Well I just failed my MFC lol

[diffluere]

I dropped the bike twice when I took the course. Doing the first straight-line-across-the-parking-lot exercise. I had never ridden a motorcycle before and pulled the front brake when the front wheel was turned. I freaked out and was like "OMG did I fail!?" The instructors were really nice and made me keep going. After that I did fine on everything else and passed the class. I felt so embarrassed and stupid though, everyone else in the class had prior experience and I was the only one starting fresh. Somehow I still did better than the older, more "experienced" guys on the riding test - I got a 6 and one guy with 40+ years of experience got a 13! So maybe practicing on your own with no one to tell you what you're doing wrong isn't the best idea. Then you might build up some bad habits that they will have to correct when you go back to the class.

I say get back on the bike asap before you over-analyze it and start to freak yourself out. Remember "look down go down?" I think they should add something about "think down go down." When I first started riding around I would talk to myself inside my head like "clutch in. downshift. light braking. front wheel straight! brake harder to stop." and now it's automatic.

[alantf]

Originally Posted by diffluere

Somehow I still did better than the older, more "experienced" guys on the riding test - I got a 6 and one guy with 40+ years of experience got a 13!

O.K., it might sounds a dumb question, but not being American I don't know how the MFC works. Usually, the higer the score you get, the better the result. Are you saying that on the MFC, the LOWER the score the better? :??:

[Moedad]

Originally Posted by alantf

O.K., it might sounds a dumb question, but not being American I don't know how the MFC works. Usually, the higer the score you get, the better the result. Are you saying that on the MFC, the LOWER the score the better? :??:

The scoring is points deducted from 100%. So yeah, 6 is better than 13.

[dannylightning]

most things here in America the higher points the better but occasionally you find something is the other way around..

[Water Warrior 2]

The criticism concerning the time compressed teaching is common. It is tiring, stressful and "A bitch". But on the other hand I realized that if you can't handle it on a training course with controlled conditions and riding activities "How will you survive the street ?" I think the course is set up to weed out the non-riders and push the real riders to excell in their life on 2 wheels. It is also a matter of economics. The longer the course lasts the more it will cost.
The training we took was not government sponsored and was $700 a head. Best life insurance I can think of.

[mrlmd1]

You should have taken it here in Florida. I think I paid $250 or maybe $275 for my 2 day course.
I also, real early on in the course, made the mistake while going around a turn at slower speed of hitting the front brake instead of pushing harder on the handlebar to lean the bike more (I thought I was going to fast and wouldn't make the turn) and the bike went down. I caught it, laid it down gently and shut it off - no damage done except to my ego, but I learned a valuable lesson real quick that I'm sure I won't repeat. You can be told or read all the advice but there's nothing like experiencing it yourself to learn the lesson.

[alanmcorcoran]

dh,

I've mentioned it on here before (and each time I get a lot of crap for it, so I guess I better put my raincoat on) but I found the CA MSF course to be a pretty inefficient use of 16 hours. As I've said before, the overwhelming majority of the alleged 10 hours on the course was devoted to bureaucratic details, getting the bikes out of the storage locker, putting the bikes away, waiting your "turn", setting up the course markers, explaining the drill, lining up the bikes, starting up the bikes, effing with the bikes that did not start, pee breaks, drink breaks, lunch breaks, waiting for the fallen to be re-mounted or escorted off, etc. Plus we didn't even ride the motorcycles under power until two hours in and the last two hours was spent waiting one's turn to take the test. If I got one full hour of actual riding practice/guidance in the 16 hour course (five hours are spent watching video and taking a written test) I would be surprised.

***If you have never ridden a bike before, and especially if you don't own one, I think the MSF course is a good way to get introduced.*** See also: If you've never used a clutch, never ridden a bicycle, never ridden a two wheeled vehicle with a motor, never used a hand brake, never ridden in the rain, never drove a "stick", etc.

If you have more than a month of street/commuting time under your belt, you will **still** learn some things, if your instructor is any good (my instructor was marginal - he read the entire course verbatim from the instructor's guide - I had a hunch it was his first MSF class [maybe his first class of any kind] ever), but you will also spend a lot, if not most, of your time sitting around doing nothing.

(I paid $150 I think and I got a perfect score on the written and the riding, so my comments are not sour grapes. The only part I had trouble with was the figure eight in the box, but I managed to get it right when it counted.)

You are right about the fleeting nature of memory and I can't swear to precisely what they said about braking, but even after the Harley guy dumped his bike, nobody said "That's what happens when you swerve and brake!" I learned that one for myself on the Strat about six months (!!!) later (when, by then, I guess I forgot everything!)

PS. I had also read two Hough books prior and had practiced a lot in a parking lot prior.

[dhgeyer]

Alan,

Sounds like you got a particularly bad one. They do vary. I think you're spot on that the course is much more valuable to someone with zero experience than it is to someone with any riding at all, but there is some value to it for anyone. I had been riding for a total of 10 years (6 when I was young and 4 after starting again) when I took it. It is possible in NH to get a license without taking the course. You get a permit, practice for a while (you get one month with a one month extension), and then take a test. The test is similar to the MSF test, but not as extensive, and substitutes a very tight cone weave for the U turn box. It is an older test. When I got my MC license back (I had let it lapse years ago) I bought my Vulcan 500 LTD, practiced for one week, and aced the test with no points lost. I took the course 4 years and many thousands of miles later because my daughter was taking it, and I thought it was a good idea. I had also by then read Hough's books, and had been subscribing to MCN for years. None of the course material was really new to me, but I did get a couple of bad habits pointed out to me. I aced the written and riding tests also, with no points lost. I also took the ERC the same year, and the Ridercoach Training, which involved taking the BRC again, essentially twice.

I think that you ran into a basic flaw with the MSF approach. You throw 10 or 12 people together. You have 16 year old kids who have been riding dirt bikes since they were 5 years old, and you have 55 or 60 year old overweight women who have never driven a stick shift, haven't been on a bicycle for 40 years, and are afraid of motorcycles. Many, if not most of the exercises rely on people going in circles at a certain speed. Some of them just can't do it. The instructors try to give them some extra attention, which may or may not help. The problem is that, since passing is not allowed on the course, if one or two people can't keep up, everyone winds up piled up behind them, and no one gets the proper benefit of the exercise. Frequently, it just doesn't work. Some instructors are more aggressive about "Coaching out" the students that are ruining it for everyone. But there is a lot of pressure on the instructors not to do that. It goes back to the MSF wanting people to get those licenses, which makes them much more likely to buy motorcycles.

Sometimes the course works if you get a fairly homogeneous group. Other times you get what you got. People crashing all over the place, which holds things up for far too long, and most of the exercises don't work well enough to teach what they are trying to get across. Most of the time it's somewhere in between.

You might consider taking the ERC (Experienced Rider Course) if it's offered where you are. It's only 1 day, all spent on the range, and you ride your own bike. You don't get the same kind of problems, and it's good practice.

As for the BRC, it's a lot better than nothing, and I still would encourage new riders to take it. But we could be doing a lot better with a different approach, which they do in other countries, resulting in much lower accident and fatality rates. I don't realistically think we'll see any big changes here anytime soon, though. The Motorcycle Industry Council, disguised as the MSF, is too firmly entrenched in the state organizations, and has actually taken some of them over completely, and is actively trying to take others over. One state, Oregon, has pulled out of the MSF program completely, and the MSF has sued them in an effort to discourage other states from following suit. There is a lot of controversy in motorcycle training circles now. As a point of information, David L. Hough is leading the charge in criticizing the MSF and the way it is behaving in the last few years. This is significant, as Hough is widely considered the dean of safety training concepts in the U.S., and a lot of the BRC exercises originated with his writings. They have been using them for decades, and have never credited him.

[Water Warrior 2]

We had 2 three hour evening class room sessions and 4 six hour days on the bikes. First 2 days on the bikes we stayed in the training lot. Day #3 we were out on the street practicing and being corrected when something or some one went astray. Day #4 we actually hit the highway for a lunch trip. The course was very instructional with a variety of newbies and experienced riders(primarily me)which brought out the best and worse in all of us. The instructor was very good and he and his partner and other instructors are the only instructors in the province qualified to teach other new instructors.
30 hours for $700 is only a shade over $23 an hour for training. Not really all that costly for something that will last a lifetime.

[alanmcorcoran]

Despite my grousing, I do have some MSF positives:

1) I was able to get in on "standby" so I didn't have to wait three months. Just squeaked in on that. The 24th guy did show, but he was a little too far past the Late Cutoff so they let me stay.
2) After some paperwork and bike inspection they did let me ride my own bike (a GZ natch!)
3) They got us in the habit of using both brakes. The gigantic dual front discs on my Strat will stop a speeding locomotive on a dime, but I like to use both brakes on the GZ. I also find the lighter bike brakes more evenly with both. I got pretty good at laying down rubber and panic stopping in a straight line - which came in handy a few weeks later when I failed to realize the guy in front of me was not moving until I was very, very close.
4) That effing box drill does teach you a lot about looking, leaning, clutch control and use of power to stay upright. We should have probably spent a few hours on that one. I think I only did it five or six times in total, three of which I went outside the line and one of which was the final exam.
5) I passed the test on the first try and thus did not have to go to the house of horrors that is the CA DMV to get my M1 endorsement. It's not entirely out of the question I might have wasted MORE than 16 hours had I gone that route and failed once.

I mainly offered my perspective because I was disappointed in how the thing was managed and had been given such high expectations by so many about how wonderful it was. I still recommend it to people that see me on the bike and muse about trying it "one day" I think the best thing about it is you don't need a bike or expereince to sign up.