Yesterday, June 20th, PECAM held its annual Advanced Skills Day (ASD) at the old Runway at Alconbury near Huntingdon. The ASD is an integral part of the training delivered by PECAM, which includes monthly Slow Speed and Gymkhana sessions, one-to-one advanced refresher training, and small group advanced development rides, as well as the full suite of IAM Roadsmart motorcycle programmes.
Advanced Skills day
The ASD has been developed over many years, and this year saw the inclusion of the new ‘Fear of the Lean’ exercise to end the day. There are in fact 15 separate exercises for all attendees to take part in. Each exercise starts with a thorough briefing, and every participant gets detailed personal feedback and advice.
It was great to be joined by 3 enthusiastic and open minded members of the Leicester and District IAM group, LADAM, We were also fortunate with the weather., the day started dull with a very light rain, but part way through the morning the sky lightened, rain stopped, and fortunately the runway largely dried out.
The Exercises
We started the day with ‘How to pick up a dropped motorcycle’ which after a great demo, many attendees had a go at. Although, we hope never to need this skill it is important that we know how – just in case!
We then moved through a series of slow speed exercises, moving from riding at walking pace all the way through to the excellent ‘merge’ exercise which helps to develop both slow speed and anticipation skills.
Higher Speed Exercises
The day moved on to advanced braking techniques, from speeds up to and beyond the national speed limit, then onto object avoidance, and the excellent ‘just one look’ prepared to stop – ready to go exercise. Finally we ended the day with the ‘Fear to Lean’ exercise, which along with all of the other exercises helps attendees to develop their skills up to and beyond their comfort levels and to understand how their motorcycles will perform in a variety of situations.
