Just got back from taking my boy for his road teat and he passed. He is out right now by himself.

 

Congrats to the lad! Well done!

 

He'll be changing his name by deed pole next eh Shakes?
I'm still laughing about what your boy gone an' done!

Congrats Tim. I had the pleaseure of a young lads company who'd just passed his test only last week. Makes you remember how scary it feels to be doing 35-40 MPH. Makes you **** yourself to see how un road wise they can be too. We've all been there. You have to go through it.
Long may he stay in the saddle. Good lad. Wish him well from us.

 

He must be over the moon!

I'm sure you've already given him heaps of good advice, my thirteen year old loves to go on the back, not sure how I'd feel about him out on his own though Bit scary to let go of 'em.
I still do daft stuff at 51, if I was sixteen again I'd be an absolute hoodlum!

Congratulations to the boy

 

I took mine when I was 16. My son is 25 now but I still remember when my dad took me at 16. The night before my test I set up a block and a board as a jump and crashed. I broke my clutch cable. I could not get one before my morning test. I showed up late because I lost my dad in traffic. The guy told me that I failed on the spot for driving around in rush hour traffic by myself with a permit. He then told me that he had no one else so he decided to test me. I had to pop the bike out of gear at stops, kill the engine and start it in gear to get it going. This guy did not like me from the start and he told me that my starts and stops were erratic. My hand signaling in turns after stops were crazy. He told me that I just about did everything wrong. My dad who took the day off from work was not happy.

When the guy asked me why I had trouble stopping, I told him I clutch problems he said,"Here let me have a look at that. HOLY CRAP! YOU DON'T HAVE A CLUTCH CABLE! That's the problem. There isn't a clutch cable here".

What he said next I could not believe. He told me that I passed. He said, "Any one that can drive around in this rush hour traffic without a clutch should do just find with one."

My dad was very upset but did not say a thing.

Anyway, that's the kind of stuff you do at 16. I would never attempt a thing like that today. Thinking back, that stunt was crazy.

 

Great story TBT and exactly the type of crazy stuff I was talkin about

Mind you if your boy is 25 we can hope he's got some of the 'crazy' out of his system by now

 

So the forum is filled with a bunch of old farts eh?

J/k, congrats on your kid Tim!

 

Flllllllllllbgh..... oops sorry! Sphincter control is difficult these days. I may need a bypass.

Tim, that's completely whacked! I've laughed all afternoon at the thought of that. I can't help wondering..... did you have an electric start? If you were riding a kick start bike, which makes sense given the chronology, that's even more of an achievement. Bloody madness in fact, if it wasn't already.
Blimey mate, that story takes some beating. Wouldn't happen these days. The only thing you could have done to make it more impressive was to have a blindfold..... or a helmet locked onto your head with a hungry rat inside.
Gawd.....

 

So the forum is filled with a bunch of old farts eh?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Yup !
Both my boys are now in their 30's but I still worry about them........Dads do that.

Congrat's on your boy getting his clearance. Watch he doesn't pinch the 1000F

 

Yes, before the kickstand neutral and clutch lock out switches. I would rock the bike into 1st gear and hand signal while pressing the start button. I guess from behind I looked like a bull rider as the bike was learching back and forth in the turn while it was coming into power. I also had to shift by reducing power but the stopping was not easy. Sometimes I had to stall in it that stop signs because I couldn't find neutral. Today I think if I showed up they would have impounded the bike.

That instructor and I were off to a bad start so I figured he was going to fail me. He told me to go three left turns and stop. On the second turn I was going down a street where cars were parked on both sides facing the direction I was going so I figured it was a one way street until a car came at me. I got into my lane and turned left and went up the street and pulled over like he told me to. He had my dad pull over way back at the intersection and he came storming up by foot yelling at me. He insisted that I went 4 blocks. I raised my voice (I though I had no chance of passing anyway) and told him that he did not know how to count. Then he brought up the driving on the wrong side of the street. I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "Hey man, it looked like a one-way street." He said, "Well jeeze! when did you figure out that it wasn't?" I said, "when I almost got hit by that car." Then we got back to him insisting I went to many blocks. To this day I say he was wrong. I went the three blocks he told me to. My dad was getting more and more angry with me as I continued to argue with this guy.

OK, now he gets off the 3 block issue and tells me to make 2 CCW circles and 2 CW circles and 2 figure 8's. In the middle of the figure 8's he yells at me, loudly, and tells me to pull off the road. He explains to me that the circles and 8's in the road are to see if the person taking the test is paying attention to traffic. I then had to argue with him again. I told him that I knew where traffic was and I was alright. He was telling me no and that I was holding up traffic. I being 16, brought up the point that everyone knows that people are taking road test in that area and the guy in the car knew this and was waiting for me to finish my turns. The guy was shaking his head and my dad was getting more and more mad.

When we returned to where we started the test, the instructor told me that I did everything wrong that you could do wrong during a test. He said showing up late is an automatic failure and he should not have taken me then. Then he found out about the clutch cable. He said he had to make a phone call and walked away. That's when my dad let into me (he was real mad). When the guy came back he said that he had gone down to a pay phone and called the office. He said that he told them that he had a guy taking a test without a clutch and did not know what to do. They talked it over and came to a decision. That's when he said, "I'm not supposed to tell you this, you are supposed to get your results in the mail, you passed." I looked like my dad's knees buckled, he started to drop. I felt a faint moment myself.

With my son the instructor and I were talking bikes during the entire test. So much that I had to butt in and ask it if I should have my son turn (blow the horn once for right, twice for left and 3 to pull over and stop). At one turn we were very late and honked twice and my son nearly had it down on the peg in the turn and barely got the signal off. The instructor looked up and said" Very good!"

I was following my son home and he hung a right turn. About 2 1/2 hours he showed up at my house. He put around 125 miles on the clock.