During BikeSafe-London’s 5 years of existence the team have travelled to many far and exotic locations such as Cheshire, Rugby, Devon, Hertfordshire, Essex, either to help out local forces running road safety events or just to generally spread the word that BikeSafe is a worthwhile project. Some of us have even been to North Carolina (U.S.A) where the BikeSafe message is really taking hold.

We have carried out many interesting and challenging roles as a permanent motorcycle team, escorting bike rallies, large scale and very public funeral processions, fast HGV convoys, World and British Superbike events, Ally Pally and Excel bike shows, the list goes on.

But you can imagine our surprise when Sgt Paul Mostyn was emailed by Sgt Major Andy Riach of the British Army some weeks after he had attended a BikeSafe-London day at the Ace Café asking if BikeSafe-London could run a couple of courses for his personnel. “No problem” came the reply, “just let us know the location of the base and we will do the rest”. But there was one slight problem, it was GERMANY..!

 Well with a lot of hard work from both Andy and Paul, including all the necessary authorities and permissions to allow serving Met officers to travel into Europe, seven fine officers from the Motorcycle Tasking Team headed off on their marked police bikes towards Folkstone and the Euro Tunnel.

After a pleasant train journey with a group of Harley riders on their way to St Tropez, two of which promised to sign up on a BikeSafe day, it was onto the motorways of Europe our destination Monchengladbach, Germany. The team rode through France, Belgium and Holland arriving in time for tea..! Surprisingly it was only about 350 miles. Passing UK tourists on their way into Europe on the motorways was great fun, first they would look across and see seven marked police bikes, and then they would have a double take and realize they were Met Police – priceless…! (Don’t worry, no one crashed as a result)

After meeting the Regimental Sgt Major Levi Ashley (the Master Driver) and so we could be allowed to ride out on the German roads, we were ushered into a room to take the dreaded compulsory Matrix Test. Yes, we had to sit a test and I am glad and relieved to say we all passed. It’s not easy doing your Highway Code in a different language…!

We tried to orientate ourselves in the surrounding countryside, but to be honest, we were lucky to all get back – Germany’s BIG!

So what were we doing there in the first place? Firstly there are a high number of armed forces personnel and their families who ride motorcycles in both Europe and in the UK. A large proportion also ride back home to London on several occasions during the year. Unfortunately there are also the associated numbers of personnel either killed or seriously injured as in the UK; however, there is not a course like BikeSafe available for British Military which assesses the same values as in the UK that your riding is safe and competent.

On the second day, the officers met their students for the day and after a full briefing including all of the presentations we offer to UK riders (excluding the one on filtering as it is illegal in Germany) it was off on to the wrong side of the road for their rider assessment. We were very careful not to loose sight of our respective student as it would have been no fun being lost in a foreign country and being unable to communicate where we wanted to get back to. You should have seen the looks we got from the local residents though – fantastic…!

Just after lunch we were picked up by our German Civil Police Liaison Officer and escorted over to the local police headquarters. Unaware of why we were going we ushered into a large hall where we met the Chief Constable of Monchengladbach Police, the Head of Operations and the Head of Traffic. There were a lot of handshakes and speeches made in pigeon English but it certainly seemed that they were happy we were there.  

The rest of the day followed the same format as any other BikeSafe-London day and the feedback we received from all of the riders was very positive.

Day three came with another 12 keen riders and followed the same format as the day before. Again, the main issue was not getting lost and apart from one of us, who will remain nameless as Bud isn’t keen on us letting you all know, we got back again.

As Paul was counting all his officers back in again, we noticed that Bud wasn’t there. His phone rang and the conversation went like this….

“Paul, its Bud”
“Hello Bud, everything ok, we’re all back and we were wondering where you were”
“Err, I’m a bit lost”
“Ok, do your riders know where they are?”
“No, they’re not local to this area; they’re as lost as I am”
“Ok, no worries, can you see a name of a village that you are near, or a road sign or something”
“Yes, I’m in Umleitung”
“Ok, I’ll pass you over to Al, he’s local and he can talk you in”
“Thanks”

The phone was then passed to Al who is actually based in Monchengladbach

“Bud, its Al, where are you?”
“I’m in Umleitung”
“You fool, that means DIVERSION……!”

Silence………

“Oh”

Don’t worry – Al found him and brought them all back.

So was this all worth while? Without doubt the answer is yes. Everyone who attended mentioned what a great idea and all said they had learnt many things and even better they would do some sort of advanced training either in Germany or the UK or both which, at the end of the day is what it is all about. BikeSafe is the 1st step towards further training and remember:

                                           YOU NEVER STOP LEARNING.

Take care and safe riding.

Colin 

We would like to thank the following people for making the trip possible as without them, it would have never got off the ground.

Sgt Major Andy Riach – Operation Coordinator
RSM Levi Ashley (Master Driver)
Transport for London – Marilyn Cranfield
Insp. Mick Dunn, Chief Inspector David McLaren and Commander Hussein – Met Police