The moment CSS announced their 2025 dates, I booked my slot for Level 4 without thinking twice.
Level 4 is completely different from the first three levels. Instead of a set curriculum, you get one-on-one coaching built entirely around you — the school asks what you personally need to work on. You get an off-track coach in addition to your usual on-track coach: the on-track coach watches exactly what you're doing corner by corner, and the off-track coach breaks it down with you afterwards, so both are working off the same picture of your riding. It's a proper reality check. You realise how much a handful of small, precise things — done exactly right, lap after lap — matter more than any one big change.
If you go into a Level 4 expecting to be handed some secret technique that suddenly makes you fast, that's not how it works. Your coach picks one corner, maybe even one specific point in one corner, and you go out and do it right, then come in, get told what's still off, and go do it again. Same corner, lap after lap, session after session, for three days. It sounds repetitive, and it is — but that repetition, with someone watching every single lap and correcting you in real time, is exactly how you actually get faster. You stop guessing and start knowing.
Three days of learning, unlearning and re-learning later, I had one knee-down moment, which felt like a real milestone. But the bigger win was getting into consistent 2:10–2:15 lap times on my own bike — consistent being the key word, because anyone can put in one quick lap, the whole point of L4 is doing it right every single time. Just as good as the riding — I walked away with another set of friends made through the sport.