Same here.
I've had close family friends pass away on bikes. My Dad ironically doing most of the damage to himself in a car accent in which he was the only person involved.
I did this free 'Get On' initiative thing recently with cbt 4 you and it was awful.
Firstly, the website claimed to have sites all over london and right by my gaff. This isn't true. I had to go to cruddy bit of the docklands, east of London City Airport.
When I got there, the place was barely signposted. I had to ask in a cabin on a massive building site where the place was. Luckily the instructor was even more late than me.
2 other guys waiting. One guy had ridden and twist & go moped before and another fella who had been on a geared bike in a field once before however long ago.
We get a talk through helmets, cleaning them etc. Then the instructor gets a bike out and talks us through that.
This is the point when stuff got wacky. Turns out the spot they ride on is a few miles away (maybe 3) and their 'big' training ground is only open on sundays. So the Instructor starts explaining he'll have to shuttle us backwards and forwards one at a time... unless someone has enough knowledge to follow he on a bike, then it would be "easier". "Twist & Go" fella steps up to the plate, I'm ready to go on the back of the instructors bike. The other lad starts trying to start the bike but its in gear and he keeps failing... turns out he doesn't know the difference between the words 'manual' and 'automatic'... but he is spanish. So now the next guy has a go. He's a bit better and gets going slowly after stalling a few times, keep in mind we've done nothing at all on the bikes or highway code or road positioning yet, and then 2 seconds later, we're on a dual carriageway heading round Cyprus DLR way with massive industrial vehicles.
It's at this point the student drops the radio out of his pocket, so he pulls over and the instructor (still with me on the back) pulls over to wait for him to explain what he did. The instructor tells him to wait while we have a look. So we zoom up to the next roundabout and then down the other side of the road to a bigger roundabout were I'm expecting a scary moment having to go through a few lanes of traffic, only the instructor mounts the pavement at a pelican crossing, cuts the corner of the junction to the roundabout going anticlockwise in opposition to traffic, rides over some chevrons and effectively does a U-turn to go back up the opposite side of the carriageway to look for the radio, which eventually he finds in the middle of the road.
After that, we sort the radio out and set off again. The student on his bike stalls while pulling across traffic while turning right. Light change and he's stuck. The instructor starts yelling at him down the radio while he's getting passed by massive trucks. It was crazy. Eventually we arrive at a school and the Instructor goes off to get the other guy who has been waiting all this time to be shuttled over. Turns out the training patch is an unused bit of school playground, which is through a used bit of school playground. So at 'lunch time' we got stranded by kids being in the area we needed to get through to leave. Also gave us a nice audience.
I must admit, I struggled at first and because 3 people had 2 bikes, I started to hold the others up, although I don't think I was any less safe (one guys emergency stop didn't actually include a stop). I had difficulty with a few things but being a total novice at anything involving an engine I was ready for that and thats why I decided to do this free thing to gain experience. I did get going ok but by the time I'd go to that point the others were a bit ahead and I couldn't practice by myself because the area was too small and we only had 2 bikes between 3 people. I almost walked off a few times but my own jacket was back in the office a few miles away. I enjoyed the Instructor telling us about his preferred methods for smoking weed also.
All in all... it was pretty insane. I still want to learn but I think I might do CBT up north when I visit my dad. I'll know the roads and I should be able to find a more reputably bunch to do it with. Glad i didn't pay £120 for that experience, like the other two guys.
