RobbieT
Elite Member
Back in April I had the pleasure of being invited to attend a 2 day Training course at the i2i Motorcycle academy in York, and I promised Tom I would pass my experience on to you guys.
The i2i Motorcycle Academy is run by Tom Killeen and his wife, based between 4 different venues in England.
On the Thursday itself I was there for Machine Control 1,
http://i2imca.com/MachineControl.asp
and arriving early I was met by a a few (well 10) other motorcyclists along for the day as well. We were gonna be using part of an old airfield for the day, and Tom and his brother started setting up cones along the taxiway for the days exercises. MC1 began with introductions and expectations, Tom did a great job of getting to know us and making sure he understood why we were there so that he could tailor the days activities to incorporate our needs.
His sense of humour and fun way of describing things relaxed us all immediately, and as the morning went on with low speed maneuvers we all fully relaxed and started having fun.
View attachment 11210
It works like this 10 minute chatting session with Tom explaining the mechanics behind the bike control, and rider behaviour, followed by a quick demo of the activity from him, then about 20 mins of us out on the bikes practicing what we had just been shown.
View attachment 11212
A lot of the stuff was just basic machine control, but some of it was also to get us out of the bad habits we had picked up from riding for a few years.
View attachment 11211
After lunch we progressed onto harder and much faster activities, before finishing for the day and heading off home/to our rented local accommodation for the evening.
Day 2 (Friday) was Machine control 3,
http://i2imca.com/MachineControl.asp
where we continued on the theme of discussion, demo and practice, but the maneuvers got harder and faster with us also incorporating the techniques mastered on day 1 into the control eg hard braking, fast cornering, changing direction quickly etc.
I have to say, Tom is excellent at not only understanding what is going on in your head when riding, but also explaining it in a way that helps you get out of the mindset that can sometimes cause you to panic and have an accident.
View attachment 11213
Don't get me wrong, this isnt something to do instead of an IAM road course or anything, in fact it is quite the opposite. Tom is regularly keen to stress that his courses should compliment any road craft course etc and he certainly plugged them enough times.
For anyone wanting to progress further after MC 1 & 3, Tom also runs an off road machine control course at another venue, and also a knee down course.
http://i2imca.com/Popout/KneeDownTraining.asp.
View attachment 11214
So if anyone fancies it...give it a go...in fact if we could get enough folks together we would make a few days outing/weekend as a club event.
Let me know if anyone is interested and see if we can get the numbers up.
:thumbs:
https://www.facebook.com/i2imotorcycleacademy
The i2i Motorcycle Academy is run by Tom Killeen and his wife, based between 4 different venues in England.
On the Thursday itself I was there for Machine Control 1,
http://i2imca.com/MachineControl.asp
and arriving early I was met by a a few (well 10) other motorcyclists along for the day as well. We were gonna be using part of an old airfield for the day, and Tom and his brother started setting up cones along the taxiway for the days exercises. MC1 began with introductions and expectations, Tom did a great job of getting to know us and making sure he understood why we were there so that he could tailor the days activities to incorporate our needs.
His sense of humour and fun way of describing things relaxed us all immediately, and as the morning went on with low speed maneuvers we all fully relaxed and started having fun.
View attachment 11210
It works like this 10 minute chatting session with Tom explaining the mechanics behind the bike control, and rider behaviour, followed by a quick demo of the activity from him, then about 20 mins of us out on the bikes practicing what we had just been shown.
View attachment 11212
A lot of the stuff was just basic machine control, but some of it was also to get us out of the bad habits we had picked up from riding for a few years.
View attachment 11211
After lunch we progressed onto harder and much faster activities, before finishing for the day and heading off home/to our rented local accommodation for the evening.
Day 2 (Friday) was Machine control 3,
http://i2imca.com/MachineControl.asp
where we continued on the theme of discussion, demo and practice, but the maneuvers got harder and faster with us also incorporating the techniques mastered on day 1 into the control eg hard braking, fast cornering, changing direction quickly etc.
I have to say, Tom is excellent at not only understanding what is going on in your head when riding, but also explaining it in a way that helps you get out of the mindset that can sometimes cause you to panic and have an accident.
View attachment 11213
Don't get me wrong, this isnt something to do instead of an IAM road course or anything, in fact it is quite the opposite. Tom is regularly keen to stress that his courses should compliment any road craft course etc and he certainly plugged them enough times.
For anyone wanting to progress further after MC 1 & 3, Tom also runs an off road machine control course at another venue, and also a knee down course.
http://i2imca.com/Popout/KneeDownTraining.asp.
View attachment 11214
So if anyone fancies it...give it a go...in fact if we could get enough folks together we would make a few days outing/weekend as a club event.
Let me know if anyone is interested and see if we can get the numbers up.
:thumbs:
https://www.facebook.com/i2imotorcycleacademy
