Safety should be first for bikers. John Cradden looks at motorcycle training courses on offer.
You would be forgiven for thinking that motorcycling is in the male blood of the O'Connor family. IT consultant William O'Connor occasionally commutes in Dublin on a 1,200 cc Harley Davidson, while his two sons both ride motorcycles.
Choosing motorcycles as the primary means for getting about was inspired mostly by practicalities. "It was taking me two and half hours to get to Sandyford from Portmarnock by car," says William, one of a growing number of older people who have returned to two wheels after a long spell away. He also felt a motorbike would help his eldest son, Darren, in his long and difficult daily trek to Ballyfermot College.
Needless to say, William was concerned about the dangers of motorcycling, and not just for his sons. When his youngest son, Shane, expressed an interest in a motorcycle licence two years ago, William got him to enroll in the Star Rider Bronze motorcycle training course run by Fingal Co Council (FCC). The course won this year's National Safety Council Endeavour Award from the National Safety Council.
Darren then undertook the same course to pass the driving test and, after a bike upgrade, did the intermediate Silver course.
The quality of training provided to his sons by Star Rider, combined with the advantages of motorcycles to beat gridlock, was clearly enough to convince William himself back into the saddle. So he enrolled in the advanced Gold training course.
"I was absolutely delighted with the course," he says. "It made a huge difference. We had two days of intensive training as a group on some very dangerous roads, all in ferocious weather, under one-way radio control. We did journeys up to about 500 miles in one day - and each of us took turns to lead so that we could be observed by the instructor."
FCC has been running the Star Rider courses for 12 years and has just won the 2003 National Safety Council Endeavour Award. It now has 13 instructors, some of whom have high-level ROSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) instructor qualifications from Britain.
Star Rider's most famous graduate is Fingal resident Gay Byrne. After receiving a Harley-Davidson as a gift from Bono and Larry Mullen, the broadcaster did the Gold course.
The courses, which usually last 12 hours, are run every second weekend at two locations in Swords and Blanchardstown. The first part of the course is a four-hour off-street session, which deals with machine familiarisation, bike control, exercises in manoeuvring, braking, turning left and right and so forth.
The 12-hour Silver course costs €152.40. Most people have their own bikes, but bikes and helmets can be hired at extra cost.
One of the advantages of being a county council is the ease of finding land for off-street training, says FCC road safety officer Seamus Kelly: "If you were a private operator, you wouldn't have anywhere to go for off-street training and that's very important."
It's estimated that some 57 per cent of motorcyclists here are still on a provisional licence . . . in other words, none of them has yet demonstrated fitness to be on the road. Anecdotal evidence on driving test pass rates suggests that those with proper training, reckoned to be less than 15 per cent of the total, achieve pass rates in the high 90 per cents.
That said, this journalist found it difficult, though not impossible, to find voices among the close-knit motorcycling fraternity who considered any formal training a waste of time or money for most people.
"The way I look at it, is that it's the number of miles on the road that you've done and the experience you have that counts," says Finbar Magee, a Mullingar motorcyclist with a full licence and 22 years experience. "It's like riding a bicycle for the first time. Either you can do it or you can't. I'm not against training as such but 90 per cent of riding is based on your own instinct. Once you have the basics, that's it."
However, if the majority of experienced motorcyclists were unconvinced of the merits of formal training around three or four years ago, they are certainly in the minority now, according to Jim Fisher of the Irish Rider Training Association, which was set up four years ago by the Motorcycle Action Group. The association offers a comprehensive 12-hour course, with either one-to-one or one-to two training, for €300. Certainly motorcycle enthusiast Rob Carney (the owner of a 1987 BMW R110 and a 1976 Yamaha) who had been teaching himself to ride a motorcycle for four years, is now fully converted to the value of formal training. He discovered he had developed many bad habits after taking training with an instructor friend who worked with the ISM. "I fell off once at 15mph, but I wouldn't want to fall off much faster than that."
While the FCC Star Rider courses, like others, are attracting a large percentage of older motorcyclists, Kelly has witnessed at first hand how the attitudes of many young people on the courses change in the space of 12 hours. Many will have had their arms twisted by parents to do the course, he says, but they quickly begin to appreciate the course.
Star Rider encourages a proper sense of what motorcycling is about, the rules of the road, respect for the vehicle and mechanical sympathy. "We encourage people to get involved," says Kelly. "I've found the courses are good in that respect. As a group they will bond very quickly, and everybody starts to learn."
The motorcycle training division of the Irish School of Motoring offers group training, but most students are instructed on a one-to-one basis, according to general manager Carl Walsh. He feels that individual attention is important. A 10-hour course, including use of a motorcycle and safety equipment, costs €350.