In October of 2008, new test for road bike licenses are to be required. Apparently new driving test of a partical nature will be performed on specially design test circuits. I'm not familiar with the present tests. Can anyone out there compare the two and let me know what has changed?

Current bike test is the same as stated there, without the 'off road' bits. Obviously there's the basic riding around safely in traffic stuff, usually around half an hour or so. In addition to basic stuff like that, you are required to do an emergency stop under complete control, ie no skidding, somersaulting/crashing and stopping in a quick but safe manner, including then moving the bike safely out of the way afterwards. Turn in the road. The examiner will find a quiet road, and then you push the bike around in a u-turn to prove that the road is wide enough (some bikes have *really* crappy turning circles). Then the rider is required to ride around under complete control. This means not taking your feet off the footpegs - so if you stall, you fail that part of the test, In addition, the particular fail is classed as 'dangerous fault', and a single one of those means you fail the entire practical test (in my case, twice!!). Why fail? Well, in the UK, the right foot will be inside the circle you turn in when assessed, and as you know, this is the foot that controls the rear brake. On a 'large' bike test (ie not the 125cc test), the bike will not u-turn on or near tickover due to the higher gearing, so the accepted technique for the u-turn is to use plenty of revs, slip the clutch and drag the rear brake to control the speed. Anyway, I'm waffling.... you also need to do a hill start, and that's about all there is. Assuming you haven't failed when you get back the examiner will then ask a few questions about how having a pillion will affect you, the bike and other people. Nice basic stuff about the handling, mirrors, lights, tyres, braking etc....

As with the car test, there is no motorway training/testing, which IMHO is wrong....

Oh, and just to differentiate.

First part is a CBT - compulsory basic training. Pretty much a case of riding around a carpark for a few hours so that the 'tester' can see if you'll end up killing yourself because you can't control a bike. Assuming you don't look really scary, you then ride on the roads for a period of time in which they assess your ability. It's very uncommon not to be granted a CBT certificate, but you must have one to ride around on L plates, and they lasted two years when I got mine (twice!).

Then there's the theory test (and hazard perception test?).

You need both the classroom stuff and CBT to do the 'real' test.

125cc test - bike must be 125cc (duh), manually geared - ie not a big 'twist and go scooter' and allows rider to ride a bike of no more than 33bhp for two years after passing. 'Direct access' test (big bike, minimum 43bhp) allows access to any bike after passing, but applicants for this test must be 21 or over. At least, it was like this when I did mine. There was also a moped licence test that meant you could ride a 'twist and go' up of to 125cc.

Finally, IIRC, a full UK car licence used to entitle a driver to ride a 50cc scooter/'ped without L plates, or a 125cc bike with L plates without having to do a CBT.

The reason I brought this up is because there's a big advert on autosport selling training or something to do with the test.

After receipt of the license, how often do you need to be re-tested?

Same as a car, when you reach 70 (?) years old!! No recurring period or anything sensible like that....

<dunce>

Here it's only a seeing test, no written or practical required.

Same here, the 'retest' is only to make sure the driver isn't blind, deaf or dead!