Devitt Bikesafe Training Day

Fancy being safer, quicker and smoother while riding your bike? Who wouldn’t, right? But how best to achieve that goal? There’s any number of training options out there these days, aimed at folk who’ve already passed their full motorcycle test, but are looking to take their riding skills to the next level.

You can spend time with RoSPA or IAM instructors completing their various advanced riding courses on the road, or you can explore more extreme bike handling techniques on race track-based schools. Some folk even plump for off-road training schemes, and learn their skills there.

I’ve had a go at a few of these over the years, with varying levels of success. But I’ve never tried the Bikesafe scheme – a police-backed initiative to reduce motorcycle accidents across the UK. It’s been up and running for about 20 years now, and is a bit unusual, inasmuch as it isn’t a traditional training course. Rather, it involves a bit of classroom learning, followed by a rideout, where your riding is assessed by an advanced police motorcyclist.

Devitt BikeSafe Training Day

You receive feedback throughout the day, and at a final debrief, where the Bikesafe instructor focuses on the areas he or she thinks you need to work on. The idea is that, armed with this information, you can improve your own riding, and then maybe go on to complete some advanced training – like the RoSPA or IAM schemes mentioned above – that improves the areas identified for improvement.

Devitt Insurance works alongside Bikesafe, providing ten per cent discounts on policies for riders who complete a course, as well as sponsoring the actual courses themselves. And so when the firm asked me to go along to check it out, I jumped at the opportunity. Because the truth is that most of us don’t put much effort into those goals once we’ve passed our test.

Alan on the Devitt BikeSafe Training Day

I’m probably fairly typical amongst, er, older riders, in that I survived by a sort of ‘sink or swim’ method. There wasn’t a lot of post-test training available in Scotland the late 1980s and early 90s when I was learning my two-wheeled trade; I picked up my skills by experience, reading the odd feature on better riding in magazines, and from the ‘baptism of fire’ provided by working as a motorcycle courier in Glasgow for 18 months.

Nowadays, I’m a bit of an old dog in terms of riding. But ‘you never stop learning’ is a maxim I try to live by. So I couldn’t turn down the chance to have a proper professional assess my two-wheeled skills, and maybe teach me some new tricks. I register online, the nice Bikesafe people send me some links to safer riding videos to watch in preparation for my big day out, and I give my old Yamaha Fazer 600 a proper wash and polish, so it won’t look too shabby against the gleaming BMW police bikes.

On the ride

The day kicks off bright and early at the excellent Bike Shed café in Shoreditch, which is one of several locations used around the capital. Usually when I’m visiting the Old Street venue, I take the Tube, ironically (because I’m usually there for a few beers with chums). But today, of course, I have to take a motorbike – part of the Bikesafe deal is that you bring your own wheels. Now, my Fazer is a great little bike, but it’s not ULEZ-compliant, meaning it will cost me £12.50 for the pleasure of schlepping up town – not a great start.

I’ve not ridden into central London since before the pandemic, and the experience hasn’t got any better. Apart from that ULEZ charge, there’s a blanket 20mph limit across much of the city, there are far more ‘segregated’ cycle lanes than I remember, reducing space for filtering, and neither the traffic jams nor the road manners have improved one iota.

Ready to head off on the Devitt BikeSafe Training Course

But the sun is out, I’ve still got my old courier-honed urban riding skillz, and before I know it, I’ve arrived at the Bike Shed, waved into the motorcycle park out back, and met with a wall of high-viz yellow bikes and people. The place is, of course, packed with coppers, here to run the Bikesafe course.

I grab a coffee and say hello to everyone. They’re a nice bunch of folk, though there is a glimpse of the traffic officer within, when I realise they’ve already checked my bike’s MOT status. I’m asked for my licence and insurance, before I have to demonstrate that my headlight, brake lights, indicators and horn are all in good order. It all makes perfect sense of course, but it did put me a little bit on edge…

An hour or so of safety videos and chat follows, and I’m nice and relaxed again. The presenter talks us through some basics about hazards, cornering, observation, road positioning and the like – a sort of mini-IAM course on fast-forward – before explaining the housekeeping for the rideout. The numbers are good today, meaning that I get a police rider to myself (sometimes they work with one instructor to two pupils).