From 27 April 2009, the DSA is introducing a new motorcycle practical test. For those of you that do not yet have a full motorcycle license, a lot is about to change!

The current test

Currently, the test involves just riding on the road, with the examiner on a separate vehicle following you, telling you via intercom where to go - as well as an eyesight test and some bike maintenance/handling questions. You need to make sure you follow all the rules, ride at the appropriate speed, appropriate position on the road, and so on. Sometime during this test, you will need to show two special manoeuvres; a U-turn and an emergency stop. both are usually done one after the other - the examiner will ask you to pull over and get off your bike. He will then tell you to push the bike (while walking!) in a U-turn to the other side of the road. Then you should get on the bike, start it and when it is safe, do a U-turn to the position you initially stopped at. Then he will give you instructions for your Emergency Stop manoeuvre; at a speed of about 20-25 mph approach the examiner, when he raises his hand, you bring the motorcycle to a stop, safely and as quickly as you can, without any skidding or loss of control! When you’re stopped, you check your mirrors, put it in first gear, check your shoulders, indicate left and pull over on the side of the road.

So far so good, you basically need to know how to ride on the road; abiding by the rules and without interfering with other traffic. One would think that that would be all that can reasonably be expected from a new rider……….. But apparently not so - because this new test is being introduced!

The new test

Apparently the DSA seems to think that motorcyclists and moped riders are a hazard to themselves and/or other road users (”They have a high risk of injury or death”) - not taking into account that if you’re on two wheels without protective bodywork surrounding you, you will always have a higher risk of injury or death, even if the accident wasn’t your fault to begin with.

So they’re introducing this new test which is supposed to make every new rider extremely skilled and safe on the road. The new test will have two parts; an off road part where various manoeuvres are to be performed at slow as well as higher speeds and an on road part, which seems to be quite similar to what the current test is. So the off road part is where the problem lies:

• at least 2 slow speed manoeuvres including a slalom
• at least 2 higher speed manoeuvres; one at 19mph or more (second or third gear) and one exercise where you need to avoid an obstacle at 32mph or more.
• at least 2 braking manoeuvres, including an emergency stop at 32mph or more.

This causes a whole host of problems; not only is the level of expertise they demand extremely high and unreasonable for a new rider, also do some of the minimum speed requirements exclude certain lower cc vehicles from even being used for the test (In a limited space, get to 32mph and swerve to avoid an obstacle stop without riding off the course!)

One of the slow speed manoeuvres involves for instance riding your bike in first gear while the examiner walks around the course at varying speeds, and you’re supposed to stay next to him at his pace throughout.

OK so it’s tough, but practically what will change?

At the moment, it is possible for a novice to do a 5 day training course with an approved motorcycle training school and pass the practical test at the end of it. This currently would cost maybe around 600-700 quid (depending on whether you hire a bike or use your own).

However, talking to some of the instructors I’ve learned from myself, they found the new test extremely tough themselves! And I’m talking about guys with years and years of riding experience!

So for the new test, any course you were planning on taking, add another two days (roughly £200) on top of that, and MAYBE you’ll pass. So for a complete beginner, at least 7 days of consecutive training will be required. For a more experienced rider, 5 days instead of 3.

The implications do not just end there. If it’s so difficult to pass a test, many people may just give up before starting. The instructor I learned from is already looking at alternate career options, should nobody want to do motorcycle training any more after the new test is introduced.

It’s not rocket science to figure out that if the test is more difficult, less people will do it. Instead they might ride without a license (not ideal) or they will keep driving cars and whatever else can be driven with a car license (trikes, quads, etc.) which in turn will increase congestion.

All I can say is, I’m glad I passed my test before this insanity started. And not only is this a prime example that people sitting behind desks shouldn’t actually make any decisions, it is also an absolute triumph for red-tapeism - from those that invented it!

So this weekend we ended up at Lidl once again.. we’re in the process of planning a trip on the bike this Easter Weekend, so decided to give the wireless intercom system a go, which Lidl is/was selling with all the other cheap biker stuff they offered. Read more about it in my post “El-Cheapo Biker Gear“.

As I explained in the previous post, Lidl was selling two types of communication devices for use on motorcycles. One for around 8 quid, which is basically a little box, with two headsets and a bunch of generic cell phone connectors. The little box has an audio in jack also, so you could attach it to a satnav or mp3 player and both people can listen to it with their head sets.

This product is a very very basic system - the headsets attach around your ear, and you are both plugged into each other so getting on and off the bike requires unplugging. It is a bit fiddly, the sound quality is OK but don’t expect to be able to hear one another above the roar of riding at motorway speeds.

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to focus on in this post. So since we already bought this basic intercom system last year, now we wanted to upgrade to something more sophisticated, less limiting and able to cope in case we’re riding separate motorcycles. So we picked up the Twintalker 6800 system at Lidl.

What’s included?

Each box contains one system (so if you intend to actually communicate with another person you’ll need to buy two!)

You get:

• Two headphone speakers and a microphone which attach to the inside of your helmet with velcro;
• A push button you can strap to your handlebar, so you press it to transmit before saying anything.
• A walkie-talkie (with belt clip) which can be used separately as well; if you don’t plug in the head set or button, just use the hand held walkie-talkie while walking around town. It supposedly has a range of 5km, however we were not able to verify this just yet.
• Four AAA batteries (rechargeable)
• A car adapter to charge your walkie-talkie with
• An AC adapter also for charging.

The walkie-talkies have 8 channels and 38 frequency settings. This means that you can only hear the other person if both walkie-talkies are set to the same channel and setting - so you have plenty to choose from in order to get rid of interference from other people.

You can also set the walkie-talkie to VOX - Voice Operated Transmission; doing away with the push button system if you prefer. We have not actually tried this yet, so cannot comment on whether wind noise interferes with the VOX.

Practicality: If you’re used to fiddling with this sort of thing, and are able to permanently stick your headset to the inside of your helmet, it may be easy and hassle-free. However, this being our first such system, we played around wit our helmets for quite a while, before finding a comfortable spot for everything. My husband was able to permanently stick his headset in the helmet and get rid of wiring behind the foam padding at the back, however my helmet is not so versatile. This means the headset has to be removed every time you want to go out without the intercom system. The wiring they give with this system is excessively long! This may be useful if you’re putting the walkie-talkie under your seat and feeding the wires through your jacket and into your helmet, but if you want to keep the walkie-talkie on your person, it’s really too much wire!

Sound Quality: The walkie-talkies on their own are fine, sound quality is as you would expect from such a device. It’s not a cellphone or a direct line, so some disturbance is to be expected. Now, when attaching the headsets inside the helmets, that’s where things get tricky. It is absolutely vital for the sound to come across clearly, that the microphone is positioned correctly. When we just tried it the first time, the sound quality was so horrible we couldn’t understand each other. The trick is to position the microphone around 1/2 inch from your mouth, but away from your breath so you don’t keep blowing on it while breathing or talking. We found that keeping it roughly between the lower lip and chin is the most ideal spot. It will still be close enough to pick up your voice, but not your breath.

Finish: The finish is quite crappy; although the wiring and connectors seem sturdy enough from the outside, when you stick the headphones into your helmet, some soldering is uncovered near the velcro, which looks like it might let go should you tug the wires too hard. Also, the connector in the pushbutton wire of my husband’s system was already missing a pin when we got it. Looking inside, all the connectors have extremely flimsy looking pins. Be careful to align both connectors properly before pushing them in, otherwise they will break or bend!

Value: Each Set (walkie-talkie, head set, adapters etc.) comes for 24.95 at Lidl. Now if you compare this with the manufacturer’s own online store; EUR 49.99, I think Lidl is quite reasonable. I must add though that for the usual price, taking into account exchange rates, I wouldn’t have bought this system. However, for little under 25 pounds per piece, it’s OK, maybe there are better systems out there, but they come at a cost!

Overall verdict: They’re not as good as some of the professional intercoms I’ve been exposed to (used in motorcycle training and driving test) but then those system’s didn’t cost just £50 for two sets. I’ll get back to this after using the intercom on a motorway journey with the final decision on whether they’re fun as a toy, or worth using for long trips.

Who doesn’t like a bargain? I for one am completely crazy about bargains. From Electronics to vehicles, I love to look around auctions and classified ads, to see if something catches my eye. Now (un)fortunately this trait is shared by my husband as well. And one of our favourite pastimes is browsing Ebay Motors, to look at the offering of cars and motorcycles. Now it’s true that you are risking getting a raw deal - perhaps someone lists a vehicle with hidden problems, or worse yet, there is no vehicle at all, yet you end up paying a deposit after winning that tempting auction…

However, that’s a very small part of buying vehicles on Ebay. Let me tell you my own personal experiences buying the Honda CB500 on Ebay…

In a place not far from here, in a time long long ago (1 mile from here, 1 year and 2 months ago)….

My husband was miserable taking the bus to work every day (Men! Especially those that love to drive!). And it didn’t help that we had planned to go to Ace Cafe that day with some acquaintances… We had the idea firmly in our heads that we needed a motorcycle. Now the alternatives to Ebay, especially because we were on a tight budget, couldn’t really compete. Our budget was £1000 including insurance and a helmet, and AutoTrader had nothing appropriate within that range, but Ebay had lots of bikes, ready to go; Taxed, MOT’ed and in full working order!

So it had to be Ebay. We had picked two bikes we were interested in; a Honda CB250 (because it was cute, and at the time I was hoping I’d get to keep it), and a CB500 - fairly impulsive decisions both of them, we did not go and see them in advance even!

So after coming back from Ace Cafe, both bike auctions were set to finish within 30 minutes from each other. That evening, I (being the nerd in the house) had the nerve wrecking task of winning a bike in an auction. My first ever Ebay auction actually! The CB250 was first up, and I tried my best (crude) Ebay bidding strategy. It involved just placing a bid and seeing what would happen. I didn’t bid particularly high, instead I saw the minutes count down, kept refreshing the page, and was outbid (or “sniped” as they call it) within the last 30 seconds of the end of the auction - too soon to do anything about! Of course I was devastated for a moment there, but went right on to the next auction. Had a quick discussion on what the plan of action should be - pestering my husband to give me an exact figure he wouldn’t go above under any circumstance (response: “I don’t know!”). And this time I waited patiently, until about 2 minutes before the end of the auction. I bid some amount I came up with myself. As those two minutes passed, I furiously kept refreshing, and even increased my bid a little to prevent the previous sniping experience from happening again!

As many of you must have noticed, the last bit of the auction is where all the action happens! And indeed, someone tried to steal this bike away as well, but didn’t bid high enough so that night itself, we had gotten ourselves into completely uncharted territory! About to buy a bike, from a guy we didn’t know, who said he didn’t have the V5 back from the DVLA yet as he’d just bought the bike not so long ago, without even seeing the bike in advance! We arranged for some insurance, called the seller to arrange a day and time for the pick up.. and before we knew it, we were on a bus to Staines (where we’d never been before), carrying 792.20 in cash, one helmet, and a print out from Multimap. We reached in the pitch dark, managed to somehow find the road we were looking for, and my husband had his first go at riding the bike. Luckily it was an easy match for him, and he rode it all the way home, while I went back on the bus again (as I didn’t have a helmet).

Luckily all ended well, the V5 was sent to us within a few weeks, and now it’s still working and being used by me to commute every day. But it could’ve gone quite wrong! In my next post I will give some tips and precautions you should take if you are looking to buy a vehicle off Ebay.