THE lAST WoRD

ON THE TRAINING TRAIN

Cindy Bennett, Member #4170

You will have read about the Club’s Guidelines in relation to reimbursement for a training subsidy a few pages back in the Journal, which Tony has concisely written up.

I am a huge fan of ongoing training and the benefits that has brought to me as a rider. My first rider training was with Cycle Right Training here on the Southside when I undertook a “rider refresher” session in 2012 when planning to get back into riding again. After a 20+ year break from getting on the bike, it was a no-brainer to get some time on a bike in a controlled environment and coaching from a professional before exposing the greater Brisbane area to my two-wheeled shenanigans.

So Duncan and I did some training on Honda 250 bikes around their circuit and confidence duly restored we hit the bike retailers to get our wheels!

After a year of so of pottering around the roads we felt adventure beckoning in the form of a 2 wheel trip overseas. We decided on South America and the trip that suited our schedule involved some dirt riding, yikes!! So off to do some training. Compass Expeditions who out trip was booked with had a conveniently scheduled ‘Off Road Skills’ training weekend in Mansfield VIC a couple of months before we departed. Brilliant.

The structure and professionalism of this weekend was second to none, and we learned a lot of new skills to practice. We even practiced the most important skill – picking up a fallen bike! So off to South America we went and had an absolute ball which got us hooked on this amazing way to see the world. Never a bus, train or push bike trip for us again.

Heading back to reality we did more off road riding around the local area but changed road surfaces to a one day Top Rider California Superbike School lesson one session with Bernie Hatton down at Pimpama. Cornering method went from hang on and pray to awesome fun - Duncan has never stopped raving about what this day did for him.

We signed up for another Off Road Skills, this time down in Tasmania in November 2015. This time as well we would do the 5 day ride out afterwards. This really helped with skill development and got rid of some bad habits, and introduced us to the “joys” of sand riding!