Riding school rated
Taking advanced riding one stage further
Rapid Training on-road
WHEN IT COMES to advanced riding training, one acronym always occurs – IPSGA. Standing for Information, Position, Speed, Gear and Acceleration, nearly every school uses this as the core to its teaching philosophy on safer road riding. It also forms the basis for charities such as the IAM or ROSPA as well as the emergency services’ advanced rider training. However, while Rapid Training also uses this at its heart, it brings a fresh new thinking to the way it teaches students to become safer riders.
“Our training is designed to help anyone who has a full bike licence, from relative novices to returnees to two wheels to experienced riders who want to brush-up on their skills,” explains Rapid’s longstanding coach Mark Edwards. “However, we aren’t aiming to get riders to reach a certain level such as ROSPA or IAM; instead we want to offer something a bit different. There is nothing wrong at all with the training offered by such charities; in fact, they are very good and provide an excellent framework but at Rapid, we want to make people more intuitive riders, whereas the IAM and ROSPA can tend to be rather rigid in their teaching which can make riders quite wooden in their positioning and riding. Our coaching is about getting riders to think outside the box and further ahead.”
To me, this sounds a lot like when I first took my bike test, where I used a certain system to please the examiner and tick the relevant boxes before actually learning how to ride a bike ‘properly’ in the real world. So how does Rapid achieve this?
Rapid Training’s Bespoke half-day one-on-one (you can make it a day with two riders joining up) course takes place in a mutually-convenient area to both the rider and coach. Before the day, the coach will have a chat with you over the phone about what you want to get out of the session and your experience levels and organise a meeting point, with all the coaching taking place on the roads.
“We like to break the day down into shorter rides,” explains Mark, “so as not to overload the rider with information. We will go for a ride, chat over any points I’ve noticed about their riding and I’ll give a few suggestions on improvements and then we will carry on. A lot of students don’t know what they want to improve
upon, so the course is a bit like a riding
MOT for them and a quick first run is the ideal starting point and reveals a lot about their riding.” With Mark giving directions via an intercom, we start our day with a 40-minute ride with me leading the way.
I always struggle with assessed rides, as you inevitably ride a certain way when you know you are being watched, something Mark addresses before we start. “I always ask riders to ‘ride as you would naturally,’” he says. “If I think the riding is inappropriate, I will say so as we certainly aren’t exempt from speed limits but I need to see how someone would normally ride so that I can work on their skills.” Personally I like this attitude, as it is all too easy to ride how you think a coach wants you to ride and then slip back into old habits when they are no longer watching.
“You are obviously a very experienced rider,” says Mark during our first debrief after a 40-minute ride, “but there are a few areas I’d suggest you alter slightly.” After chatting about overtakes, Mark makes some really good points and the fact he doesn’t rigidly insist on using an indicator every time I overtake highlights Rapid’s more-relaxed approach. “I always think you should use them during overtakes if they are useful to other road users, not out of habit,” he says. “Indicators are a good visual guide to oncoming traffic that you are making a considered overtake, something that car drivers can sometimes be confused by as bikes can perform overtakes in far shorter distances than cars.” Then the inevitable question of speed comes up.
“You don’t leave much to spare in terms of speed going into bends,” Mark then comments. “I have no concerns you will make the corner, as you read the road well but you don’t consider any unexpected problems you may encounter and I’d like to see more room for movement. Back it off a few percent and you will have time to react if necessary.” Again, this is a totally fair point as, when I am riding ‘naturally’, I am riding more to the moment than anticipating what may possibly be hiding out of sight and is a further vindication of Rapid’s unique coaching philosophy. “Left-handers are worse than righthanders,” Mark continues, “as your visibility is more restricted and you can run out of stopping distance very quickly, so always be more cautions on them.”
For the rest of our time together, we go for short rides (Mark also does a commentary ride with me following, like many advanced rider courses do) interspersed with chats about situations we encountered. Mark’s advice is always delivered with very much a ‘real-world’ angle and, as we discuss points, he isn’t concerned if I give my opinion on a situation, which might be slightly different to his. And that’s what I really enjoyed about the day with Rapid Training; there was no right or wrong and I felt it was more like an adult discussion on improving my riding and safety on the road than being taught ‘by the book.’