1. S-weave. There is an S weave pattern marked on the ground with two lines marking the track that you must ride within. The lines are about 50cm apart. From the start of the S to the bottom of the S is about 5 metres meaning that it requires moderate turning at a very slow speed. You also have to know where your back wheel is going in a turn ie. if you ride your front wheel close to the inside line, your back wheel will be on/over the line.

2. Feet up U turns. They have a rectangular box about 15 metres long by 3 metres wide. You have to ride down one side to the end of the box, make a very tight left U turn that contines back to the side you started from, then a right U turn to get you going the same way you started from. It is very tight and requires lots of prior practice. At Oaklands Park, it is also on a significant incline so that adds another dimension to it as one U turn is downhill and other uphill.

3. Short weave. They place about 10 half tennis balls on markings about 2 metres apart in a straight line. You have to weave through them without touching any. Relatively easy.

4. Slow speed balance. They have a 15m long narrow track marked out - two straight lines about 40cm apart. You have to go as slow as possible without touching the lines and the time it takes you to get to the end is measured. The longer the better. If you take more than 15 seconds, full pass. If you take 12-15 seconds(ie. you went slightly faster than the pass mark) then you lose one point. If you do it in less than 12 seconds, then you lose lots of points. It can be tricky and the risk of going too slow is touching a line or putting your foot down, both of which cost as many points as doing less than 12 seconds. In my case, I had points to spare with only the emergency braking test to come(which was make or break anyway - no pun intended) so I was advised to go fast through this test. This gained me 5 points(which I could afford) and avoided the risk of accruing 10 if I went outside the lines or put a foot down.

5. Emergency braking on command. You start off quickly and get it into second gear doing a steady 30kph heading towards the instructor. At a random point, he will raise his hand indicating stop. You do a full emergency stop changing down into 1st gear as well and left foot must come down first. You have to stop within 11 metres.


Overall, you get 20 points to play with. Get to 21 points and you have to rebook and try again(maybe months later). You lose 5 points for crossing lines, stalling, putting your foot down when not required, running over the tennis balls etc. You lose one point for not being in first at the end of the emergency braking test. On each exercise each type of misdemeanor can only get up to 10 points ie. if you run outside the box on the U turn test, once you have crossed the line twice, you have 10 points and can't get any more points for crossing lines. However, the big one is that if you don't do the emergency braking within 11 metres, you instantly fail regardless of what points you are on.

The other trick is that the start point for each test is only about 1 metre from the actual course so you have no room to get moving and settled. If you are shaky at getting good speed control straight away from a stop, then practice that a lot because it is essential for the S-weave, short weave and slow speed balance tests.