Not for beginners, you may waste your money
I don’t normally leave reviews, good or bad, but with this I hope to save someone from losing a couple hundred quid for no good reason. It’s been a few weeks since my CBT and I wrote this 24 hours ago, so I don’t think I’m being reactionary or unfair. I’ve awarded this 2 stars as the instructors were polite, spoke clearly during the first 90 mins safety briefing, and I appreciate that they remembered and called everybody by their name when speaking to them.
I arrived at the course and told the instructors I was a beginner and had not ridden a moped before. I was wearing the clothing I was told was mandatory (thick trousers & boots). 2 out of the 5 trainees were wearing jogging bottoms and trainers, which, opposite to what the booking said, apparently was fine for the day’s training course. 3 of the trainees had done the course before and the other 16-year-old lad said he’d practised on a friend’s moped, which although illegal was also encouraged by the instructor. That left me as the only person with no riding experience. We all started the basic training together at the same pace. After probably a total of 5 minutes riding in a circle I fell to the side at a few mph as I wasn’t getting the hang of the throttle/brake - I had not been given any advice on how much pressure I was supposed to use. I was then asked to leave. The advice I was given was to take my hand off the brake on the straight sections and use the brake on the turns, I obviously didn’t quite get that straight away. The could see the brake lights were on of the riders in front of me in the circle the entire time, which was not the advice they were given - but I guess that’s fine too. I think my balance is fine as I cycled 10 miles to the training centre, and I’ve been driving cars for 20 years.
Since leaving the course after a quarter of the time I was supposed to be on it, I’ve searched online and can’t find any comments on people being sent home after such a small issue at the start - in fact if you look online all the comments are about how people have done much worse and continued to finish the course. I’ve never been to a training course where if you aren’t good enough immediately you are told to leave. I wasn’t given any option of a partial refund or a retry, I was only offered to book more time “one on one” and then I might be ready for another CBT, each would be approx £200. I also realised that the last part of the course requires 2 hours of on road driving, 1 instructor per 2 trainees - so my being asked to leave meant they get to leave 2 hours earlier that day as there were only 4 trainees remaining, whether that had anything to do with it I will never know.
Perhaps consider these instructors if you are renewing your CBT, have practised illegally already, and/or don’t have the required clothing. If you are a beginner, especially someone who doesn’t have £200 to waste then I urge you to please check out some of the other reviews of other instructors or contact them directly to check if you are at the level they are willing to help you at.
