Edward
Bartender
- Messages
- 25,081
- Location
- London, UK
As a learner you have to do a basic training course. If you are over 25 with Direct Access it's not that bad as you can go on to a big bike straight away after passing the main test, in some cases you can even learn on a bigger bike. The other A1 A2 categories are mainly for the younger riders I believe. I'll be honest here, I passed a bike test in 1982 so it was still a basic tests with road knowledge, highway code and very basic motorcycle control. It usually changes every year making it more and more difficult for youngsters to get into biking.
It's definitely getting complex... though probably as much to do with bikes getting ever bigger (it's not hard these days to find bikes with a bigger capacity engine than a lot of family cars!), and th old division between bikes and scooters and such breaking down as anything else.... I'm old enough to qualify to go the direct access routes, but given I'm looking at running a bike as a hobby thing rather than for commuting or anything, I think it's most likely I'll stick with something small. TBH, the only reason I'd even consider as big as 500cc would be that sexy Royal Enfield Classic 500! Otherwise, I might one day bump up to a 250cc if I felt the need. I'm looking eventually at the idea of donig day trips or taking it on a holiday out round Sussex, so that might eventually attract something bigger than a 125, have to see. I'm not really intersted in speed (certainly in a car I was never comfortable over 50...). Have a full car licence, so I need that plus CBT to go for the L plates, then after that I'll be in a position to look at bike size. From what I can make out currently, being over 24 I could go straight to a bigger bike, though I wouldn't mind waiting out the first two years to be fully conversant with it anyhow. Definitely more complicated than a car, where they just grind you down to something smaller with infated insurance costs! Still got to save the pennies for the bike to begin with, though., then I'll see. It'll take me that long to find a closed-face lid I'm happy with too.