Martha takes the BRC, on a scooter!

My loving wife Martha, who's been so supporting and enabling in my motorcycling endeavours, agreed recently to take the BRC: Basic Riders Course for Motorcycles provided by T3RG Motorcycle School.

This posting is not a review of the course.  I highly recommend though, the taking of a course approved by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, whether through T3RG or some other school, if you're thinking of getting into motorcycling.

Ever the supportive spouse, Martha had agreed a few weeks ago to take the BRC, the main intent to get her the skills and endorsement to safely ride a scooter to and from her workplace.  Her commute is all of one mile each way on neighborhood roads; and it really didn't make much sense taking the cage in terms of fuel consumption and wear/tear on the engine for such a short commute.

Martha was a bit nervous about the whole thing.  For you see, she (as I had been) had never been on a motorcycle or scooter until day 1 of the BRC.  She would be taking the BRC one week and five years after I had gone through it myself back during Memorial Day Weekend of 2006.

We went through the T3RG school because they offered scooters as an option to the regular 250cc motorcycles for students.  We were to find out later, after class had started, that T3RG offered a class just for women.

There were ten students in the class, including Martha, but she was the only woman.

This past weekend was a hot one in terms of weather, the location was a small parking lot converted to a training range by T3RG.  Following pictures and videos should give you an idea of Martha's progress through the whole thing.

Day 1

 Just look at that concentration level!

Day One training exercise, basic turns....Martha is riding "sweep"

Starting to lean her scooter a little bit into the turns

Symmetry, of sorts, at the end of the day

As you can see, Martha was a bit hesitant with the throttle but made progress throughout the day.  She did manage to drop the scooter once when I was not there but neither her or the scooter were worse for the wear.

Here's a link to what Martha jokingly referred to her "speedy riding style" during day 1 of the course.  LINK

Day 2

Another scorchingly hot day here in Colorado, the instructor moved things along smartly and when I returned to the range, they were nearing the end of the training and getting ready for their rider testing.

I did witness her during one of the practice runs, get up too much speed and having to brake too hard before running out of pavement.  The engine cut out and she dropped the scooter.  I was walking over to her to make sure she was OK and to help her right her scooter but before I got there, she said to me: "I'm all right, let me do this".

Folks, I was so proud of her.  She didn't panic or become flustered.  Just got into the right position and picked up the scooter all by herself, started it up and rode off to rejoin the class.  Outstanding!

Once the training was over, due to the heat of the day only getting worse, the instructor moved straight into testing after getting the class to agree to skip lunch.  Below are videos of Martha going through a couple of the test portions of the rider test that enables them to get a Motorcycle Endorsement upon successful passing.

To me at the time of my BRC, this was the most dreaded test, riding a figure 8 within a rectangular box painted on the ground

The happy successful graduate of the BRC

Testing done, everyone in the class passed!  I was quite happy but I imagine Martha was much happier.  Now, to find her a scooter, and some better riding gear of course!

She's now got the basics, now its on to practice practice pratice......