Survival Skills Evening Training Sessions

[The Spin Doctor]

Although I've been offering evening training courses for many years, I've always been a bit surprised so few riders book them up, particularly as riders are quite happy to head off on a ride out in the evening sun and relatively empty roads!

Right now, we have daylight until after 9pm, so it's quite possible to start as late as 7pm and still get a good two hours riding in.

So it was nice to get a call from Simon a few days ago, asking if I had an evening free in the next few days. I did, and he booked in.

We had the online briefing mid-afternoon, and after a slight scare as heavy black clouds came overhead about 5:30 (see my weather guarantee!), with the rain radar suggested any rainfall was further east, we met up at one of my M25 / M40 start points.

From there, the route takes us straight out onto some lovely roads over the Chilterns and down into the Thames Valley, and back again.

They're a good mix of faster, sweeping bends and slower, more awkward corners, including this little section of blind bends on a surprisingly steep drop and climb.



Simon's a returning rider, getting back in to biking after a twenty year break - hence the Confidence: BUILDER course he booked up. In the event, it was great to see that Simon coped with pretty much everything I threw his way, and also took the 'tweaks' advice on board to smooth out his cornering even more.

I know some people think that two hours riding isn't much but in fact, Simon was clearly starting to feel the strain of concentrating hard over the last few miles, so almost bang on 9pm I pulled into a filling station not too far from where he lives, and called it quits for the evening.

We both had a great evening out, and we'll follow up the session with a debrief, which will include a full analysis of the on-bike video I captured of parts of his ride.