But I've got both my WA license and my motorcycle endorsement now! I got 100% correct on my written exam and 100% on my skills test. The photos below were taken by Scot on a cold Wednesday as I smoothly aced my skills test. The truth of it is that I was actually quite jittery - both with cold and anxiety. I arrived not quite knowing what to expect. There were about 14 of us, waiting to take the test. Sort of a first-come-first-tested sort of basis for those of us who were registered to take our test that day, with about five more on standby if there was time enough for them to test as well.
I waited and watched each of the other registered test-takers go first. Finally, it was down to me and those on standby. I think that four test-takers had been disqualified by that point, due to a lack of skill or not understanding the instructions. You get points taken off for putting a foot down, swinging too wide, not stopping in time, not staying inside the lines, etc. If you get too many points taken off, you are failed and have to reschedule and come back another day. If you fail to understand the instructions, you are automatically failed and have to reschedule, etcetera.
The instructor was emphatically Russian. Made him a bit difficult to understand. Here, I was nervously figeting from foot to foot while Comrade Instructor copied down my license information onto the test scoring sheet. A buddy of his came up and they began chatting in Russian. I wanted to strangle them.
In this photo, I am navigating a 90-degree left turn. Can't touch the yellow lines.
Cone weave. At least one guy got disqualified because he started out on the wrong side of the first cone. A few people didn't have sufficient control over their bike (or were insufficiently accusomed to their bikes) to weave the cones. It looked hard, when I watched. But when I actually got out there, it was easy.
Here I am doing a turn-around in a fixed area. No trouble, hombre.
On my mark, prepared to shoot forward at Comrade Instructor's signal, stabilize my speed somewhere between 12 and 20 mph and then stop as quickly as possible once my front tire hits a particular mark.
Stopping...
Stopped and being commended by Comrade Instructor on my quick reflexes.
Swerve-N-Stop. Like the Zoom-N-Swerve manouver above, but instead of coming to an abupt halt, you swerve around an imaginary obstacle (a painted red line... Comrade Instructor told me to imagine it was a child... !!!) and then come to a rapid stop. This one also concerned me as I watched the others perform, but was likewise simple when it came down to it.
Woo-hoo! Comrade Instructor tells me I have aced my test and as he writes the score on my test sheet, I turn back to Scot on the sidelines and grin (hidden in my full-face) and give a cocky thumbs-up (black glove invisible against black jacket). All-in-all, an ineffective photo that nevertheless radiates victory in my eyes.
Me, my bike and my score sheet. Whee!
NOTE: Yes, that is an orange side cover you see on the right side of my bike. I have a pair of orange side covers that I'd meant to have painted black for my Molly-bike, before she broke down for the Long Sleep In The Dog Run Because The Mechanics In Seattle Are Incompetent. My new bike (who, as yet, does not have a name) came with both factory beetle-green sidecovers intact but somewhere along the way, the right one has gotten lost. I have no idea how it happened, but I suspect that I left it at work one day and it got thrown away, being a vaguely-unrecognizable (to non-bike people) piece of plastic. So upset! That color will be well-nigh impossible to match. I've been keeping an eye peeled on Ebay, hoping to find one. No luck, so far.