I Failed My Mod 1 Motorcycle Test – Training & Test Explained (Yamaha MT-07)

I failed my first Mod 1 attempt! I explain the training experience and the test in-depth.

All right, boys. Fire up the engines. And then the the bike stalled. I basically came off the bike and managed to to save it before it hit the ground. I could lost the bike. And today is my mod one motorcycle test. Oh gosh, I’m nervous. So, this is the bike I’m going to be going. We’ve done a bit of a test this morning, and we’re riding to the test center. All right. So, I’m going to do an update on my motorcycle test, my Mod One. So, I had my Mod One training uh last weekend. on the Saturday all day training um at Universal Motorcycles in Edgeear and then on Monday I had my test mod one test. So mod one test is basically um not on the road. It is in a sort of huge sort of car park area, open space. There are lots of cones and you basically have to do a series of maneuvers. I don’t know how many, 13 to 15 something like that. Um and it’s all about sort of safety control of the bike. And what you do on your training day is you get accustomed with the bike and then you you kind of drill those things. you you go through each exercise and then you do like mock tests to make sure you’re ready and then on the day you take the bike, you ride to the test center and then you do it basically. I I’ve got some footage of a little bit of the training. My action 5 ran out of battery. So, I didn’t really get the the last maneuvers, the high-speed maneuvers that you do. So, I’ll go through the maneuvers. I’ll go through the test uh in total and what the day was like for the training and then the test. Stick around if you want to find out if I passed or not. What happened? We were practicing on the Yamaha M07, brand new, fantastic bike. I think it’s 650cc, 600cc. Amazing bike and unbelievable to get on it. We had a look around it, felt the weight, sat on it, and then the first thing we did was uh just started slow control. Start the bike up, do some slow control. So when you turn the battery on, you just press that start side. Yeah. But turning it off, you go to the key, flick off the key there. Cool. As once you go in neutral key, and then you can put the stand on the floor before getting on or off the bike to make your life easier. Cool. When you’re ready, boys, have a seat on your bike. Get a little comfortable sitting position that works for you. Yeah. Feel some limit points when you’re sort of tilting the bike over a little bit. feel the steering out. You’re gonna probably find the steering is not as generous as a 125 offers. All the clutch control first gear. Yeah. And then once you’ve done a lap or two confidently, then you can feel a little bit of second gear, first gear going on. Yeah. All right, boys. Yeah. Fire up the engines. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Get a steady bit of noise. Yeah. I’ll just put you on which is the lowest ride a straight line then stop in between the parking bay just after this little horizontal line is yeah cool pretty reasonable turn throttle wise how Try and keep it stable. But yeah, you want to hear a bit of a growl going on. Yeah. Not a roar, but if you hear a little bit of that, you’re golden essentially. Yeah. If you’re roaring a little bit, then you got to be very careful on your clutch delivery. Yeah. But again, you know, we call that potential energy because right now you got the control on the gateway of it. Yeah. But like I said, you know, you just don’t want to go too high because then it can be a bit snatchy. Cool. There you go. So, what you do is obviously get it to a good enough tone. So when you’re riding, you try not to vary it, you know, as long as you’re not gripping too tight on it. Yeah. Essentially, you can think about palming it with the meat of your hand or the tips of the fingers kind of hold it in position, whatever works. That’s it. Because yeah, when you’re turning, it’s not going to get actually affected. See? Yeah. Start like Yeah. change of palm. So it’s not going like Yeah. Exactly. But yeah, that’s what death grips tend to do. They just go Yeah. I think I was doing that in my CVT when I first was on the C. Yeah, because rationally your brain’s telling you hold, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. Don’t let go. You know, if you’re already on the bike, it’s not going to let you fly off the back because you’re hunkered onto the seat. So, there you go. You don’t need to like completely because Yeah. It’s easy to keep your arms loose like noodles. Really losing your flexibility. Back straight. Lovely. Point chin where you need to go. Good girl. Grip on the tank. Squeeze in lightly. So, you can also let your legs kind of do some some stuff with it as well. Yeah. There you go. Keep that. and then play a lap in second gear if you can as well. Yeah, you got sharp corners. Okay. Then you can reduce the speed first gear clutch control it and then on the exit second gear again. Okay. Stop. Nice. Okay. Yeah. I was That’s it. I was curious as I was going around that one. Does it like to be in second or first? But I think if you wants to be in first when you’re going to struggle for that. Yeah. Sharp corners. Probably first gear clutch control. Yeah. In doubt. There’ll be points where we will try some sharper corners in second. But you know in the test pad you’re not going to have to turn sharp in second gear. You’re going to have loads of space. You effectively do that football pitch sl you know. That’s it. And then have a leg stretch. Okay. Fantastic. Really nice. The main thing is pulling away checks are going to be important. Yeah. Uh to make sure you don’t accumulate your minor faults. Yeah. Cool. And the only one check you’re going to do in motion is the lifesaver for the U-turn. Yeah. Cool. What I’ll do first here, boys, I’ll do you a quick demonstration of what we’re getting up to. Then I’m going to be rotating you guys through it one at a time. There’ll be a bit of room here to do the actual maneuvers like we set up for the test. All right. And then over there, I’m going to make a bit of spare space where you guys can have a little bit of fun there playing with some eights and U-turns. And then once one of you guys have finished this, you just replace each other essentially as you go. Yep. While while the other guy was was practicing, we couldn’t be on the same part obviously for safety reasons. So he put me in like a corner uh while while we swapped over so you could just practice whatever. And there was just like a couple of cones there, but it wasn’t set up with the same distance or anything. And it’s had a slight incline. So, as I’m like practicing on my own, I’m trying to practice this like turning really sharply, slowly, but like way too sharp. Like I was doing it like if this is the U-turn, I was trying to turn in this circle kind of thing. Ridiculous. And because it was a slight incline, what I was doing was I kept over trying to overorrect the throttle to not be too revvy. And so I was going around and I’ve got this on the footage, you’ll see. I’m turning I’m turning and then the the bike stalled. I basically came off the bike and managed to to save it before it hit the ground. I could lost the bike. I’ve got it. I’ve got it. I just I just stalled when I was turning. It’s fine. Yeah. But definitely needed some red. Yeah. Yeah. And it really shook me up. It was the first time I felt um like my confidence was really knocked back during during sort of training and stuff because I’ve done the assessment on that big bike and managed managed it fine, but there’s a there’s there’s no feeling like when the bike bike’s dead weight suddenly goes one side and you’re at slow speed. And then I did it again and and and the same mistake again with the rev too low revs. And so as I was pulling out the clutch to get more speed, I just stalled the bike. Got to regain my confidence. Now I think what I’m struggling with is as I’m coming up this bit, it’s a sort of slight incline. Yes. So if the bike sort of like if I’ve not got the right I think it’s the having the right throttle control. That’s right. Cuz I had too weak of it. Yeah. And then and then it then it stalled. Yeah. It’s because of that bike point as well because Yeah. Otherwise there’s nothing for it to go for. So the clutch will give it and if it stalls when you’re in that slow turn, it’s awful because the whole bike just goes and then Absolutely. Yeah. Jeez. And that then put me in this strange pattern because later when we were redoing the U-turns, the the trick with the U-turn is as you’re turning, what can happen is you’re turning, you’re turning, you you’re doing okay. Make sure you you don’t look down because that’s where you’ll go. You look walk look like this way. But sometimes on the U-turn, because you’re turning tightly, you might be going slow. If you feel the bike slowing down too much, you suddenly feel the weight going and you want to put your foot down. And the instinct there is just the the right thing to do there, which is what the instructor was saying, was just pull the clutch out more. You know, if you’re losing speed, just pull the clutch out and speed up a little bit and you’ll get that balance back. But because earlier I’d had such a bad experience of pulling the clutch out, it stalling and then almost losing the bike completely twice. I just was so all I was doing was overcorrecting the throttle instead, which was doing nothing because the clutch was still half engaged. So, all right. So, going curve pavement. Yep. Uh, a little bit more momentum for this. Obviously, you don’t want to go too slowly. Like a figure of eight speed would be a bit more ideal. Yeah. Oops. Damn it. No worries. Yeah, it was easy to overthink this one. Yeah. Now, what the bike needed there was momentum out. Okay. Bit of a clutch release. On the uh test, you have a bunch of maneuvers. The first one you have to ride into uh a parking space and then there’s a parallel to that there’s another parking space. And what he’ll ask you to do is get off the bike and manhandle the bike into the the the parking space parallel to that one. Great. Okay. So, Okay. Just going to go over there for a sec. But yeah, if you go ahead for the slam and the eight. Yeah. Just make the eight. I’ll call you over at some point. Okay. This is a relatively easy one, but the first time I did it, I didn’t know where to put my hands. And the bike is so heavy. If you don’t have the right hand placement, you’re not used to managing that weight, it feels like, my gosh, you know, um, but that’s relatively easy. Then you once you’re set up, you’re facing towards the cones and there are a bunch of cones sort of lined up very close together and then there are two at the end that are further apart. And this is what’s called the slalom and then the figure of eight. So you have to set off when you’re ready. Always use your mirrors before you go and you’ve got to go around this slalom like this. And then you’ve got to do a figure of eight round the the last two cones. And you just keep doing that until he says to you, “All right, uh, follow me. Go here.” Whatever. Left, right? Start this. So you don’t need to remember like how many times. Um, and you want to be keeping the bike in first gear, clutch, using clutch control and back brake. So the big thing that they emphasize in this is just controlling the bike at slow speeds. And it’s all about keeping some revs on, constant revs, uh, using the clutch to to sort of handle the speed. The thing with that bike was the throttle is so sensitive and when you sort of start you pull it a little bit if you’re turning for example doing the maneuvers you sometimes just jud the the throttle and it goes like that and you know coming from driving a car I’m still I still wasn’t used to that feeling of keeping revs on with the clutch still engaged it just feels like I’m going to burn something you know so that was um difficult and remember in the test as well during these maneuvers if you once you begin the maneuver what if you put your foot down and you stop that’s it it’s an instant fail. So it was quite harrowing to get get used to how much revs to keep on and remember that if you if you if you’re starting to go and going too slow and the bike’s going to go you let the clutch out a little bit and you’ll speed up a little bit but as long as you’ve got the revs relevant revs on. So did that and then then you you have to meet the guy and then he will say can you show demonstrate riding at walking pace. So you kind of ride alongside the instructor as he walks to the next part. that will then take you to the U-turn. So, you’re at one set of cones and there’s a road and it’s kind of like the width of a normal road and you have to basically do a U-turn from this side to the other side. So, so you go like 3/4 of the way. You look turn your mirrors, do a tight turn round slowly and then you stop there and that’s the U-turn. All right. And you turn. Try to be a bit more central the box. Yeah. They will all have pointed top cones, so you don’t want to like sweep over. Okay. And then that’s it. That’s that’s the that’s most of the exercises. And then the last three are the sort of higher speed maneuvers. This part was what was really bugging me. The U the U-turns and the the first parts. I then came back to that later and was like, look, I really want to drill the U-turn and the slalom. and I managed to get them down by the end of the day. I managed to really figure them out which was great. Um so yeah, so that was that’s the first bunch of the tests and then the last three um the tricky thing is about this one is that the the training center only has a scaled down version of the real one at the test center which is longer. So the idea is this is the longer one where you set off after you’ve done the U-turn. You set off, you go round, you pick up speed, and then the first one is just basically a controlled stop. For this one, your speed doesn’t have to be that fast. It can be like 20 20 odd miles an hour. You go through round the corner and then through these sets of cones and then there’s a cones at the end and you just have to stop very safely at the bottom. So, front brake, rear brake, and then clutch in at the end and stop safely and in control. That one’s relatively easy. the la the last two can be a little bit tricky. So, the next one it’s the same maneuver, but this time uh they have a speed uh two of the cones um toward after you’ve come out the corner a few cones later, there’s like a speed device that measures your speed. At this point, you have to be going I think it’s 32 miles an hour at least, which doesn’t sound fast. On the road, it doesn’t sound fast, but on a on a court, it’s quite fast. It feels quite fast because you’re going through these these sharp things. So, you have to do that and then you come out of there and you’re meant to stop when an emergency stop. Basically, that’s the second maneuver. So, you’re meant to ride as if you’re going to those blue cones at the end, but once you see his hand stop, front brake, rear brake, stop like that and stop as quickly and as safely as possible. Don’t lock the brakes, you know, don’t don’t show any kind of like sign of of of losing control. That was fine. The final one is after you go through the speed the speed point, there is two sets of cones and then there’s a third one on the far left. And the idea is instead of going through that final cone straight ahead, you have to you have to evade it. So you have to go through the speed uh speed trap uh whiz around this these two cones and then stop safely. So I was practicing that. But in the training center, he was saying to us, you know, try and get as much speed as you can, but you’re not going to be able to get to the speed you will be doing on the thing because we just have a we don’t have the space. And I was fine. Like the Saturday, every single one I did, it was fine. So then came the test day. So good morning. It’s quite early, the morning of 28th of July, and today is my mod one motorcycle test. And in the morning, we had some time to practice and do a couple of mocks. Um, but my focus obviously was on the U-turn, was on the slal and putting my foot down. I wasn’t focused on the blast three because I’d had no issue in the in the in the practice training and stuff. Um, so the idea was with practice anyway, I got it down. I did the U-turns, but when I did my first the the last maneuver, I hit the cone as I’m doing the final maneuver. you know, my boot hit the cone. I was like, “Oh shit.” You know, he’s like, “It’s okay. Just redo it and make sure you’re turning.” I was like, “Okay.” Did it. It’s fine. Thought that’s just a fluke. It’s it’s fine. U we did some mocks. My U-turn was fine. My slalom was fine. I was super nervous. And then we we basically had to ride the bikes from the training center to the test center. Oh gosh, nervous. So, this is the bike I’m going to be going. We’ve done a bit of a test this morning and we’re riding to the test center. So, we’ve got to I’ve got to ride this to Cuden test center and then we’ll do the test. Now, I thought it was going to be 30, 40 minutes. It was an hour and a half, maybe even a bit longer going from Edgeware to Cudden. So, it’s all the way across London. But this was brilliant because it gave me so much more time on the bike getting to know the feeling of it. So on the way there I was I was um sort of he was saying to us, you know, you can practice some of your speeds and this will be your chance to get up to that speed that you’ll be at because you haven’t been able to on the on the training course. Um get up to the speeds that you’re going to be doing on the actual exercises. So he was say saying, you know, in the in the training course, you’ll be in second gear only going up to that hitting that 32 speed and then doing your emergency stop and then the evasive maneuver. So he was like, yeah, sometimes just just put it into second and feel what it the bike feels like because there’s not really enough time to look at your speedometer to check you’re doing the right speed before you go through because you’ll just lose track of what you’re doing ahead. So you just want to kind of be able to feel when the bike is doing roughly that speed. Um, so yeah, the ride there was amazing. It was great to sort of get get um that time with the bike and feel the power of it. It’s just insane, you know. I’ve never never ever controlled any vehicle that you pull the throttle back, second, third gear, and it just goes. There’s just this constant stream of just on tap power. It was insane. Um, so that was it was amazing, but you sort of can’t enjoy it because you’re nervous. And I was going first. Got to the training center. It was boiling hot. My wrist was really hurting because I guess I’m not used to it. The muscle, you know, the just not used to it with my muscles. And uh but yeah, we we we got there, the the instructor got there, the test started for me. Bunch of people came to watch. First exercise, start the bike, put it round. Fine. I was nervous but I was controlling the bike. Did the slalom figure of eight fine. Uh rode slowly fine. Uturn fine. And so then it was like the last three and I was thinking yes the last three. This is it. Um did the first one control stop perfect. Second one the emergency stop perfect. And I was I remember in my helmet saying to myself, “Oh my god, you’ve done it. You’ve you’ve done it. just got this last one. He’s like, “Okay, go go go off, get up to speed, and then please avoid the cone.” So, I went around the thing, got up to speed, but I was really really overly like when I did the emergency stop. They give you the speeds after. And my speed was like 60 69 kilometers or something like that. when I did the emergency stops. So, I was going way faster than I needed needed to go because I was I think I was so um overly conscious of not going fast enough through the speed trap. And so, this final one, I come around the corner, get up to speed, get through the thing to do the evasive maneuver, and my boot just touched the cone. And as soon as I felt the little, you know, that was it. I knew I’d failed on the last exercise. And I just thought, you know, it was awful. It was really, really, really demoralizing because, you know, I I’d done everything else fine. Um, it was just such a little thing. So, I was gutted. Um, the other guy passed, so well done to him. The instructor, he was obviously he was gutted for me as well. He said, “You you can redo it. It’s fine.” And he said, “Um, if you want, so it’s not a completely wasted day.” which it wasn’t anyway because time on the bike is time on the bike because eventually I’m going to do the mod 2 and that’s on the road and all of that training that you pay for is just basically time on the road. And he said instead of you guys following me, you go ahead, I’ll drop back and I’ll film you and then I’ll give you honest feedback about your mirrors, your lane, your lane positioning, your safety, basically the stuff that they’ll be looking at on your Mod 2, which is a 35minute ride. So about 354 minutes of the ride back he rode behind me and I was doing and his feedback was really clear and he said you know maybe you overdoing your mirrors a bit too much like every time you stop you go from a stop state to a start state you’re doing the mirrors he’s like you don’t need to do that you know I was kind of overcompensating but um it was good feedback and it positive he said that you weren’t doing anything dangerous so that was something in the day to kind of make me not feel like a complete and utter failure but then um you know I went to He went to the realm of of Reddit and saw that a lot of other people had failed the Mod One in exactly that way. It’s frustrating because you know that on the road you’re safe and you can control the bike, but just in this very specific um examination condition, you just have to make sure you don’t do any of those doozies. Um so it was just yeah it was gutting. Um the other guy who I was training with who also took the test and passed what he did and what I should have done was you know one thing that they do give you is multiple chances to do the high speed one if you’re going too slowly. So if you do the the evasive maneuver and you go too slow, he will tell you you didn’t go fast enough. You can try one more time. And I think I just thought, “No, I just want to do it the first time.” And but maybe what I should have done is do it slower, figure out the maneuver. I think the thing was was that if you’ve never practiced to do that really tight quick maneuver where you’ve really got to you’ve really got to lean the bike, um the bike obviously operates differently depending on the speed you’re going. So, you know, at 25 miles an hour, it’s a lot more to easier to lean it quickly than it is at 30 37 38. I was doing almost doing 40 miles an hour which I didn’t need to be doing and I think you can be a few miles an hour under the actual speed required. So I should have done that in hindsight. So yep, I got back to the test center and and uh training center and rebooked my mod one. I had to push back all of my mod 2 dates because they were all set for the 18th of August and then the test was the 20th of August. So now I’ve had to basically put them as to be confirmed and the the mod one is now on the 18th of August. So it’s about two weeks on Monday, 3 weeks from when I did the test, which is gutting because you just want to kind of redo it. But I contacted Triumph and they’re fine with holding the bike and there’s no problem there. So that’s the update with Mod One. So I guess I’ll make an update on my Mod One reset and let you know how it goes. if I manage to pass, the pressure is on. Um, the difficult thing about the Mod One test, and I sympathize with anyone taking it, is it’s just a real pressure cooker. Uh, I I really genuinely think that it’s more nerve-wracking for me than the Mod 2 will be. I can’t say for sure because I’ve not done it, but the Mod 2 feels more natural because a lot of what you’re doing is a lot of your attention is just on the road and driving normally and you just have to remember certain things, mirror checks and safety and being assertive and uh following following the instructions, keeping safe distance. But with the Mod One, it’s just you, the cones, the bike, the instructor following along. And it’s so strict uh in a way that the Mod 2 isn’t. You know, it does, you know, you’re not going to fail the Mod 2 because you put your foot down at slow speed. Mod one, it’s just Yeah, you’ve got to be constantly uh it feels a little bit unnatural. I understand why they do it because that slow speed control is something that you need to get a handle of because um uh if you’re not able to control that kind of bike, that power and that weight, it can be a complete nightmare. I even fell over on the on the Saturday mo on the Monday morning before my test doing the same thing practicing in in the corner way too sharp and the bike actually fell and the guy came came over and he but he was really relaxed and he said you you um you’re just trying to turn too sharply he says that’s he says even I can’t turn that sharply without falling over or putting my foot down so don’t be too hard on yourself you know so yeah that’s the update it’s not the video I wanted to make I wanted to make, you know, mod one pass, this is how I did it, and then do the mod two, but but uh I think I need to make a video because this is still two weeks away, over two weeks away. So, I hope this is helpful for somebody and hopefully when I’ve passed as well, I can round it out and give the feedback of of how to get past it. But, um yeah, anyway, thanks for watching and uh I’ll be I’ll be back for more content when they’ve done the mod one. Thanks for watching and please subscribe for more for more content on motorcycle my motorcycle journey getting on the road and then once I’m on the road adventures. So thanks for watching. Cheers. See you next time.