnessed a fantastic piece of riding where the Instructor tried to run down a well respected member of the Kent Constabulary at 80mph [I just wanted to see why he was standing in the middle of the motorway! KW]. I've got to say the police in this part of the world are quite expert with arm signals.

About 2 hrs later after warming up and drying out at the Hoverport we had just decided to do the course in Kent when an announcement seemed to suggest the services were being resumed. On the bikes, into the queue, then we find the Hovercraft was a test run to see what the conditions were like and we were being transferred to the next ferry. Over to the Eastern Docks only to find the three of us couldn't travel on the 11am sailing, but we could all get on the 1pm sailing. Judging by the weather and the time we would eventually arrive, we listened to Kevin and gave up on the whole idea of trying to reach France.

So we spent the afternoon taking it in turns leading whilst Kevin shouted at us, oh I mean, offered positive advice on how to stay up on two wheels in all sorts of riding conditions.

At this point we noticed Julian's second pannier storm cover was actually holding about two pints of dirty water. They are supposed to keep the rain out, not hold the pannier in water.

My favourite radio transmission that day happened when Julian was leading.

K: We will take the next turning on the left.
K: That's the next on the left, left
K: Take the next on the left, left
K: Indicate Left, we are going left, left, left.
K: Turn LEFT, LEFT
K: OK, we'll go straight on then

Only to repeat this on the next left! Julian had turned down the volume of the radio as it was distracting him.

The only bad part of the afternoon was it was the glorious weather! We should have been in France.

Well B&B was arranged in a very nice house with very nice gardens and a very strange landlady. We were sharing the room so when we were asked if we wanted a double bed or separate ones, we put on our deepest masculine voices and shouted SEPARATE in unison.

The evening was spent being driven around roads unknown to the Ordnance Survey mapping agency by Kevin, only to stumble upon a pub in the middle of nowhere. We got a well deserved pint of beer only to find the place had no spare tables for food. Whilst drinking our beer, the normal jukebox music changed into something loud and obviously 'not normal' - next thing, my mouth opens wide, I place my pint down before I drop it and have the vision of not one, which would be a vision in itself, but TWO ELVIS PRESLEYs gyrating around the bar. I look at the missing 5th of a pint...

Panic took over the four of us and we decided to the heck out of the place, (the fourth person being Kevin's brother, Leigh).

We then headed to another pub that had a French restaurant. You could tell it was French as the vegetarian choice was one dish called Chef's Surprise! They had good beer though, and I was really not hungry having been awake for a silly amount of hours. We finished off the meal with brandy, and headed to bed.

Next morning, this is getting irritating. Blue skies and sun. No wind. A perfect morning for riding. 24 hours before it was dreadful, even for the British weather standards. We spent the day putting into practice the lessons we had been taught the day before.

Part of Sunday was spent in a car park. Kevin placed some small orange cones out as a slalom course. Whilst he was doing this, I suggested to Julian we should act real dumb and just run them all over as though this was quite the most obvious thing to do. It was then decided it Julian did it first, I would follow. Well I went first and of course hit a cone across the car park. Shouts of "SORRY" when you are laughing your head off perhaps isn't the best way to apologise to the owner of the cones, but it was just too ironic I had only been joking about doing this with Julian a minute before.

I then got photographed looking like I was having a pooh. Not true, then we had a go at running Kevin down by practicing emergency stops.

Steve on his CBR600

Well on a couple of my stops, I was really surprised to find myself on the front wheel only. I've been over the handlebars numerous times on a push bike and have the scars, but didn't really consider until then that I could replace my small scars with bigger ones on a motorcycle. I'm off to practice quite a few more stops until I'm happy I can stop on the front wheel without going over the top. No good to stop 10 feet short of a Volvo only to land on the ground and have the bike crush you. Better to use 9 of those 10 feet, then kick the Volvo.

Things were more fun as we were riding faster. I was also really enjoying it as I was learning things, or more importantly getting shown how to put the theory I've learnt from books into practice.

Things were beginning to 'click' into place in a way I would never have thought possible. I guess that was the highlight for me. Well worth the cost of the course.

So guess what happened when it was time to depart? Yes, rain. Our journey to and from Kent would be marked by rain, with blues skies, pleasant temperatures, lights winds and starry nights in between!

On the way home, instead of me leading all of the way, we took it in turns. Much more enjoyable. We avoided the motorways as it would have been boring. We probably took over 4 times as long to get home as we would have done if we simply got on the motorway and just rode like we were in a car, but I guess a number of those hours can be blamed on sitting next to a fire in a pub chatting/planning our next assault of France. Same pub as we planned our first one.

Julian probably put more miles on his bike this weekend than he would do in two months of normal riding and was by any way you care to measure it, so much faster and safer on the way home. The transformation was a joy to watch either in following him or having his 'blue' headlamps remain in my mirror.

I can't wait until I go for a ride with him next.

So although we never got to France, we had a great time and we still have France to look forward to.

Thanks Kev.

Steve

p.s. I've had to miss out loads. Like Julian unpacking his panniers and wearing a pair of wet jeans to the pub Saturday night.

p.p.s. Or Kevin asking Julian at what speed does countersteering become effective. Julian replies, '30?', Kevin says, 'lower', so I reply in my baritone voice, '30?' "

Thanks for the write up Steve! See what I have to put up with on my courses?