MSF Class

This weekend Terri and I successfully completed the MSF course at Apex. It made for a long weekend with a 6-11 class Friday evening, then up at 5 am for 6:30 class time on Saturday and Sunday. Friday was a combined class, with 12 of our class and 12 of the weekend afternoon students.

Classroom time was fast paced and we covered a lot of material. It was an open discussion/video format, with about 80 questions that we took turns answering as groups.

Saturday morning we got acquainted with the bikes, starting with the location and function of the controls. Most of the bikes were Rebels, like Terri's, just beat to hell. So we both ended up with Rebels. We started out duck walking the bikes, then power walking them, working our way up to more complex tasks. Most of the people in the class had zero experience, and the pace and instruction was designed to allow complete beginners to gain familiarity and confidence. By the end of the day everyone was actually riding the bikes and feeling pretty good. One guy went down in a braking exercise, no harm, no foul. The name of the game was safety, control, and confidence.

After class we came home and took a nap, then went out for a ride to take Sam to a party, then picked up Jason for dinner and then dropped him off to spend time with a friend. Terri and I rode some of the gentle twisty roads nearby for a total of 60+ miles for her.

Sunday morning we started getting into more complex riding tasks. Hard braking, decreasing radius turns, swerving, and the dreaded "box" which is a figure-8 exercise in a fairly confined space. We finished on the range with our evaluations, which were based pretty much on those more complex tasks. Terri won't tell me her score but the only mistake I saw her make was her front tire coming outside the box. I managed the best skills evaluation score in the class with just 2 points taken off. One for a slightly low speed through the curves, and one for grabbing a handful of throttle along with clutch and brakes on the hard stop.

The written test was 50 questions, Terri and I both got the same question wrong but for different reasons. Tim, one of our instructors, said that our results didn't bode well for the afternoon class because we all passed, which is kind of unusual.

Although I had already passed my DMV test (which I felt was more difficult for a couple of reasons) and had my full license, I still got a lot out of the class. There's a lot of instruction not just on the skills but also on the riding environment. How to eliminate as many risk factors as possible and manage those you can't. The value of practice, and the confidence in bike handling so that the physical operation is automatic and instinctive, allowing you to concentrate on the things you aren't in control of. Terri can take her completion card and get her license now, and we can get a discount on our already very reasonable insurance costs.

Time and money well spent as far as I'm concerned. Terri even asked me today when I was going to have her bike ready for her to be able to ride to work!

Better than quarterly?

Just a quick update to try to ease people's minds a little bit based on the last post. I managed to get Terri and I enrolled in the MSF Basic RiderCourse taught here locally by Apex Cycle Education here locally. They are not the least expensive classes available, but they do come highly recommended. The course is 5 hours of classroom time and 10 hours of structured motorcycle time in a controlled and tightly supervised environment. They do not promise you that you will pass the course, but if you do, they are authorized by the DMV to issue you a 30 day license, and you then just walk into the DMV and pay your fee for your motorcycle endorsement.

For what it's worth, Terri and I both have our motorcycle learner's permits, and we both earned perfect scores on the written exam.