During my retreat to Ho Chi Minh in 1Q2024, I took a manual bike 90 min crash course lesson. Over the years, I’ve driven automatic scooters in Indonesia and Thailand, but I’ve always enjoyed learning and really wanted to learn how to ride a manual bike. They brought me to a quiet landed area, before actually bringing me onto the public roads for a while. Thankfully, it was in the not-as-busy district 4 in HCM.
After that, I fell in love with riding bikes. It has the same zen kind of feeling like when I am on a longboard going downhill; just albeit faster. So I decided to enroll in Singapore to legitimize my riding, and also learn to be a better rider. It also enables the proper coverage of my travel insurance by having a legal licence. My main takeaway was the need for proper equipment, which I haven’t been doing much while I was on scooters overseas.
I cannot say that getting my 2B license was easy, though I got it quite quickly in slightly less than 6 months. There was so many moments that I wanted to give up, and it was so, so stressful whenever there is an assessment. I know of many people who start learning, but give up halfway. I nearly did too. At 41, we are so used to having things in control of our lives, and reach a certain mastery for most things. So, when you look at the young people riding so smoothly, it makes you wonder; if other people can, why can’t I do it too? It can be a little disheartening at times.
I fell down and dropped my bike a number of times, struck kerbs, got some bruises while I was learning. I think learning to ride really reminded me how important it is to persevere. It requires grit, never-give-up spirit, and when you do fall (and you will), you have to throw the embarrassment aside, pick yourself up while you may be in pain, pick up your bike, remount it, engage the gear and move off again. It builds your character.
The most frightening word you will hear countless times is, “immediate failure”. If you do this, you will IF. If you do that, you will IF. The instructors love this word. However, I think the instructors there are really nice. I always remember this one instructor who told me to pillion him so that he can show me how to lean in and out during the figure 8.
I often refer to this post, as it highlights most of the key points that will help you clear your lessons.
I remember that prior to lesson 0, I couldn’t sleep the night before. I kept tossing in bed. I was excited, but yet I was fearful as well. I don’t know why but I even considered the idea of chickening out. Looking back at it, it was probably the tension of doing something completely new and putting myself in an unfamiliar territory.
Lesson 3
Your first lesson 3 might be slightly scary, as this is where you will start your 1st attempt at the figure 8 and crank course. Eventually, you will need to clock 11 seconds and below for your figure 8 course, or get demerit points. There will be quite a number of steps that you need to do when doing the figure 8, such as signaling left, shift to 2, canceling your signal when you are in, signaling left again upon exiting. It may seem overwhelming at first, but once you do it many times, it will become muscle memory.
The most important for the figure 8 is to look at the direction which you are headed toward, lean your body and maintain a slight throttle. I like to clutch in just before I exit the course to slow down and kick back my gear to 1. Do whatever you feel most natural to you.
Most people do not have problems with the crank course, but it is one of my most feared courses, probably because I fell off my bike during my lesson 5 assessment in the crank course. I lost control of my bike while making the 90 degree turns.
While you have to up-shift to 2 in the crank course, if you find yourself really struggling, you can just use gear 1 all the way. The timing is 6 seconds, and is very generous. You will have more than enough. I used gear 1 for both lesson 5 and 8 and passed with no issues. You may get 4 demerit points (I didn’t; I’m not sure if they didn’t notice, or if they simply gave me chance), but it is better to get some demerit points, than it is to lose control of your bike. Falling or even touching the kerb is an instant failure. For my TP, because I had to use the new Suzuki (blue) 150cc bikes, I used the typical gear 2 method to clear the crank.
I had mostly used the old red Yamaha bike because I find it more agile than the black one, but at the expense of a lousy clutch and gear shifter. The new Suzuki had replaced almost all the old red bikes, which means I had to relearn some things during my revision practices. I love the new bike; it’s torquey, agile and has a great shifter. It’s just slightly harder to plank.
I took lesson 3 two times before I cleared it.
Lesson 4
Ah… the plank, the #1 course that most people fear. You need to ride up the plank and stay on top for 6 seconds (or more) before coming down. Initially, you will sure fall off because it’s your first time riding it. In your first few times, ignore the timing and concentrate on looking far and going a bit faster initially. Without some speed, you will fall off the plank. Give more throttle and don’t release the clutch all the way, grip your tank and look far. The plank is larger than you think. It’s largely a psychological thing. When you need more timing, you can clutch in right at the end of the plank, and step your rear brake a little.
It is better to go too fast (4 demerit points), than to fall off. Falling off is immediate failure.
On the older Yamaha red bikes, I simply throttle up, and release my clutch completely and it roll. However when I use the Black or the Blue Suzuki (my fav; I was the 1st batch to use them brand new), I needed some throttle in order to keep the bike stable.
There is no #1 perfect way; just stick to whatever works for you that keeps you on the plank for 6 seconds.
Slalom. There are cones here which you need to left right left right. For me, this is possibly the easiest course; engage 2nd before you turn, and turn a little wider and swing your bike to clear the cones. Look at the pathway that you want to go, not at the cones. I’ve seen people drop the cones; usually it is because they turn too near. Touching it is an instant fail so just turn a bit wider. At most you get 4 points (which I did during my lesson 8 and TP). Our objective is to pass and avoid instant fails, and not care too much about points.
Lesson 5 / 8 / TP
Lesson 5 was probably the most stressful one, simply because it isn’t a class/lesson, but an assessment of everything you have done from 1-4. After a warm up round, you will have to take the entire circuit course starting from the slope > figure 8 > crank > plank > slalom > e-brake without any instant fails. You also cannot accumulate more than 12 points, which just makes this a little harder. I managed to clear it on my 3rd attempt and during the classes, I met someone who was doing his 9th attempt. On the reverse side, I also know another fellow rider who cleared it on the 1st attempt.
Lesson 5 is more difficult because at this point of time, we still probably haven’t had enough lessons to be familiar and confident in our bike handling. Actually, I think lesson 5 isn’t so much about clearing the courses, but I think what the instructors really want to see, is whether you can perform under stress.
I asked one of my other fellow riders how I can clear my L5; he told me to try to book an extra slot (that means 2 sessions of L5), so that if you fail, you have a backup. You will feel less stressed. If you pass, you simply cancel the extra slot. Every rider is entitled to 18 free cancellations, and I used about 7 in the entire course.
Personally, I also feel that if you can book a revision slot just before your L5 assessment, it helps too. I cleared L5 after my 3rd attempt. It was very, very stressful.
Lesson 8 is like lesson 5+7, combined, but slightly more lenient when it comes to the deduction of points. 6-7 are out on the roads and I generally don’t fear them much. There’s a U-turn on the test route; just do it slowly, and look at where you are going. You can use a similar speed to how you plank when you make the initial turn.
The traffic police test was a little harder to book, because it had a waiting time of about 1.5 months, unlike the lessons which you can book them relatively close; just a couple of weeks apart at most. I remember that I kept tossing in bed before my TP test; reporting time was 6:45 am, and it was a whole day affair. I survived the circuit part, and was allowed to out to the road. While on the road, the most scary part for me was the U-turn, because unlike most people, I didn’t take any road revision lessons. I focused on the circuit because generally, I’m not scared of the road because I have been driving everyday for 20+ years.
As such, my U-turn was slightly wobbling, probably caused by the testers sitting directly at the U-turn segment looking at how you doing. I didn’t want to look at them so I kept telling myself to ignore them, and focus on the road. My tag number was 9 (smallest test numbers were foreigners, followed by the oldest rider), so I was one of the older ones. We had 60 people on test day; about 15 did not survive the circuit. Everyone that went out to the road passed; it seems to be the culture.
I remember sitting down in the waiting area, and the instructors came over and told us; “it is now 12 pm. You see, no tester come down right? That means, ALL OF YOU PASSED.”
Everyone shouted. Culture seems to depict that if you clear your circuit courses and get to the road segment, you will pass if you don’t do anything stupid on the road.
We then proceeded to book our Expressway Familiarization Ride (EFR) where they brought us out the PIE, TPE and the KPE at speeds between 70-90 km/h. I remember my Suzuki was doing 6th gear at around 5+k RPM around 90 km/h. It was completely different from riding on roads/circuit, and it didn’t feel quite as fast/scary as I had expected it to be.
I came back around 2+ pm as I managed to book the earlier 12:30pm EFR slot, and later went to level 2 to mint my licence.
It was an incredible feeling.
To the outsider, he/she may probably think that it is no big deal. But for all of the riders who went through it, it was such a grueling, difficult journey that the sense of fulfillment and relief after you pass, is just incredible. It is like all our hard work finally paid off. Taking time after work, during lunch, during weekends to practice, attend lessons, get burned by the sun, get drenched in the rain, fall down, get scolded, bruise yourself, get scolded by wife. There were so many discouragements and setbacks along the way; there were times that I simply wanted to give up.
And now that I have passed, looking back it is so worth it.
I’ve booked a KTM Duke for my Phuket trip in Dec, and a Suzuki GSXR-125 for Japan in Sept. I can now ride legally anywhere in the world that accepts my IDP.
Many people may think it’s silly, but for me, at 41, it’s one hell of an achievement.
