Just had my 3rd and last day of training for my DAS Bike course, and the instructor gave me a mock practical. I failed 6 times!!! Speeding, 80mph on A1 of Grantham. (Although the speedo is converted from KPH to MPH and not spot on, so my speedo was reading lower then his :/ Missed lifesaver coming on to A1. Crap road position x 2. Breaking 2 second rule x 2. But the annoying thing was I only got one Minor for signalling when I shouldn't :/ Sucks to be me! Wish me luck for my real test on 28th Feb.
The advice my instructor said was to exaggerate everything for the test, to make sure the test guy behind you knows you are doing everything (so do a blatant look in mirriors, and nice big life savers). Also never miss your lifesavers, as thats one of the most important things the instructors look for. I ended up talking myself through everything ("Mirror, position, signal, lifesaver") coming upto every junction. The radios only 1-way, so you can give yourself a commentary easily enough, and I found it kept me focused. Speeding...well, don't ;-) Thats gonna fail you anything... Other than that good luck, but more importantly good riding. BC
What he said none of those things are impossible to rectify on the day. Make sure you do your lifesavers, ride somewhere sensible in the road and most importantly just take it easy! Good luck on the day and stay relaxed RoB
Hopefully you'll get the examiner follow you in the car and after 5 minutes you'll stop noticing him and you'll be able to relax. Just ride for yourself and take it easy, you'll be fine.
If he is in the car, I intend to make it so he keeps having to stop me because he can't keep up! My instructer said I could filter past stationary traffic, so I damn well will!!
It's not pissing him off, I am to show I am capible and confidence with the machine. My mate did the same and passed first time.
Nothing wrong with getting some distance between you and the examiner! He'll mark you down if you don't make reasonable progress On my second and final attempt at the DAS I was riding up to a round about that ajoined a dual carriageway and he asked me to go left. There were cars queing quite far back off the roundabout in the central lane blocking the left hand lane so I nipped up through a little gap on the left and dropped on to the dual carrigeway and off I went while the instructor sat in the traffic. Wasted a good 10 minutes of the test while he tried to find me
Hmm...I was told on no accounts not to do this on my test. Filtering is a grey area of highway code, and it will depend on your instructor how he views it. If he's in a car and you lose him I suspect not very well (my instructor was on a bike as well, so I wasn't going to lose him). That said, I was told that I would be expected to have the needle on the speed limit the entire time, and at junctions/roundabouts to hit the smallest gap I safely could. If you have access to a 125 bike before your test a bit of road-time will do wonders for your confidence, road positioning and life-saver habits (they do come very naturally once you relaise how rubbish bike mirrors are, and how few cars see you). BC
Leg it down to a garage and get that sorted tbh, it'll cost you a few quid, but it's worth knowing how fast you're actually going...
I am not doing it on my bike, my bike is impractical to do the test on as it is a sports bike and has a pants turning circle. So I am on a Suzuki GS500.
