Police Motor School for civilians-My experience-Days 1 and 2
#1
07-22-2010, 05:21 PM
Police Motor School for civilians-My experience-Days 1 and 2
Last week I attended the northwest motorcycle school http://www.northwest-motorcycle.com/ which is identical to the first week of police motor school but is a class civilians may attend. It is taught by a gentleman that was the lead instructor for the King County, Washington sheriff's department motor officer training for 15 years. When I mentioned on the forum that I was going to attend the school, several people requested that I do a post on my experience. So, here it is. However, please don't expect this to be anything like Stro's fantastic series of posts when he attended police motor school a few months back.
While all the skills requirements of this course are identical to what is required in police motor school, there are a couple of differences regarding achievement of those requirements. The first difference is that to pass the proficiency course in this school you must complete it in three minutes and forty seconds versus three minutes flat that is required for police motor qualification. The second difference is that in the actual police motor school you must declare when you're going to try to pass a skill requirement and then you must successfully complete that requirement two of your next six attempts. In this class, you were allowed to attempt to make the benchmark until you completed it once, then you were required to complete it one more time in your next 5 attempts. One other difference of the class is police motor school is eight hours a day, five days a week. This class goes 10 hours a day four days a week. So, we went Monday, Tuesday, took a break on Wednesday, then we went back on Thursday, Friday. This gave us a break in the middle of the long days and also gave the instructors a chance to perform needed repairs on the bikes. Speaking of the bikes, we rode Kawasaki KZ 1000s that have been purchased from various police departments throughout the United States as they took him out of their pool and replaced them with newer models. One of the bikes even still had the logos of the New York Police Department on the tank. The bikes had the fairing and saddlebags removed but they still had the crash bars that went around the saddlebags so the bikes were still as wide as they would be if they were fully equipped police motorcycles. You can see some pictures of the various patterns and a diagram of the proficiency course here: http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff106/rickspicsonline/Northwest%20Motor%20School%20-%20Ride%20Like%20A%20Cop/
Day 1:
We spent the first two hours in the classroom doing introductions, going over the rules of the class, learning about the gray area (friction zone), braking techniques, high speed counter steering and head/eye coordination. We were told what the requirements would be to pass the class. We would be required to pass four differ skill requirements. High speed braking, high speed counter steering, the proficiency course and look, lock, lean. We then went out to the bikes. The first thing we learned was how to pick up a bike. They taught the proper way to upright a downed bike by yourself but required that we always get help when we dropped a bike during training. We all practiced the one person lift. The gal in the class wasn’t ever able to get the bike up by herself. This part of the class was hard to take because you had to constantly watch them push a bike over hard so it would end up on the crash bars with the wheels off the ground. Even though they were well used bikes with lots of dents and scratches, it was still painful to watch them hit the ground. Next was pushing the bike and bump starting the bike. Nothing new here. The last thing we learned was mounting and dismounting the bikes. We had to always get on and off on the right side (non-traffic side for cops). We then got on the bikes, adjusted the handlebars, brake and clutch controls to fit and then just rode around for ten to fifteen minutes getting the feel of the bikes. I ride a Dyna, the rest of the class rode Goldwings, V-Stroms or BMWs so the bikes were a different feel for all of us. After warming up we moved to the “gray area” exercise. In this exercise, they put out 2X4s and we would ride up to them with the front wheel, let out the clutch (while keeping a constant throttle) just enough to get the front wheel off the ground but not on top of the 2X4. Hold that position for five seconds and then continue over the 2X4 until it contacted the back wheel. Do the same routine with the back wheel making sure you didn’t let the clutch all the way out quickly when you went over the 2X4 so it didn’t shoot out behind the bike. We did this for about fifteen minutes until we felt comfortable with where the friction zone was on our bike.
They then set up what they called the intersection. It was like a four way intersection with cones set at twenty feet wide and twenty feet deep. Our objective was to ride into one leg of the intersection, make a u-turn, come out and turn hard right into the next leg of the intersection, make a u-turn, come out and turn right into the next leg, and so on. A twenty foot wide u-turn sounds easy but it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. When they told us that by the end of the class they expected us to be doing figure eights in a sixteen by thirty foot box, I knew I was in trouble. Next we practiced ninety degree right and left turns through a set of cones spaced 6 feet apart. Sounds easy but again, not as easy as it looked at first. The intersection is not part of the proficiency course. It is a “basic” exercise to get you to understand how to use the friction zone and rear brake together while keeping a constant throttle. It also emphasizes the importance of looking ahead of where you are. If you look at a cone you will hit the cone.
Next were figure eights. First we did open figure eights, getting the feeling for quickly moving the bars from hard left to hard right or vice versa. We then moved to closed figure eights. Cones were set up in two eighteen foot circles with and entrance in the center on one side and an exit in the center on the other side. We would enter, go around to the left, transition to a right turn, go around to the right and exit at the end of the turn. None of us could do this without knocking over cones and we still couldn’t do it at the end of the day. This was the second indication for me that I was in a class that was over my head. We then moved on to the dogleg. This is a set of cones five feet apart that go about eight feet, ninety degree right for four feet and then ninety degrees left. This is was the final indication for me (and the rest of the class) that we had no chance of passing the proficiency tests for this class. I mean WTF. We’re in the first day of the class and we’re being required to do maneuvers that require turning with full lock one way and then transitioning very quickly to full lock the other way.
The next session was braking. The proficiency exam for this at the end of the class will be to stop from a minimum of forty miles an hour in sixty feet or less without locking up the brakes while downshifting to first, checking your mirror and then making a rapid exit maneuver to the left or right through cones. The exit maneuver requires a ninety degree right turn followed immediately by a ninety degree left turn or vice versa. We started our learning session with stopping from twenty five miles an hour in fifty feet using ONLY the front brake. This is the first time anyone took a real fall and that was Paul when he locked up the front brake and didn’t get off of it fast enough. I also locked the front brake a few times getting the feel for the brakes but immediately would get off the brake and reapply. Speaking of dumping the bike. The gal in the class must have dumped it twenty times the first day, one other guy dumped probably a dozen times, Paul, who is clearly the best rider in the class, only dumped it in the braking and I made it through day one keeping the rubber side down. I ended the day of brake training going into the cones at around thirty and stopping well below the 50 foot mark without a problem. This was the only exercise I felt comfortable with the whole day and the instructor told me I was doing an excellent job pushing the braking to the limit. We ended the day with follow the leader. The instructor would lead and we would try following his exact line. He was making some really tight turns that were hard for us to follow but we” hadn’t seen nothing yet”. When I got home that night I told my wife how embarrassed I was going to be telling my kids that I failed the class when it was all over. I didn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of passing the proficiency course in 3:40 given the penalties of three seconds for knocking over a small cone, five for a large one, five for putting a foot down and twenty five for a blown pattern. However, I was going to stick with it because I would become a better rider whether I passed or not, and my job didn’t depend on me passingJ
Day 2
After warming up on our own (this was the first time I dumped the bike, off by myself trying some really tight turns) we did a little follow the leader and then we moved into the offset cone weave (see proficiency course diagram). This wasn’t that difficult. Then we moved to the keyhole, a sixteen foot circle with one four foot wide opening that is the entrance and exit point. This is impossible. You either knock over a cone when you enter or swing too wide to miss the entrance cones and then can’t turn in the sixteen feet. Should you get lucky enough to complete the entrance and the turn, you knock over a cone at the exit. We told the instructor he could quit playing a joke on us and put the cones where they belonged so he did. He actually moved them in a foot. He told us that they started them at seventeen feet to give us confidence. Then, he got on his bike, pulled the choke out a bit to increase the idle rpm and then rode the keyhole only using his left hand on the clutch and his right foot on the brake. His right hand sat in his lap. Okay, so it can be done by an expert rider with twenty five years experience doing this maneuver. Still doesn’t mean we can do it.
Next we moved to the eliminator. A series of back to back 180 degree turns. The really interesting part of this exercise is that it is set between a building and a fence. To make the first turn and have enough room to make the second turn, your front tire has to come within 6 inches or less of the building. The kicker here is you can’t be looking at your front tire or the building or you WILL crash. After you set up for your turn (about 3 feet short of the building) you MUST turn your head and look behind you to where you want to go next. By now it is really sinking in how important it is took look where you want to go. I’ve always known that but have had a tendency to look twenty of thirty feet ahead in a turn and kind of look from one spot to the next. I learned in this class to not let your eyes focus on a spot until it was where you wanted to end up and once your bike was headed to that spot, start looking at the next one.
Now on to the thirty foot snowman. This is a 30’ circle with 2 barrels in the middle set 4 feet apart. You enter the circle, go through the barrels, make a hard right hand circle, through the barrels again, hard left hand circle, through the barrel again and then exit the other side of the circle.
At this point we started linking patterns together. Start with the figure eight, then the eliminator, the snowman, the cone weave, the dogleg, the keyhole and back to the figure eight. By this time I was feeling much better. I wasn’t having any problem with the figure eight, eliminator, snowman or cone weave, but the dogleg and keyhole were still giving me trouble.
We then moved on to final three new exercises of the day. None of them were in the proficiency course but helped develop skills that would be needed later.
First, we went to board drags. In this exercise we had to go around in circle until we could drag the footboards for a full 360 degrees. This really taught us that the bike wouldn’t fall over when leaned a severe angle at slow speeds as long as you kept the power on and regulated you speed with the back brake and friction control. This was really fun once we got the hang of it and it sounded pretty cool also.
Finally, we moved to posture parking and inline pullouts. From this point forward, we would you posture parking and coordinated dismounts whenever we parked the bikes for breaks or at the end of the day. Posture parking meant that we had to park with the crash bars aligned and between 12 and 18 inches apart. When the instructor gave the signal (left hand up with five fingers, we would park to his left. Right hand meant park to his right) we would pull up and stop in the correct position. He would then signal for us to shut off our motor and deploy the kickstand. Then on his next signal we would all dismount (on the right of course) drop the bike on its stand and turn the handlebars hard left.
The posture parking was really to get us set up for inline pullouts. Inline pullouts consisted of everyone lined up 4 feet (we started at 6 feet) from a curb or building. You would then start with the far left bike if making a right pullout or far right if making a left. The bikes are so close together and you have to turn so sharp that the bike next to you (in the direction you are turning) has to turn their front wheel and lean their bike in the direction of the turn so you don’t hit them. You have to immediately do a full lock turn, feet on the boards and proceed in front of the other bikes. It was difficult at 6 feet, really, really difficult at 4 feet but it was a skill we would really need later in the course.
We did a follow the leader for about a half hour and that was the end of day two. We took the bikes over to gas up and pulling away with the bas locked to the right I stalled the engine and laid the bike down. Second time on the ground but this time there were witnesses and I looked like the fool I am. Even after doing the big stupid, I was feeling a lot better about my chances of completing the course successfully at this point and went into our day off feeling much better than I did after day one.
Due to the length of this post, I will have to do days 3 and 4 in another thread. Link below
https://www.hdforums.com/forum/gener...3-and-4-a.html
While all the skills requirements of this course are identical to what is required in police motor school, there are a couple of differences regarding achievement of those requirements. The first difference is that to pass the proficiency course in this school you must complete it in three minutes and forty seconds versus three minutes flat that is required for police motor qualification. The second difference is that in the actual police motor school you must declare when you're going to try to pass a skill requirement and then you must successfully complete that requirement two of your next six attempts. In this class, you were allowed to attempt to make the benchmark until you completed it once, then you were required to complete it one more time in your next 5 attempts. One other difference of the class is police motor school is eight hours a day, five days a week. This class goes 10 hours a day four days a week. So, we went Monday, Tuesday, took a break on Wednesday, then we went back on Thursday, Friday. This gave us a break in the middle of the long days and also gave the instructors a chance to perform needed repairs on the bikes. Speaking of the bikes, we rode Kawasaki KZ 1000s that have been purchased from various police departments throughout the United States as they took him out of their pool and replaced them with newer models. One of the bikes even still had the logos of the New York Police Department on the tank. The bikes had the fairing and saddlebags removed but they still had the crash bars that went around the saddlebags so the bikes were still as wide as they would be if they were fully equipped police motorcycles. You can see some pictures of the various patterns and a diagram of the proficiency course here: http://s237.photobucket.com/albums/ff106/rickspicsonline/Northwest%20Motor%20School%20-%20Ride%20Like%20A%20Cop/
Day 1:
We spent the first two hours in the classroom doing introductions, going over the rules of the class, learning about the gray area (friction zone), braking techniques, high speed counter steering and head/eye coordination. We were told what the requirements would be to pass the class. We would be required to pass four differ skill requirements. High speed braking, high speed counter steering, the proficiency course and look, lock, lean. We then went out to the bikes. The first thing we learned was how to pick up a bike. They taught the proper way to upright a downed bike by yourself but required that we always get help when we dropped a bike during training. We all practiced the one person lift. The gal in the class wasn’t ever able to get the bike up by herself. This part of the class was hard to take because you had to constantly watch them push a bike over hard so it would end up on the crash bars with the wheels off the ground. Even though they were well used bikes with lots of dents and scratches, it was still painful to watch them hit the ground. Next was pushing the bike and bump starting the bike. Nothing new here. The last thing we learned was mounting and dismounting the bikes. We had to always get on and off on the right side (non-traffic side for cops). We then got on the bikes, adjusted the handlebars, brake and clutch controls to fit and then just rode around for ten to fifteen minutes getting the feel of the bikes. I ride a Dyna, the rest of the class rode Goldwings, V-Stroms or BMWs so the bikes were a different feel for all of us. After warming up we moved to the “gray area” exercise. In this exercise, they put out 2X4s and we would ride up to them with the front wheel, let out the clutch (while keeping a constant throttle) just enough to get the front wheel off the ground but not on top of the 2X4. Hold that position for five seconds and then continue over the 2X4 until it contacted the back wheel. Do the same routine with the back wheel making sure you didn’t let the clutch all the way out quickly when you went over the 2X4 so it didn’t shoot out behind the bike. We did this for about fifteen minutes until we felt comfortable with where the friction zone was on our bike.
They then set up what they called the intersection. It was like a four way intersection with cones set at twenty feet wide and twenty feet deep. Our objective was to ride into one leg of the intersection, make a u-turn, come out and turn hard right into the next leg of the intersection, make a u-turn, come out and turn right into the next leg, and so on. A twenty foot wide u-turn sounds easy but it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. When they told us that by the end of the class they expected us to be doing figure eights in a sixteen by thirty foot box, I knew I was in trouble. Next we practiced ninety degree right and left turns through a set of cones spaced 6 feet apart. Sounds easy but again, not as easy as it looked at first. The intersection is not part of the proficiency course. It is a “basic” exercise to get you to understand how to use the friction zone and rear brake together while keeping a constant throttle. It also emphasizes the importance of looking ahead of where you are. If you look at a cone you will hit the cone.
Next were figure eights. First we did open figure eights, getting the feeling for quickly moving the bars from hard left to hard right or vice versa. We then moved to closed figure eights. Cones were set up in two eighteen foot circles with and entrance in the center on one side and an exit in the center on the other side. We would enter, go around to the left, transition to a right turn, go around to the right and exit at the end of the turn. None of us could do this without knocking over cones and we still couldn’t do it at the end of the day. This was the second indication for me that I was in a class that was over my head. We then moved on to the dogleg. This is a set of cones five feet apart that go about eight feet, ninety degree right for four feet and then ninety degrees left. This is was the final indication for me (and the rest of the class) that we had no chance of passing the proficiency tests for this class. I mean WTF. We’re in the first day of the class and we’re being required to do maneuvers that require turning with full lock one way and then transitioning very quickly to full lock the other way.
The next session was braking. The proficiency exam for this at the end of the class will be to stop from a minimum of forty miles an hour in sixty feet or less without locking up the brakes while downshifting to first, checking your mirror and then making a rapid exit maneuver to the left or right through cones. The exit maneuver requires a ninety degree right turn followed immediately by a ninety degree left turn or vice versa. We started our learning session with stopping from twenty five miles an hour in fifty feet using ONLY the front brake. This is the first time anyone took a real fall and that was Paul when he locked up the front brake and didn’t get off of it fast enough. I also locked the front brake a few times getting the feel for the brakes but immediately would get off the brake and reapply. Speaking of dumping the bike. The gal in the class must have dumped it twenty times the first day, one other guy dumped probably a dozen times, Paul, who is clearly the best rider in the class, only dumped it in the braking and I made it through day one keeping the rubber side down. I ended the day of brake training going into the cones at around thirty and stopping well below the 50 foot mark without a problem. This was the only exercise I felt comfortable with the whole day and the instructor told me I was doing an excellent job pushing the braking to the limit. We ended the day with follow the leader. The instructor would lead and we would try following his exact line. He was making some really tight turns that were hard for us to follow but we” hadn’t seen nothing yet”. When I got home that night I told my wife how embarrassed I was going to be telling my kids that I failed the class when it was all over. I didn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of passing the proficiency course in 3:40 given the penalties of three seconds for knocking over a small cone, five for a large one, five for putting a foot down and twenty five for a blown pattern. However, I was going to stick with it because I would become a better rider whether I passed or not, and my job didn’t depend on me passingJ
Day 2
After warming up on our own (this was the first time I dumped the bike, off by myself trying some really tight turns) we did a little follow the leader and then we moved into the offset cone weave (see proficiency course diagram). This wasn’t that difficult. Then we moved to the keyhole, a sixteen foot circle with one four foot wide opening that is the entrance and exit point. This is impossible. You either knock over a cone when you enter or swing too wide to miss the entrance cones and then can’t turn in the sixteen feet. Should you get lucky enough to complete the entrance and the turn, you knock over a cone at the exit. We told the instructor he could quit playing a joke on us and put the cones where they belonged so he did. He actually moved them in a foot. He told us that they started them at seventeen feet to give us confidence. Then, he got on his bike, pulled the choke out a bit to increase the idle rpm and then rode the keyhole only using his left hand on the clutch and his right foot on the brake. His right hand sat in his lap. Okay, so it can be done by an expert rider with twenty five years experience doing this maneuver. Still doesn’t mean we can do it.
Next we moved to the eliminator. A series of back to back 180 degree turns. The really interesting part of this exercise is that it is set between a building and a fence. To make the first turn and have enough room to make the second turn, your front tire has to come within 6 inches or less of the building. The kicker here is you can’t be looking at your front tire or the building or you WILL crash. After you set up for your turn (about 3 feet short of the building) you MUST turn your head and look behind you to where you want to go next. By now it is really sinking in how important it is took look where you want to go. I’ve always known that but have had a tendency to look twenty of thirty feet ahead in a turn and kind of look from one spot to the next. I learned in this class to not let your eyes focus on a spot until it was where you wanted to end up and once your bike was headed to that spot, start looking at the next one.
Now on to the thirty foot snowman. This is a 30’ circle with 2 barrels in the middle set 4 feet apart. You enter the circle, go through the barrels, make a hard right hand circle, through the barrels again, hard left hand circle, through the barrel again and then exit the other side of the circle.
At this point we started linking patterns together. Start with the figure eight, then the eliminator, the snowman, the cone weave, the dogleg, the keyhole and back to the figure eight. By this time I was feeling much better. I wasn’t having any problem with the figure eight, eliminator, snowman or cone weave, but the dogleg and keyhole were still giving me trouble.
We then moved on to final three new exercises of the day. None of them were in the proficiency course but helped develop skills that would be needed later.
First, we went to board drags. In this exercise we had to go around in circle until we could drag the footboards for a full 360 degrees. This really taught us that the bike wouldn’t fall over when leaned a severe angle at slow speeds as long as you kept the power on and regulated you speed with the back brake and friction control. This was really fun once we got the hang of it and it sounded pretty cool also.
Finally, we moved to posture parking and inline pullouts. From this point forward, we would you posture parking and coordinated dismounts whenever we parked the bikes for breaks or at the end of the day. Posture parking meant that we had to park with the crash bars aligned and between 12 and 18 inches apart. When the instructor gave the signal (left hand up with five fingers, we would park to his left. Right hand meant park to his right) we would pull up and stop in the correct position. He would then signal for us to shut off our motor and deploy the kickstand. Then on his next signal we would all dismount (on the right of course) drop the bike on its stand and turn the handlebars hard left.
The posture parking was really to get us set up for inline pullouts. Inline pullouts consisted of everyone lined up 4 feet (we started at 6 feet) from a curb or building. You would then start with the far left bike if making a right pullout or far right if making a left. The bikes are so close together and you have to turn so sharp that the bike next to you (in the direction you are turning) has to turn their front wheel and lean their bike in the direction of the turn so you don’t hit them. You have to immediately do a full lock turn, feet on the boards and proceed in front of the other bikes. It was difficult at 6 feet, really, really difficult at 4 feet but it was a skill we would really need later in the course.
We did a follow the leader for about a half hour and that was the end of day two. We took the bikes over to gas up and pulling away with the bas locked to the right I stalled the engine and laid the bike down. Second time on the ground but this time there were witnesses and I looked like the fool I am. Even after doing the big stupid, I was feeling a lot better about my chances of completing the course successfully at this point and went into our day off feeling much better than I did after day one.
Due to the length of this post, I will have to do days 3 and 4 in another thread. Link below
https://www.hdforums.com/forum/gener...3-and-4-a.html
Last edited by FXDXTSport; 07-23-2010 at 03:20 PM. Reason: Added link to Days 3 and 4
#3
07-22-2010, 07:42 PM
Road Master
A lot of those turns,etc. look easy until you try them. I found this out when I took a class a couple of years ago. Thanks for the report...
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