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During the past 5 days I have been training with the people at Surepass for my motorcycle practical test.

The first three days were spent on 125cc motorcycles. I was used to riding Wasi and took to most of the riding easily. I had a bit of trouble with U-turns, emergency stops and observations when changing road positions. Day three it was very rainy, we went on the A38 and the weather was so bad that we were slowed to 40mph. I was completely soaked, the rain had gone through four layers of clothing on my legs and five on my upper body (yes it was that wet).

On the fourth day I rode a 500cc bike for the first time (it took a bit of getting used to). There was a student called Richard riding in my group, he had his test that afternoon but had a bad case of nerves in the middle of it and had to stop.

At lunchtime on the fourth day the instructor suggested that I take the A2 (taken on a 125cc bike) instead of the Direct Access because I was looking dodgy on the bigger bike but I insisted that I wanted to do the Direct Access. That afternoon I worked hard at getting used to a big bike and relaxing more when I was riding, it helped when I sat up straighter because then I was able to do better observations. The instructor was still not confident on my ability to pass the Direct Access and (as an incentive for me to take the A2) took away the guaranteed pass that students get if they follow the instructors reccommendations i.e. they’ll pay to re-train you for your test if you fail it.

N.B. The difference between the two tests is that the A2 has a probationary period of 2 years in which you are only allowed to ride a motorbike restricted to 33bhp after that it is the same as the Direct Access, you can ride any size bike.

After lunch we went to work on dual-carriageway riding. At first I was a bit hesitant and then I forgot to look at my speedo and ended up going way too fast (too used to my bike not being able to break the speed limit of a dual-carriageway), my instructor told me off because a policeman saw me, thankfully the policeman was didn’t make an issue of it because I quickly slowed down.

On the fifth day I knew I had to work really hard to get up to scratch for my test. I mostly had the instructor to myself because another student who was supposed to show for a refresher session was late. In the meantime The instructor and I went for a short road ride around Langage/Sparkwell area. I worked a lot on my U-turns and emergency stops.

Before the test I was most worried about my speed, observations and my U-turn. I went into the test not expecting to pass.

I didn’t just pass, I pwned. I got 5 minor marks. My instructor said that the average number of minor marks on a pass was 11. Oddly they were all for things that I thought I’d be OK on. There was one that I knew I got completely accidentally when my indicator didn’t come on as I was pulling in.

A big thank you to the following:

• the people at Surepass (obviously) – very patient bunch of folks
• my duct tape – to hold the legs of my jeans in so they wouldn’t catch on the pegs
• my dentist – because everytime I got nervous I thought of how nervous my dentist makes me and it seemed insignificant in comparison