My Ride Chicago Experience: Part II - Classroom
Wednesday’s Class 9/15/2004: Classroom
Location: 5215 N Ravenswood (Ravenswood and Foster)
I left work at 3:30pm, went home and got my stuff ready for class. The drive took me a while (near and hour and a half) due to the weather (thunderstorms). Class started at 6PM but my goal was to get there by 5:30PM. Thank god for my trusty GPS because the directions I printed out sucked! I made it there right at 5:30.
I walked to the door of the office building and tried to open it… in typical Chicago fashion, it was locked. So I looked around and found an apartment style button system which would buzz the proper suite. Within seconds of hitting the button for Ride-Chicago the door began to buzz and in I went.
I noted that their suite began with a “2” so I headed right up the stairs and looked for an office. I saw the Ride-Chicago office but my focus was on the men’s bathroom because after 90 minutes in the car, I needed to take a piss! I checked the door and it was locked. I assumed it was occupied. I walked into the Ride-Chicago office and the second student to arrive was talking to a man at a desk. I asked him about the bathroom and of course... you need a key to use it. So… finally after emptying my bladder of the 20 ounces Sierra Mist I drank on the ride in I was set to talk with the man at the desk. He introduced himself as Brad and asked for my Driver’s License and Motorcycle Permit. He made copies of both and asked me how I wanted to pay. The choices were Cash or Credit Card. I handed him $300 in cash and he returned a $5.
He then pointed me in the direction of the classroom, which was about 10 feet away from the office.
Once the class started filling up our classroom instructor introduced himself as Chris. He had us go around the room and introduce ourselves, list any prior experience on a motorcycle and the reason you were taking the class. I’m pretty sure there were 13 people in the class.
I was picked to go first. What I basically said was… “I’m Craig, the only thing I’ve ridden is a Honda scooter about 10 years ago. Riding a motorcycle is something I’ve wanted to do for about the past 10 years. My daughter just turned 10… so I bet you can figure out why it didn’t happen.” The class laughed.
Some of the other reasons the other students brought up were “I just bought a bike and want to learn how to ride.” A woman in her mid 40’s said “I’ve always ridden on the back of a motorcycle… I think it’s time to move to the front seat.”
Each of us had to fill out some paperwork. Included were like 3 liability forms which basically said that if we got hurt in the range, we couldn't sue Ride-Chicago, its agents, the United Center, etc... pretty standard stuff, and quite expected.
The class started with a 50 minute video. Before Chris left the room he told us that there were two errors in the video and wanted us to look for them.
The video was pretty pathetic. It looked like it was produced by and for surfer dudes in California. I’m pretty sure we ALL noticed both errors… the video clearly tells us to only use the front brake and never the rear and how to safely ride between lanes of traffic in stop-and-go rush hour (a practice that’s legal in California but not here in Illinois) My advice to Brad & Chris... get a NEW video.
After the video we went through a binder containing a standard Motorcycle Operator’s Manual, which was very similar to the State of Illinois one. For $295 I kind of expected to be able to keep the binder but they apparently reuse them after every class.
Also included were over 100 questions on 4 pages. Chris had us divide up by table to find the answers. “You guys find answers to 1-5”, “You two 6-10” etc.
Then we went around and answered them aloud. We read the question and the answer we found. When we were done with Page 1 we moved on to pages 2, 3 & 4.
Since there were only 2 of us at the table I was at, and because I was seated to the left side, I ended up with the odd #’s and the European dude next to me got one question less on each page with the even numbers.
All the questions I answered were correct…. I can’t say the same about some of the other answers given but Chris was helpful and didn’t embarrass anybody. He also explained each answer and tried to make sure everyone understood. In some cases even using a model motorcycle so we could visualize exactly what was meant.
That process took over 3 hours. After a break Chris asked us who was signed up for the 7:00am-12:00pm class and who was signed up for the 12:30pm-5:30pm class for the range. Since there was only 14 of us he wanted to merge the two classes together to a 9:00am-2:00pm class. At first there were scheduling problems with others and it sounded like the two classes would remain separate.
After another break he offered to buy us all pizza on Saturday if we agreed to merge the two classes. As it turned out, there was only one remaining student who couldn't do it. They asked him if he could do the range portion the next weekend. He agreed. It didn't matter to me, in fact I was happy because it was 2 hours later.... but if I were one of the people who it did matter to... I would have been pissed!
After that it was test time… That‘s right… a test. I wasn’t aware there was going to be a test. I mean shit… we already had to pass the State test in order to get the Motorcycle permit! No big deal but it WAS 50 questions!
Chris assured us that any passing grade would do. Meaning even a “D” will pass. That meant we could get 20 wrong out of the 50. A piece of cake!
The questions were easy anyway. There were like 40 Multiple choice and 10 “Match the Motorcycle part to its correct name”
I was the second one done with the test. I turned it in to Chris and he told me to go to the office to pick out a free T-Shirt. (It's not really free... you get a shirt with your paid tuition.) He said we could leave if we wanted or come back into the classroom if we wanted to see our grade on it. I grabbed a shirt and headed back to the class.
He said “Way to go” and showed me the test. I got 3 wrong. It was an “A”. He asked me if I wanted to see which ones I got wrong… I said sure and looked at the 3 questions… one was a percentage of alcohol related accidents (I think I said 45% and the answer was 50%), another was about covering the clutch when stopped at an intersection and I don’t remember what the last one was. I handed the test back to Chris, shook his hand and said… “See ya on Saturday!” I was on the road home at about 10:30pm.
On to Part III
