MSF Day 2 & Wrap Up

Total Mileage: 15

"Feel free to write to the school and complain about my tendency to occasionally raise my voice just a little," instructor Phil O'Hagan told us at the end of the class, in all seriousness. "I get a talking to about it around once a month."

One gets the impression that he's been getting these talks for most of his life, and that the cumulative effect is visible in the wide grin on his face as he hands seven of the original eleven of us our Motorcycle Safety Foundation Basic RiderCourse completion cards, worth nothing except for "putting them on the fridge with your kids' drawings," except that the Motorcycle Safety School won't provide you with a magnet. Finally, as O'Hagan announces our test scores to the room and produces the cards, he looks skywards and announces: "May God forgive me for passing you."

It comes as little surprise to me the next day when I look up some press about the Brooklyn-based Motorcycle Safety School (with ranges in the Bronx, Ulster, and Brooklyn) and discover articles from five and six years ago in which the author describes "MSF Boot camp" and "instructor Phil O'Hagan" who, as it turns out, is as politically involved with motorcycles (as a lifelong member of the AMA and representative for one of their districts) as he is verbally involved in your face when you do not follow his instructions.

Having now lived through two days of this treatment, my hesitation the other day as to whether or not his style of instruction is appropriate has turned into an unwavering demand that everyone who takes the course after me gets the same medicine. Like a post-initiation frat boy or a grunt just out of basic, it no longer seems to matter to me on any intellectual level whether or not there are other ways of learning how to ride a motorcycle. It only matters to me that there is suffering just like we went through, because otherwise, it's not fair!

On a barely more serious note, in retrospect, I don't disapprove of the man's teaching style. It was rattling, and the people who did not pass the course were the ones who were the most rattled by it (though they will be back on Monday for a re-test), but I can't deny that being rattled on a bike is inevitable and you may as well get used to doing the right thing under those conditions right away.

The second day opened with the Blue Box of Death. Designed for a snail-speed double U-turn exercise, the blue box is some number of feet wide by some number of feet long. Viewed through the motorcycle squid helmet visor, it's about the size of a matchbook.

O'Hagan demonstrates the maneuver with aplomb, making it look so easy that any moron could do it (a good thing, since he has described in some detail the extent to which several of us are morons.) There is one fellow in the course who is a master at this particular exercise, and we all watch him with envy before we set about riding well outside the lines of the box, putting our feet down, or both.

We go through the next several exercises without too much incident: cornering, running over 2x4s, braking during a turn (or, rather, quickly ending your turn and then braking), swerving. Most everyone has improved from the first day.

Several hours later, we're ready for the Road Test, an event which is objectively not especially difficult but practically made problematic on account of everyone is terrified of it. The road test has four parts:

- Two slow-speed U-Turns in The Box
- Swerve to the right
- Emergency stop
- Cornering

The Box is the most difficult part but also the least critical as you don't lose many points for going outside of the box. Miraculously, the only time I finished the Box exercise perfectly was during the test; I was positive that I would lose a few points, but I managed to get through that only to lose points on the emergency stop, which is the easiest part of the test.

The guy before me dropped his bike during the emergency stop. He was one of the better riders in the class and the event was written off due to nerves. It was still an automatic failure, but he was quickly scheduled for a retest that everyone knew he wouldn't have trouble with.

Determined not to repeat his experience, I was a little conservative with the brakes and did not stop in as little distance as I might have and lost a few points.

The test ends without much more drama and we all wait around for our scores. The youngest guy in the class (18) fails from too many points down and looks discouraged, but I wouldn't have had the courage to take that class at 18 so nobody thinks any less of him. One guy who had received a little bit more love from the instructor than the rest of us lost too many points and schedules a retest.

The rest of us get our little cards, go home, shower, and collapse.

Two weeks until we get a DMV form in the mail that we take in to get our licenses.

That's right: I polish my bike and move it across the street several times a week, but I haven't actually ridden the thing yet.

I'm also really more of a baritone.