Teaching the skills to hit the open road

Times Reporter       

 

With spring comes the desire to hit the open road, and what better way to do it than on the back of your motorcycle with the sun beating on your face. There’s only one thing standing in your way: getting your bike license, which used to mean a drive to Calgary to be in a class with 10 to 12 other students. There aren’t any motorcycle training facilities east of Calgary until Brooks, which means many enthusiasts, or future enthusiasts in the area had been missing out.  

Dennis Bigras, who has been riding for 40 years, saw an opportunity to open a school here in Strathmore, and offer a small town instruction experience. He has worked with the Calgary Safety Council for two years, and then with Fleet Safety International for one year and then Stampede Driving for a year. Student feedback from those years is what he has used to create his instructional experience. 

“I have been riding for about 40 years and learning to become an instructor and now a senior instructor I can pass on the knowledge that I have learned to new riders and to even guys and gals who have want to get back on the bike,” said Bigras.

The Mobile Motorcycle Training School will offer beginner and refresher courses to the area. Right now Bigras has two training lots in Strathmore that he can utilize. One is at the Curling rink parking lot and the other is at Wheatland Elementary School. Bigras said he is appreciative of the support he has received from the Curling Club and both Westmount and Wheatland schools.  

For the refresher course participants will need to have their own bike, but for the beginner course he has three training bikes available. 

“The class size in comparison for the value of what’s being charged is far less then what is in Calgary. So for the same kind of money if you were to go to Calgary it’s 10 to 12 riders per class, well here it’s going to be three to four riders per class,” said Bigras. 

“It’s a really good idea to know how to ride a bicycle before you take a course like this. I have had people show up who have never ridden a bicycle and it’s really hard to train them to ride a motorcycle.

“What I am looking to give people at the end of the course is the confidence and competence in riding a bike because essentially that is what the examiner is looking for.”

The instructor gives the correct foundation of what to do, how to do it and then from there it’s a matter of practicing said Bigras. Even though he has been riding for years, each spring he practices and gets used to the feel of his Yamaha 1300 Royal Star Cruiser all over again. 

“The thing that people forget is they think riding motorcycles is like riding a bike and it’s not,” said Bigras. 

“There’s a lot of balance and wherewithal you need to have because all of a sudden you’re coming to a stop sign, you’re slowing down, did you notice the pea gravel on the ground, are you going to put your feet on something you could slide out, are you square with balancing, how are you handling your brakes when you come up to a stop, have you done your shoulder check to be sure that some idiot is not going to run in behind you?

“You’re going to learn the right techniques, with the right methodology and you get to practice that, and then you can take that away and you can practice it as much as you like knowing you’re doing it the right way.”

Bigras will offer a six-hour refresher course for anyone interested. The beginner course is two to three hours of classroom time, which will typically be held on Tuesday nights at Westmount School. The lot training with be held on Saturdays and Sundays, with each day beginning at 9 a.m. On the Sunday class there will be two to three hours of road training as well. Participants of the course will also have the options of using one of the school bikes to take their class 6 test.

He has trained people who are still having lots of problems on the lot, and at the end of the day when he asks them what they have learned, he has had students saying it wasn’t for them. 

“I have trained people that have never touched a bike ever and within two days they already have the confidence and competence and they passed their test. They’re always surprised with themselves that they’re able to do this,” said Bigras. 

Bigras said statistically most people fail their road test because of class five errors, like rolling up to a stop and not stopping, forgetting to turn off your signal light. 

“What the school and my experience does is teach people that what you need to do on a motorcycle has to be automatic and that’s where the practice comes in. If you get yourself into some trouble, you don’t (want) have to think about what do I do first, second and third, how do I do it? I show you how to do that, and you have to do that to the level I would expect you can do it, and if you can’t do it then I’m going to let you know so that you don’t endanger yourself,” said Bigras. 

Motorcycles don’t have seatbelts and Bigras tells his students that they wear their seatbelts, which means they need to make sure they are wearing the proper gear.  Other areas covered in training include balance and speed control, situational awareness, collision avoidance and reading a curve ahead of time. There is also the option of a women’s only course if three to four women sign up for training. 

To find out more about the Mobile Motorcycle Training School go to www.mobilemotorcycletraining.ca or call Dennis Bigras at 403-901-7027.