Hello people!
I haven’t uploaded anything for some time and I do apologize for it, I have been busy IRL basically with the topic of this article 🙂
I own a driving license for cars of “B” category since 2009, I know I jumped on the driving wagon a bit late in my life but for the most part where I live, most things I need are close and in walking distance so I didn’t have the need for it but I had given in to pressure from family and social circles to conclude my driving license. So I did.
Fast forward to 2017, I was looking for a vehicle to go to work and return from work. Mass transportation in Athens up to this day that I am writing this article isn’t reliable. I have missed many times the bus because the driver was going faster so he was arriving before the mentioned time at the stop or the bus driver decided to skip a trip to enjoy a coffee (or beer) with his colleagues, yes, it has happened more than once and yes, beer, in the morning, at work, while driving a bus full of people! Welcome to Greece I guess!
Also I was sick of getting into the bus/tram or metro clean and exiting with the dirt of 20 years from the unbathed “investors” who have flooded the capital.
I don’t know how to stress this enough, going into the bus fresh cleaned, a shower like an hour before the ride and exit as if I have never had a bath in my life!
Anywho, I was looking for options but Athens being what it is for very long and not going to change ever(unless nuked or something), a car was out of the question, no parking spots for example and at workplace and at home. Plus I have been in situation where I had to drive around town for 30 or 40 minutes to find a parking spot. So I have started looking for motorbikes! One little problem though! You see, I have never driven a motorcycle before and I don’t have a driving license for it! And the solution to this little problem was the Piaggio MP3 Yourban LT!
You see this little devil can be driven with car’s driving license if the driving license has been issued before January of 2013.
The other term for it to qualify for being driven with car license is that is has a footbrake (can be seen in the picture) and the 2 front wheels have a specific space in-between them. There is another variety of it with RL instead of LT which doesn’t have the footbrake and 2 front wheels are a bit closer together, this model needs proper motorcycle license.
So August 30 of 2017, I got the Piaggio MP3 Yourban of 2017 brand new in my hands! Well, the process to buy it began a few days prior to this date but on the 30th all paperwork has been completed and I took it from the store to my home.
It is a beautiful “relationship” with my scooter, it takes me where I want to go, fast and safe. It has its caveats too, for example logic dictates that 3 breaks are better than 2 right? Not in this case, the brakes in this scooter are not strong and it doesn’t have ABS.
3 wheels = more stability right? Naaah! As motorcyclists in Athens, we are forced to drive between the lanes and cars, so if 1 of the wheels is touching the asphalt and the other the separating lane, the asphalt one will stop better while the other will be slippery and this can lead to the scooter turning the steering wheel on the rider. I can hear you saying, drive like a car in the middle of the lane you bloody idiot! Sure! I have and I do BUT have you driven in Greek roads? Most of them are like a bombarded field! So even when I driving in my lane, this doesn’t guarantee the same level of friction on both front wheels which can result in the same problem. Thankfully I never had an accident of this sort with this motorcycle but the thread of it was always there.
But anyway, I have listed some of the cons of this scooter, the major deal breaker for me is the cost of maintenance. You see, when I have to take it to change brakes or tires, the cost is 50% higher than any other scooter. Because it is not 2 brakes but 3, it is not 2 tires but 3. I think you understand what I’m saying. And the brakes and tires themselves are not cheap.
Also my driving license of 2009 is still in paper form which needs to be renewed to the new plastic one that is shaped like a credit card.
(Sample picture of the old type bellow)
The cost to change my old type driving license to the new is 15€ for the photos and another 30€ for the fees needed for the change. That is 45€. So my thought was, I need the new driving license because my current wasn’t valid to my business trip in Sweden and I am planning to visit Sweden again in November and December. Let me ask a driving school how much the driving license for motorcycles costs?
They told me that I can take the A2 or A type (photo below, we use kilometers and not miles ffs) and the cost would be 350€ or 400€ respectively + 15€ for the pictures and it includes the update of my old driving license to the new type! Actually this was the best offer I have gotten, I have asked a lot of driving schools and most were saying prices in the range of 500 to 600€ and that is IF they were actually saying a price! The vast majority of them were asking me to visit them in their office which made me feel uncomfortable and the situation smelled fishy!
The price gap of 350 to 400 was small and the exams are the same so here I am going for A!
I checked my finances and I could barely afford it but better now than never. So September 19th of 2024 I have registered for the lessons.
The school gave me a book with all the theoretical questions. Because I already own a car license, I don’t have to give all the exams so my driving license is divided into two. One is theoretical which has examinations at the ministry of transportation and the practical which has practical driving exams.
I have started reading the book, the questions for the most part were super easy, even for me that I have never driven a normal motorcycle before, not even had a bit of training whatsoever! There were a few trick questions that i had to study hard and remember. The day of the examination for the theoretical part was on October 3rd, 2024, at 10AM at the site of the ministry of transportation.
I went there a bit earlier but they took us in for the exams pretty late, almost 11AM. No idea why the delay. The questions for this part are only 10 in total and I can fail only 1 question to pass. On the 2nd failed question I would have failed and had to come back another time, perhaps 2 weeks later. But all 10 questions were super easy! I answered correctly all 10 of them under 1.5 minutes!
But unfortunately I had to wait until everyone else finished in order for the results to come in and then the results are giving by alphabetical order based on the lastname and my lastname starts with a “T” so I was almost the last one which frustrated me. Finished first but exited almost last…while the guy who finished last the exam, was third in the alphabetical order. He delayed all of us by completing it with the time expiration and he exited among the first due to the order of lastnames.
Now the practical exams, perhaps I am placing this a bit out of order of the events, before the theoretical exams, I asked the school when I can start the practical exercises, so I did my first riding September 21st, 2024.
This was the first time I actually drove a motorcycle with clutch and gears!
The differences between my current vehicle and the school’s? Lots and lots! First the driving stance, then the clutch and gears, then the weight.
But it is not that I couldn’t drive it, I actually drove it very well, not once I felt I was going down or not in control of the vehicle.
The vehicle in question is: Daytona Monster 125cc (picture bellow but the pic is from recent model and not the 2000’s from the school).
This is not a fast moto, it was easy to ride, had some issues with the clutch -as all vehicles for training, they don’t repair them as soon as a problem arises but they wait for more problems to pile on-.
The 2nd lesson was on 25th of September which was half with the same Daytona Monster and half with the CF Moto 300NK, a 300cc (as the name implies) and much more modern moto.
This moto has a bit better clutch and was able to speed up faster than the Daytona Monster 125cc.
The 3rd lesson was September 27th 2024 and it was entirely with the CF Moto 300NK.
The 4th lesson was October 3rd 2024, the same day I had to give the theoretical exams in the ministry of transportation and this lesson was with the Honda Hornet 600 (picture bellow in mint condition)
From the 4th lesson to the 6th and last (October 4th for the 5th and October 7th for the 6th) all lesson were on the Honda Hornet 600.
The vehicle as the name implies is 600cc, it was much more heavy than the previous two, easier to accelerate and more stable when speeding but it had its drawbacks too, I will speak of the exercises bellow. I will give a link to a youtube video but the video is in Greek since the exams are not the same across the EU and I can’t speak for exercises I know nothing about. So the video will be a Greek one but I will try to list the 5+1 exercises in English with a description.
In this part I will write about the exercises for training and in the end I will write about how it is to be actual examined.
Exercise 1: It is called slalom and basically the driver has to make server maneuvers to avoid the pins on the ground. It is not hard but it is tricky. All in all in this practice I touched down 3 times. The first one was the very first time trying to understand the balance of the Daytona and the 2 last were all with Hornet 600 on the last day. I had a very stressful day at work and I didn’t have clear mind.
Exercise 2: The “slow” this is by far the most difficult one and not just for me, ALL have been failing this a lot and most people who get rejected on the exams are in this one. In this exercise the driver has to drive a straight line of 25 meters OVER 15″(seconds). It is not impossible but it is very hard! There are like 40CM gap between the 2 sidelines BUT the rider is not allowed to touch the sidelines nor to step a foot down nor use the brakes at all! If you ask me, this is the most unrealistic of all the exercises. I can’t see WHY out on the road I am not allowed to touch the asphalt with my foot while going really slow…
Exercise 3: One gear up. It takes place in the same line as the exercise no2 but in this one we have to travel all the corridor and swift a gear. It is much simpler than the 2nd but it also doesn’t allow the rider to touch the sidelines.
Exercise 4: The sudden stop. It takes place in another part of the training field and in this one the rider has to speed up under 5.5″ (seconds) until a certain pin on the group, leave the accelerator and on the next pin to hit the brakes to stop the motorcycle entirely, the engine must not turn off by the actions of the rider.
Exercise 5: Obstacles avoidance. This is the last exercise that takes place inside the training field but in another part and not the same as the 4th. In this one the rider again has to speed up under 5.5″ (seconds) until a certain pin on the ground, leave the accelerator and on the next pin maneuver to the side and merge again in the center, this maneuver is to avoid some obstacles in the center (in my case 3 horizontal pins).
If the rider fails in any of them, the examination stops directly, they don’t allow it to continue ie it is not like the theoretical that allowed 1 mistake in order to pass. Here the rider needs to pass all 5.
If the rider passes all 5 then we are going to the “cruise” part of the examination(Exercise 6) where the rider has to ride outside on normal traffic and roads the bike and he is being followed by a car that the examiners are in. Here the rider has some sort of walkie-talkie (only to listen) to get instructions on what to perform. Once back at base, the rider will be notified if he or she has passed the exams or not.
If not, the rider will have to take 1 more lesson and try again in a few days.
Now how my experience was?
The examination was on October 11th 2024 at 14:00.
First introduction with the examiners and I have given them my ID and my current driving license. Then I had to approach the vehicle from the front and left side of the moto, I was asked a couple of questions, this I can tell you what they were but it is total random, don’t expect to have the same as me. Mine was: where can I see the fluid of the brakes and what type of brakes this moto has.
After that, I check the premises, got on the bike, made it stand up, pulled up the side stand, checked my mirrors and I was asked to do the slalom which I have passed it with ease!
Next they told me to do the slow which made me nervous since my success rate was like 30%(I can’t give accurate numbers since I wasn’t able to count inside myself and perform all the balance actions at the same time and the instructor didn’t have just me to measure me but also other students, so this 30% is my estimation based on my feeling on how well or bad I did and not on facts). But I passed it, I felt the time was good also the examiner didn’t stop me.
Then they told me to do the exercise 4, the sudden stop. Which was easy and didn’t have any troubles with it at all since my first lesson.
Due to the large number of participants, they didn’t take us out to the road or to perform the other 2 tests, it was impossible to examine all the riders in the timeframe they had i.e. 2 hours in total.
Yes, the experience was causing anxiety, even days before the actual exam but in the end, my 7 years of experience driving a motor vehicle plus the 6 lessons of 1.5 hours each paid off!
Now I can ride any motorcycle with no CC limits at all! But it will take 6 months in order to have my real driver’s license in my hands 🙁
I will get in this week the temporary license and also the final one but in the Greek government’s app in digital form which is equal to the plastic one within the borders of Greece but both the temporary and the digital one won’t be valid outside of Greece which is kinda sad that it takes so long!
Edit October 21st, I have gotten the temporary driving license on Monday 14th but to this day I can’t get the gov app to get my “A” driving license part. It seems I was mislead somewhere in the line of communication with the school and the examiners. I will update this post is something changes in the future!
Stay tuned for the next article where I am trying to decide which motorbike to buy!
Until then, stay healthy and question everything!
