BikeSafe Workshop - South Yorkshire

Hi,

It's been a busy few weekends for me recently, including being able to go on a BikeSafe workshop in South Yorkshire after being too ill to attend the one I was originally booked on at the start of July.

As the workshop was ran by the South Yorkshire Police Department and I'm from Derbyshire, it did mean I had a very early start on the Sunday morning to get to the police station for 8:30 but luckily the M1 isn't that busy on a Sunday morning so the 50 odd miles there went quite quickly.

There were 5 other riders on the workshop with me, all male. Bizarrely though, despite being the youngest one there by probably at least 15 years, I was one of the most experienced of the group as I've been riding since age 16! Some of the others there had only recently passed their tests in what they said was the midlife crisis stage of their life.

I was the first to arrive...

After the morning classroom session, we had some lunch and then headed out in pairs with one of the coppers for a ride around for them to assess our riding and give us any pointers they might have. I actually went out with someone who also owned an SV650 but theirs wasn't restricted of course.

The copper we were with was PC Dave Fields who was really lovely and we headed out on a loop around South Yorkshire (not being from around there, the roads and places were unfamiliar) with one bike in front of the copper and one bike behind. I must say though, it's really weird to have a bike copper sat behind you when you're riding - I was on my best behaviour! Especially with not speeding up before the national speed limit sign on the way out of villages..

We stopped every so often and switched around and got some feedback for us to work on for the next bit. Plus having some water of course. We got back to the police station around 3:30-4:00 and we'd done about 100 miles around Sheffield and South Yorks.

After a talk from an IAM rider about further opportunities to improve our riding skills, the day was finished and it was then time to head back home again. My feedback from PC Dave Fields was really positive so I was chuffed with that! Of course, there's things I can improve on but it's nice to know that I'm riding pretty okay generally.

My parents actually came to meet me after the day so we rode home altogether which was nice. So by the end of the day, I'd done just over 200 miles and although it was a long day, I did think it was really useful and a good one at the same time. I'd definitely recommend trying to go on one if you haven't been before - I'll leave a link here for you to look at if you want to.

I'm off to France on the 27th so the next posts you'll be getting from me will be the tour diary posts!

Until then, ride safe
TFB

BMMC Marshalling Taster Day

Hey all!

Hope this post finds you well and enjoying this lovely sunshine we've been having. Last weekend (13th/14th Aug), I attended a marshalling taster day ran by the BMMC at Donington Park. It's not technically bike related but it is motorsport so I'm hoping you'll forgive me.

The event that weekend was the MSVR GT & Formula Car races with 16 races over the course of the two days, all of which I was on post marshalling for. There were about 20 people on the day and I was one of 5 girls but a surprising number of the marshals were actually female which was good to see.

On the Saturday morning we went through a cars journey visiting the scrutineering bay, pits, paddock and garages. We also had a look around a couple of the race cars whilst the two people running the day showed us where the kill switches could be and where the fire extinguisher could be (every car has them in a different place, so not as simple as a bike!) and how to move a car should the driver happen to crash out.

Some of the cars in assembly

I also got to go up to race control and see how they work and what they do. I'd never been to a race control room before and I was really surprised by how big the room was and how many people actually worked in there, I thought it was going to 3 or 4 people! I hadn't realised either that the entire track was covered by cameras to help race control determine whether incidents are racing incidents and things like that, there's basically nowhere that is a blind spot and the cameras have got impressive zooms on them as well. After a quick walk through the media room full of laptops, phones, cameras, leads and coffee, we headed to the medical centre at Donington.
The medical centre is apparently one of the best in the country and the only thing they can't do on site is open heart surgery as they don't have a bypass machine. Pretty impressive for a race track I think. They even have a little mini ward if anybody (racer, marshal, team member or member of the public alike) can rest in if they need to. Luckily, there were no major incidents over the weekend and the highly qualified trauma consultants from Queen's Med in Nottingham and Derby City hospitals weren't needed.

In the afternoon, I went out on post between McLeans and Coppice for anyone who knows the track and I had a go at some flagging of the 8 races that were running. Luckily, nobody had any incidents opposite our post and anybody who did wasn't injured so I didn't have to go out on the track whilst it was live for any reason.

On Sunday, I was on post at the Melbourne Loop all day for the qualifying, warm-up and race sessions. I practiced my flagging skills during the majority of the races, and due to several occasions of the safety car going out, the yellow flag spent a fair amount of time in my hand! This also meant that we actually only got about 15-20 minutes for lunch (we were originally allocated 40 mins) which just happens at some meets apparently.
When all marshals have to be standing and concentrating when the track is live and with sessions only 5 minutes apart and running from 9am until about 6 or 7pm, it's a long time to be stood on your feet for and trying to eat and keep hydrated during those times can be quite tricky. My lunch was spread out through the day and I know many of the other marshals' lunches were the same.

Despite this, you can tell the marshals love what they do, they seem a bit like a family with everyone laughing and joking. Yes, they have a serious job to do but if you're with only 2 other people for an entire day and you can't have a chat and a laugh, it's going to be a tough day. The main advantages are pretty obvious; marshals are super close to the action, as they are volunteering and working the event, it's free entry for them and it's probably one of the best ways to be involved in motorsport - I think I'll definitely go back and marshal again when I get the chance!

Ride safe all,
TFB