The Japanese motorcycle test course

As you know, we're big fans of skiled riding here at ESR, and I like to pass this idea along to my students when I'm teaching.

One of my co-instructors is Japanese and he's mentioned to me on a number of occasions how much harder the licensing is in Japan. He's an awesome rider, but then again, he's also done the actual police training.

Don't believe him? I just ran across this video of the course, which here is given over to a rider for some free practice. I've honestly no idea if this is the same in all prefectures, but I would suspect it is.

One thing is for sure, it's much tougher than the MSF, Canadian MOST test and even the UK test. It also looks tougher than the M2 exit test you can take in Canada and more akin to what we'd call an intermediate course. The course seems longer, tighter and generally more representative of real riding than anything we put our students through. I can only imagine how much safer Japanese riders are.

I've no idea how well each of you can ride, but I'd suggest that no matter what you ride, if you can't at least come close to this, you need to be out getting some practice in.