Did Arnold Schwarzenegger pass the idiotic CA DMV motorcyclelicense test?

Mea culpa. Turns out I was wrong. The DMV uploaded and entire
*series* of videos on the subject.

Looks as if the "secret" of the California DMV's motorcycle riding
test is no longer a secret.

(Free hint: It never *was* hidden knowledge.)

 

jm is correct. 20 feet ahead *is* approximately 90 degrees to the
rider's course at any time, and it wasn't necessary for you to be so
typically nasty to him.

 

Looking at the pavement too close in front of you is a recipe for
disorientation.

A Los Angeles group that I used to ride with invited a CHP motor
officer to lunch and he talked about how to turn really tight u-turns.

He said that you wanted to twist your body around so you could see
your tail light (or the police radio, on a CHP motorcycle), then raise
your eyes to the horizon, and proceed to twist the throttle and
feather out the clutch and make your tight turn.

He calls this approach "maintaining a high horizon."

One of my distant cousins publishes a free motorcycle newspaper called
"Friction Zone."

She has published this officer's accident analyses on several
occasions and he frequently speaks of maintaining a "high horizon."

 

Yup. Cops on Harleys can be pretty impressive.

Now what would be awesome though would be
hearing from somebody who passed on a chopper,
preferably with a fat square rear tire and kicked out
forks.

 

Oh dear.

Attend closely: Using *your* figure of a 25' diameter circle, we
simply multiply 25' by Pi (3.14) and get a circumference of 78.4' for
your 25' circle.

To find out what angle you'd have to cock your head at when using a
sight-line 20' ahead of your path all we have to do is divide that
same 78.4' by 4 to find out exactly how long 1/4 of that circle would
be.

Turns out the answer is 19.6, and that means that when you're when
riding in a 25' circle 20' ahead of you is only a bit over 1/4 of the
way around the circle, and if you were looking 90 degrees to either
you left or your right you'd be looking circa 40' ahead of your path,
not 20'.

Get it now?

 

<Puzzled>

But that's all of them isn't it?

 

*YAWN*

 

This has got to be one of the stupidest questions I've ever seen.

Of course our Governor can ride a motorcycle. He does so WITHOUT a stunt
double (for most scenes) in the Terminator movies. Even if he were to
fail, he'll be back! ;-)

(Now, passing the written test would be a different issue!).

 

Ummmm...in a word, no.

Let's run through the numbers one more time, going slowly for those who
have to remember that "pi" doesn't mean something with a crust, shall
we?

We're assuming a circle with a nominal diameter of something like
25-28 feet, right?

The circumference of a circle is pi times the diameter.

Pi, for those who haven't used it since high school geometry, is
about 3.14.

Pi times 25 is 78.5. Pi times 28 is just shy of 88.

So "20 feet ahead" on your intended path, which presumably IS
along the circumference of the circle and not straight ahead, is
just about a quarter of the way around.

Now, here's the really hard part, so try REALLY hard to visualize
this, OK? If you are at any given point in a circle, and want to
look at a point in the circle that's about a quarter of the way
around, you're looking off at about a 45 degree angle from
"straight ahead."

If you were looking at "90 degrees," you'd be looking at a
spot exactly opposite you on the other side of the circle, or
in this case about 40 feet along what we have to assume is
your intended path. I would humbly suggest looking there is
not a particularly productive thing to be doing as opposed to
looking about 45 degrees off, or a *quarter* of the way around.

All clear now? SO glad we could clear that up for you...

Bob M.

 

That's debatable, considering what the CHP officer had to say about
twisting his body to look back at his tail light (or police radio) and
then raising his eyes to the horizon to maintain his orientation.

 

Sure, except when you are slow riding. My friend (who was, for many
years, the lead instructor of the Police Rider Training Academy that
HOSTED the police riding rodeos in Dumfries that Vito mentioned) looks
down at the ground about 8-10 feet in front of his bike when he wants
to inch the bike forward at extreme low speeds.

You don't do that when you're riding around a 25' circle, which is
what YOU originally suggested that a test subject in the CA rider test
*HAD* to do in order to stay on path.

You are contradicting yourself.

 

I passed the California DMV riding test on my first try, on a
real bike of decent but modest size-- an EX500. I'd taken the
MSF class, but the instructor wasn't certified by the state
so I still had to take the riding test.

It was my first time taking the test, but not my first time riding
the keyhole, since I'd gone over on a Sunday morning and ridden it
until I was confident that I could pass easily.

-Patti

 

Funny. You're not posting from California. Perhaps you took a DIFFERENT
test, passing it 'on the first try'?

 

Yeah, right. All you guys who failed the test
are really, really competent riders and the DMV
is picking on you.

 

The smart people don't take the DMV riding test.

Neither did Arnold.

 

Amazing how when people test & grade themselves, they always pass with
flying colors!

Ask a room of 100 riders to score themselves from 1 to 10 on riding
skills, telling them some number, say 5, is average.

How many do you think will score themselves a 5?

 

Very interesting.

I noticed they never showed a complete test, perhaps because they had to
splice many takes.

And they obscured the sound of the slipping clutch although they couldn't
hide the jerkiness of the brake application a few times in the circle.

That rider was certainly a ringer. It would only be believable if they
spelled out the credentials of that rider (most likely a policeman who is
admittedly extremely well trained before he ever took that test).

Given that, the videos are impressive, just as a Terminator movie is
impressive. But not to be believed.

 

'Fess up: You're actually Joe The Plumber. (Who doesn't really know
anything about plumbing, just as you don't actually know how to ride a
motorcycle.)

The only people who can't pass the California DMV motorcycle riding
test in a couple of tries are the guys who *need* to take the
alternate classes.

Deal with it.

 

I don't know, but based on the contents of this thread, I'm sure the
ones who fail the California DMV test will still consider themselves a
perfect "10" and blame the test itself for their failure.

 

Ya think ?