Training School

Riding for just over a year, RIDE’S Sarah Norman is now doing advanced training. This month she’s learnt more about Road position

ROAD POSITIONING has always been a bit of a mystery to me. When I started riding I was convinced the safest place was the centre of my lane. Now I’ve got a few thousand miles under my belt and have seen my fellow bikers constantly changing their road positions for different riding situations, I realise there’s more to it. So I booked myself onto a training day at Advanced Motorcycle Training in Stoke-on-trent with former police riding instructor and ROSPA examiner, Nigel Bowers.

I learnt to ride using the one-to-three system of road positioning, with position one in the left of the lane near the gutter, position two in the middle and position three between the white line and the centre. Nigel explained that during my CBT and DAS, this is the safest way to teach, given the amount of information a new rider needs to take in.

Now I’ve passed, though, Nigel took the three-position theory a little further. He carved the lane up into five positions with one as the nearside line (the gutter side) and five as the offside line (the white line). As you can get grit and loose debris or oil dropped in position three (the centre of the road), he began to encourage me to use positions two and four, constantly changing between them, depending on the approaching bend.

For left-hand bends I moved to position four and for right-hand bends, position two. I found this was a real game-changer, as moving away from the centre of the lane opened up my view of the corners, allowing me to see further. I was able to lift my head in the way I’d heard so many riders saying you should, planning much better for each corner. This immediately made my riding much smoother and, as a result, quicker.

Once I’d mastered the position, Nigel encouraged me to hold the throttle ‘just’ open all the way through the bend enough to stop the bike slowing as it leans over and provide a little forward drive. This improves the grip the bike finds and allows you to twist and go away from the corner.

It seemed a little alien at first but I’ve been practising it and it’s coming more naturally. Nigel films the ride and sends you a DVD of footage captured from the front and rear of his bike. Watching this back really helped put it all in place.

“I’ve been practising it and it’s coming more naturally”