David White never wants to forget the sense of vulnerability and elation he felt when he rode his first motorcycle out onto a main road.

“It was quite nerve wracking and exhilarating. It feels like you’re in touch with the environment: it’s cold and you can feel the wind. You can hear much more and you can see the contours of the road, the gravel. You’re very in touch with what you’re doing.”

Newcomer with fresh perspective

With only four years’ riding experience under his belt, the Motorcycle Safety Advisory Council councillor is virtually a newcomer to its joys and risks.

Combined with his age (David is in his mid-40s), this relative rawness provides the Council—which otherwise consists of much more experienced riders—with a much needed perspective. Part of the reason he was elected.

“New riders in their 40s are overrepresented in the statistics of crashes. Guys who have a midlife crisis, or whatever, and go out and crash. I bring a new perspective on an increasingly important group for motorbike safety.”

So, whenever he’s on his Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R, whether it’s on his commute to work or when he’s winding around Makara or the Rimutakas, he keeps that initial experience close to his heart.

“I don’t ever want to get complacent. When you get complacent it’s probably when you start to make mistakes.”

Comfort in numbers

It’s one of the reasons he jumped at the opportunity to take part in the Gold Ride Forever Training course when it arose.

“I did the Bronze and Silver course back when I was learning to ride. I was going to do the gold one anyway once I had been riding for a while.”

Apart from learning practical aspects of riding, like best practice for braking or cornering, one of the most enjoyable parts of the course was learning from other riders.

“For me, riding is a very solitary thing. There’s not a lot of opportunities to get feedback. Within my group there were a couple of newer riders and a couple that have been riding longer than I’ve been alive. It was quite good to have all that experience in the room.”

Always room for improvement

It made him realise it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been riding, the training provided by Ride Forever is applicable to all riders.

“Even if you’ve been riding a very long time there’s room for improvement. That’s pretty obvious to me because I’m a relatively new rider. One of the guys on the course had been riding for about 40 years and if he can take something away from it then there must be a whole lot of people out there who could potentially learn things, too.”

Take a Ride Forever training course

You can register online for a Ride Forever training course.