On the eve of me attending the California Superbike School (CSS) Level 2 at Silverstone tomorrow, I thought that now would be a good time to review Level 1.
I'd been sceptical about CSS for a number of reasons. Firstly was their level structure. Like a 'normal' school you have to start at the bottom and work your way up and having done a few years of trackdays, the Ron Haslam school, the Chris Walker school and had a few little sessions with instructors at MSV events, I was worried that I wouldn't learn anything in Level 1. This first point also influenced the second and that was the price. At over £400 for each level, attending the school is a serious financial investment.
Acknowledging this was a long term investment and feeling that I'd more likely benefit when I got to level 2, I decided to take the plunge.
How wrong I was? I didn't know just how much I didn't know. Split into small sections, the aim of the day was to 'stabilise the bike' and each hour was split in classroom session, break and then a track session to practice what we were just taught. At the start of the first session we were allocated an instructor who would follow us around and through a series of clear, easy to remember hand signals would communicate turn in points, when to open the throttle etc. After each session we got a debrief, further explaining what they could see and what to work on.
It would be nearly impossible to get everything I learnt down into this post, but needless to say the instructors are a great bunch of people, they know their stuff and I left the day a much wiser man than the one that arrived. If Level 2 is as good, its going to be worth leaving the house at 04:30.
I'd been sceptical about CSS for a number of reasons. Firstly was their level structure. Like a 'normal' school you have to start at the bottom and work your way up and having done a few years of trackdays, the Ron Haslam school, the Chris Walker school and had a few little sessions with instructors at MSV events, I was worried that I wouldn't learn anything in Level 1. This first point also influenced the second and that was the price. At over £400 for each level, attending the school is a serious financial investment.
Acknowledging this was a long term investment and feeling that I'd more likely benefit when I got to level 2, I decided to take the plunge.
How wrong I was? I didn't know just how much I didn't know. Split into small sections, the aim of the day was to 'stabilise the bike' and each hour was split in classroom session, break and then a track session to practice what we were just taught. At the start of the first session we were allocated an instructor who would follow us around and through a series of clear, easy to remember hand signals would communicate turn in points, when to open the throttle etc. After each session we got a debrief, further explaining what they could see and what to work on.
It would be nearly impossible to get everything I learnt down into this post, but needless to say the instructors are a great bunch of people, they know their stuff and I left the day a much wiser man than the one that arrived. If Level 2 is as good, its going to be worth leaving the house at 04:30.
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