Toecutter
What would DoG do?
So, yesterday I went to an event which was a first for me, and a first for the Fresno Police Department, an open-participation rider skills clinic hosted by two of the motor division's training officers.
First, there was a short gathering for some lecture. Then, one of the officers explained things while the other officer demonstrated their low-speed skills course. This was the same course used for recruit academy, which is two weeks long, with an average 40% washout rate. The toughest pattern involved three U-turns in less space than four parking stalls wide and one deep. The "easiest" one was a series of several pairs of cones about three feet apart, with a matching set about 25 feet away, kinda like this:
o
o
o
o
You go between the cones, then across to the other set in a serpentine fashion, like a big, slow slalom.
Oh yeah, they teach no dragging of the rear brake, only clutch and throttle to control speed. They claim it makes for better riders. In four different attempts, two in each direction, I never got through totally clean, without a dab, a little brake, or hooking a cone with the rear wheel, and my low speed skills are a far sight better than they were back when I dropped my bike, that fateful Sept. 11th day, 2005.
I didn't bother trying any of the three other, more difficult patterns. On the last run, I almost dropped 'er. :blink:
The guy who demo'd the course did the above pattern with his clutch hand off the bars. I'm a flounder. I'm also so glad that I got the opportunity to do this. It was put on by the local BMW dealer, and the vast majority of the 30 or so bikes that showed were Beemers. Only about 12 of us had enough courage to run the patterns, and at least three of the bikes were dropped that I saw.
Well, maybe it wasn't all about courage...
The officer spent a lot of time explaining the inherent danger of doing this kind of training with a dry clutch. He also said that when they run the motor's school, they use Kawasaki's, because "They're just bulletproof". In other words, a BMW would probably not survive two weeks of clutch-slipping, but he did say that the new 1200's handle the course better than the Kawi's and the two ST1300's they have on the force. Darn, those Honda's don't do slow or fast very well.
He then went on to a street-riding overview, as they teach. When they investigate an officer-involved motorcycle incident, there are only two outcomes: At-fault and avoidable. They believe that they are in control of their machines, and there is very rarely an incident where the officer had no control on the outcome.
They enforce a riding strategy for survival based on a mnemonic: SPA
When he explained it I felt rather liberated, as it's what I've been doing since I started driving, 32 years ago...
S - Search - Constantly and in EVERY direction.
P - Predict - What could each threat do that would endanger me?
A - Act - Be ready to immediately take evasive action, based on the plan you developed during the Predict phase.
They teach "Steer to the rear". Going for the back end of a moving vehicle. Makes sense to me. They also require their officers to be able to stop a non-ABS bike in 78 or less feet from 45mph. They teach to always cover the clutch, in case of a panic stop, as it will stop the feeding of power to the rear wheel and allow you to stop faster.
It was nice to hear some reinforcement from a professional, and gain confidence in my already-sound riding strategy.
I got invited to attend their quarterly refresher training, Wednesday afternoon, but only to watch. That's all I'll need, I can practice on my own, once I know how to practice. And I'll be networking with bunches of guys who wield the local radar guns. Never a bad thing....
First, there was a short gathering for some lecture. Then, one of the officers explained things while the other officer demonstrated their low-speed skills course. This was the same course used for recruit academy, which is two weeks long, with an average 40% washout rate. The toughest pattern involved three U-turns in less space than four parking stalls wide and one deep. The "easiest" one was a series of several pairs of cones about three feet apart, with a matching set about 25 feet away, kinda like this:
o
o
o
o
You go between the cones, then across to the other set in a serpentine fashion, like a big, slow slalom.
Oh yeah, they teach no dragging of the rear brake, only clutch and throttle to control speed. They claim it makes for better riders. In four different attempts, two in each direction, I never got through totally clean, without a dab, a little brake, or hooking a cone with the rear wheel, and my low speed skills are a far sight better than they were back when I dropped my bike, that fateful Sept. 11th day, 2005.
I didn't bother trying any of the three other, more difficult patterns. On the last run, I almost dropped 'er. :blink:
The guy who demo'd the course did the above pattern with his clutch hand off the bars. I'm a flounder. I'm also so glad that I got the opportunity to do this. It was put on by the local BMW dealer, and the vast majority of the 30 or so bikes that showed were Beemers. Only about 12 of us had enough courage to run the patterns, and at least three of the bikes were dropped that I saw.
Well, maybe it wasn't all about courage...
The officer spent a lot of time explaining the inherent danger of doing this kind of training with a dry clutch. He also said that when they run the motor's school, they use Kawasaki's, because "They're just bulletproof". In other words, a BMW would probably not survive two weeks of clutch-slipping, but he did say that the new 1200's handle the course better than the Kawi's and the two ST1300's they have on the force. Darn, those Honda's don't do slow or fast very well.
He then went on to a street-riding overview, as they teach. When they investigate an officer-involved motorcycle incident, there are only two outcomes: At-fault and avoidable. They believe that they are in control of their machines, and there is very rarely an incident where the officer had no control on the outcome.
They enforce a riding strategy for survival based on a mnemonic: SPA
When he explained it I felt rather liberated, as it's what I've been doing since I started driving, 32 years ago...
S - Search - Constantly and in EVERY direction.
P - Predict - What could each threat do that would endanger me?
A - Act - Be ready to immediately take evasive action, based on the plan you developed during the Predict phase.
They teach "Steer to the rear". Going for the back end of a moving vehicle. Makes sense to me. They also require their officers to be able to stop a non-ABS bike in 78 or less feet from 45mph. They teach to always cover the clutch, in case of a panic stop, as it will stop the feeding of power to the rear wheel and allow you to stop faster.
It was nice to hear some reinforcement from a professional, and gain confidence in my already-sound riding strategy.
I got invited to attend their quarterly refresher training, Wednesday afternoon, but only to watch. That's all I'll need, I can practice on my own, once I know how to practice. And I'll be networking with bunches of guys who wield the local radar guns. Never a bad thing....
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