Update
As per Kevsta’s excellent suggestion, I’m posting up what actually happened yesterday – should give you a flavour of what to expect.
We went through the paperwork in the office first – I was asked to show my CBT (DL196), my Theory Pass Certificate and both parts of my driving license.
The instructor, George, then explained to me that whilst we would be doing the test in a controlled area, he needs to be sure that I can assess my environment correctly when on the road, so to imagine that it is a real world situation with other road users about – in other words, do mirror & shoulder checks and lifesavers.
He had a handheld terminal – about the same size as the ones the give you to tap your PIN into when you use your credit card – this displays the speed registered by the speed trap.
We then headed over to the start of the course – me on my bike and George on foot – he stayed on foot throughout.
He has a clipboard with the course marked out on it and at every stage, he showed me what he wanted me to do on the clipboard and pointed out the real life area at the same time.
So the first thing he asked me to do was to park in one of the two ‘parking bays’, each made up of 4 green cones. He said I could go round any way I wanted, but to park within the cones, not hit any of them, then switch off, dismount and pop the bike on the stand.
After mirror and shoulder checks, I took a nice wide circle towards one of the bays, keeping my speed to about 10mph. A quick lifesaver then into the bay. Once parked, I did a quick Hendon Shuffle to pop it into neutral, killed the engine, slipped the side stand down and jumped off. I was about to pop it on the centre stand when he stopped me and said it was fine on the side stand,
Next was manual handling. I had to walk the bike from one bay and back it into the next bay. There’s no right or wrong way of doing this, so instead of walking it backwards all of the way, I backed it out, pushed it forwards past the bay and then swung it backwards into the bay. I got the angle slightly wrong at first, but simply changed the steering, pushed it forwards a bit, changed the steering again and wheeled it back – just like I would do in real life – all cool.
Next up was the slalom followed by 2 x Figure of Eight. There was a line of 4 yellow cones and a further 2 blue cones at the end. Again, George showed me on the board what he wanted me to do and then got out of the way. A quick mirror and shoulder check then towards the cones, which were well spaced so I kept my speed down and didn’t go too wide. When I got to the blue cones, it was straight into the two figure of 8s. Again, there was loads of space, so nice big circles, fairly slowly – I thought I’d done two and a quick glance at George confirmed I had as he waved me on to the next bit. He did tell me not to worry about counting how many times I’d gone round in a figure of 8 – he’d tell me if I did too many and move me on!
Next was the slow riding. George walked about 10 yards away from me and held out his clipboard – this was my cue to start moving. As I approached him, he started walking with the clipboard still held out – no problems with this one – it was like following a lost Sunday driver down a narrow Kent lane 
Now it was time for the swerve test… Duh Duh Duuuuurrrrrr….!!!
You have a long curve marked out of red and blue cones and as you exit them onto the straight, you head towards the speed trap. 10 metres on from the speed trap and out to the left a little is the blue cone you need to swerve around then back onto the straight line and come to a controlled stop with your front wheel in the middle of 4 cones, laid out in a square, not forgetting a double lifesaver as you stop. If you’ve had any decent amount of road experience, it’s actually pretty easy to do the swerve – there is plenty of space, but man you gotta make sure the speed is there! You need to be doing at least 32mph as you hit the speed trap (50kph) – the first time, I glanced at the speedo as I approached the speed trap – was doing 36mph so rolled off the throttle, did the swerve and away. My engine braking had slowed me down too much and I went through at 44kph (they measure it in Kilometres per hour, not miles per hour).
He told me straight away that I hadn’t passed it first time, but that I’d get another chance later.
Next up was the U-turn – I messed up the first one because I’d left the bike in 2nd gear from the swerve test – the swerve test is the first time you need to change gear, so remember to drop it again!
The u-turn is made up of two lines of cones – each representing a pavement, so you make the turn within them – again – it’s challenging, but not difficult. Well, it’s not difficult if you’re in the right gear! Again, you get a couple of goes at it, so not to worry.
Next up was the emergency stop. You do the e-stop on the same bit of the course as the swerve test, the only difference being that once through the speed trap, you just keep going straight. I was pushing towards the top end of 2nd gear when George raised his hand, indicating for me to stop – bit of back brake, bit of front, bit more back, foot down, double lifesaver – job done. I came through the speed trap at 52kph for that one, so all cool.
The I got another shot at the u-turn – I talked myself through it – put it in first, mirror check, shoulder check, look at where I want to go and round – no worries.
Finally, I got me second go at the swerve test – I gave it a bit more welly towards the speed trap, but again, I glanced down, saw that this time I was doing 38mph so I rolled off and through the trap I went, swerved around the cone, pulled up to a controlled stop in the right place, foot down, double lifesaver – sorted…
Off we went back to the office – I rode over and George walked – it felt like an age until he got there, only to show me the speed trap had registered 49kph on the second go – only 1kph too slow – less than 1mph! Gutted 
He said to me the reason I went through the speed trap ok on the e-stop was because I was looking at him, waiting for his hand to go up – not at my speedo. But on the swerve test, I was looking at the speedo and letting off the throttle so by the time I hit the speed trap, the engine braking had slowed me down below the required speed…
One other tip he gave me was that I didn’t keep a busy enough engine on the slow control – he said it should be at least 4000 revs, resulting in my controlling it more with the throttle than the clutch / rear brake, which is a fair criticism.
So – at a tenner a pop – cheap training and actually, quite fun 
Evening all,
Went and did Module 1 of the new bike test earlier - piece of cake, but I failed anyways
Failed on the swerve test - needed to reach 50kph, did it at 44kph the first time and 49kph the second time, so failed it by less than 1mph
Bugger.
Never mind - it’s only a tenner
