August 10: A reality check (Edited 12th Aug)

Another riding class today — not a fun lesson, but a necessary one.

I did some riding within city limits together with the school’s owner, and after about half an hour we already returned.

We sat down for an honest talk after he had been observing me. The essence is this: Because I don’t have any other license I lack some essential traffic insights. I know the rules, but sometimes I lack certainty or I make bad calls which someone with more experience would likely avoid.

He told me I was standing on a crossroads between two options.

Option 1 was to continue on the current path and keep taking riding classes to improve. He said he’d love to welcome me for more classes, but only because they would make a lot of money out of this situation. (He’s a seriously honest and frank character.) The point being that they would have to spend a lot of hours with me until they would want to take me to more dangerous intersections and other types of ‘more interesting’ traffic situations. We’re talking about 50(!) classes or so.
He mentioned that there is a name within the trade for students who take this route: “A goldmine.”

Option 2 was to take a bit of a side quest. He knows I’m not interested in getting a car driver’s license, because I would barely ever use it in this urban area. But he said this: if I take a handful of car driving lessons in an automatic, 10 or 15 or so, we can likely achieve the same as in those 50 motorcycle riding classes. Because then if I make a bad decision the instructor can for example slam on the brakes, which tends to leave a lasting impression. During motorcycle classes it doesn’t really work the same way, as the instructor will have to warn by headset for problematic situations I’m not visibly addressing myself, and thus I don’t really learn from it because there is no ‘shock’.

As you can imagine, it was not a fun message to hear. But I wasn’t blind to the fact that things didn’t feel well, and the instructor’s message was basically: to do it properly, within a reasonable timeframe and without seeing other students (with prior experience) come and go while I stay on the same level, option 1 was probably not the one to take.

While the guy took a phone call, I stared out the window and weighed my options.
But honestly, I didn’t have a lot of weighing to do. Since stepping on a bike for the first time I knew it was something I want in life. And if one of my options is to get there responsibly, reasonably quickly and without spending a lot of extra time and money, then I will take that option with both hands.
So when we continued our conversation, I said yes to spending some time in what bikers lovingly call “a cage”.

The riding school’s owner will pair me up with a car instructor who also teaches riding (and who I’ve met in that capacity twice) so he knows my background and the reason why I’m in the car with him — not to learn the car perfectly or to learn how to do parallel parking, but just to learn how to read traffic better.

He may have noticed a little tremble in my voice (which I was trying hard to suppress) when I agreed, as he’s taking me for a free class just to sort of get used to the idea and to chat a bit more.
I expressed my appreciation for that favor, we scheduled a few things and then we just sat outside on the instruction lot for a bit, chatting about his motorcycle and how things were going for the riding school.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: I’m so thankful for him and the entire crew over there. They’re not just good educators, but they deeply care about what they do and they care about who you are as a person. Their humanity and honesty is some of the biggest motivation to take this side quest, aside of my intrinsic motivation to riding.

Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt though. It does. But it’s necessary.