Last weekend we had a young lad in for a CBT on a geared bike; when he booked in he made a point of stating that all his mates ride and he is as good as them blah blah blah
The usual self delusion that we often hear
The lad has no road experience at all, let's call him Z for future reference.
My colleague did his CBT and he was, as anticipated, very weak and not good enough to go on the road. He was taken out on the road on the back of the instructor so he could still learn and see what he needs to achieve. He then booked his comeback which I did with him on Thursday.
I had another student who was on a twist and go and had done a CBT previous and had about four years experience so no problems there. This allowed me to concentrate on Z on a one to one basis almost to the exclusion of the other student, I did my damnedest to improve his skills to get him road ready. By lunchtime I had improved his skills to a level where he looked in control and safe enough to give it a go on the road. He was not great but he was ok and I felt it fair to give him a shot. My expectations were not high but I hoped he might prove me wrong. My feelings were that once on the road he would go to pieces and his control would desert him; this proved to be prescient.
Well, sadly my expectation were proved correct, Z proceeded to stall the bike at every stop - every time he failed to bring the clutch in despite me talking him through the sequence on approach via the radio. At one roundabout he pushed the bike over the white line with his legs
and then stalled it when he tried to pull away. The final straw was when after being told to "follow the road ahead and at the lights turn right" he then executed a totally unpredictable and aggressive change of direction into a left turn without any observations or warnings of any sort and then repeated this at another junction. It was obvious that whilst he could "hear" what I was telling him over the radio in terms of instruction and directions none of it was being processed due to his being unable to cope with the stress of being on the road.
After 20-25 minutes I made the decision on safety grounds to take him back and to put him on the back of my bike before he caused an accident. He wasn't doing what I told him, his riding was getting worse and he wasn't going where I was telling him. His unpredictability was dangerous. In his own words he was "overwhelmed and panicky" due to the sheer volume of things he had to think about. At the end of the 2 hour road ride when I was happy with the other student I put Z on the moped for 10 minutes on the road to see how he got on. I didn't have to do this but I wanted to help him as much as I could and he was a lot better without a clutch and gears to worry about.
I advised him to come back and do the day again on the moped and he would be sure to get through; this would give him the transport he craved for commuting to work and with a year's road experience I advised him to think about going onto a geared bike and we would help him with that. He went away seemingly happy with that, no complaints and shook my hand and thanked me for my efforts.
He has since been to another school and has been given a CBT ticket and has complained to us in scathing, abusive and slanderous terms, saying we were incompetent and he would never recommend us to others. Now it is quite possible that he may have been good enough to get a CBT ticket bearing in mind the school he has gone to has benefited from the fact that the hard work has already been done by us in his previous two days training, he has also probably done it on a moped as per my advice. I would be amazed if he has done it on a geared bike - if he has then he has been issued with a death warrant not a CBT. He probably thinks the school that has issued him with his ticket is the dog's danglies whilst conveniently forgetting that the main reason he has a ticket is due to the bloody hard preparatory work that me and Steve put in.
What really sticks in my craw is the sheer ingratitude of the twat; he had almost one to one instruction and both me and Steve worked our socks off to help him through his incompetence. Our priority was always his safety which he has conveniently ignored. Simon, the owner, always backs us to the hilt when we make decisions on the basis of student safety so I have no problems with that. What really pisses me off is that there seems to be a generation out there with a sense of entitlement and who have never had the word "no" said to them and because they are not good enough to get what they want then it is obviously somebody else's fault and responsibility.
Is it me
The usual self delusion that we often hear The lad has no road experience at all, let's call him Z for future reference.My colleague did his CBT and he was, as anticipated, very weak and not good enough to go on the road. He was taken out on the road on the back of the instructor so he could still learn and see what he needs to achieve. He then booked his comeback which I did with him on Thursday.
I had another student who was on a twist and go and had done a CBT previous and had about four years experience so no problems there. This allowed me to concentrate on Z on a one to one basis almost to the exclusion of the other student, I did my damnedest to improve his skills to get him road ready. By lunchtime I had improved his skills to a level where he looked in control and safe enough to give it a go on the road. He was not great but he was ok and I felt it fair to give him a shot. My expectations were not high but I hoped he might prove me wrong. My feelings were that once on the road he would go to pieces and his control would desert him; this proved to be prescient.
Well, sadly my expectation were proved correct, Z proceeded to stall the bike at every stop - every time he failed to bring the clutch in despite me talking him through the sequence on approach via the radio. At one roundabout he pushed the bike over the white line with his legs
and then stalled it when he tried to pull away. The final straw was when after being told to "follow the road ahead and at the lights turn right" he then executed a totally unpredictable and aggressive change of direction into a left turn without any observations or warnings of any sort and then repeated this at another junction. It was obvious that whilst he could "hear" what I was telling him over the radio in terms of instruction and directions none of it was being processed due to his being unable to cope with the stress of being on the road.After 20-25 minutes I made the decision on safety grounds to take him back and to put him on the back of my bike before he caused an accident. He wasn't doing what I told him, his riding was getting worse and he wasn't going where I was telling him. His unpredictability was dangerous. In his own words he was "overwhelmed and panicky" due to the sheer volume of things he had to think about. At the end of the 2 hour road ride when I was happy with the other student I put Z on the moped for 10 minutes on the road to see how he got on. I didn't have to do this but I wanted to help him as much as I could and he was a lot better without a clutch and gears to worry about.
I advised him to come back and do the day again on the moped and he would be sure to get through; this would give him the transport he craved for commuting to work and with a year's road experience I advised him to think about going onto a geared bike and we would help him with that. He went away seemingly happy with that, no complaints and shook my hand and thanked me for my efforts.
He has since been to another school and has been given a CBT ticket and has complained to us in scathing, abusive and slanderous terms, saying we were incompetent and he would never recommend us to others. Now it is quite possible that he may have been good enough to get a CBT ticket bearing in mind the school he has gone to has benefited from the fact that the hard work has already been done by us in his previous two days training, he has also probably done it on a moped as per my advice. I would be amazed if he has done it on a geared bike - if he has then he has been issued with a death warrant not a CBT. He probably thinks the school that has issued him with his ticket is the dog's danglies whilst conveniently forgetting that the main reason he has a ticket is due to the bloody hard preparatory work that me and Steve put in.
What really sticks in my craw is the sheer ingratitude of the twat; he had almost one to one instruction and both me and Steve worked our socks off to help him through his incompetence. Our priority was always his safety which he has conveniently ignored. Simon, the owner, always backs us to the hilt when we make decisions on the basis of student safety so I have no problems with that. What really pisses me off is that there seems to be a generation out there with a sense of entitlement and who have never had the word "no" said to them and because they are not good enough to get what they want then it is obviously somebody else's fault and responsibility.
Is it me
no fucker wants to earn anything on ability and merit these days.
