Motor bikes: In 75 seconds I've burned a mile and a half

No lights, no mirrors, no speedo â¿“ at 150mph, knowing how fast you're going is a distraction. Novice rider Chris Dyer braves the high-velocity world of the big-bike racer

Brake, gear, turn: it's important to remember that last one." Paul Scarff smiles. "Last year a guy finished the session, looked back to talk to his mate and rode straight on at Gerards Bend. He broke his collarbone".

Paul works for the Team Suzuki Performance Riding School, based at the Mallory Park racing circuit. He is briefing 15 riders on the dos and don'ts of riding a motorcycle on a racetrack. Most of us have never done it before, and there are some apprehensive faces, mine included. His talk is punctuated by the noise from bikes passing the windows at over 100 miles an hour – in a few minutes we will join them. I unzip my leathers further, conscious of the sweat running down the side of my chest.

As a teenager I asked my parents if I could get a motorbike; the answer was the standard, emphatic "No!" Twenty-five years later I've just bought an 800cc fuel-injected Honda. Having covered 6,000 miles in nine months I consider myself competent, if not experienced. My parents are resigned rather than enthusiastic. I haven't told them about coming here.

"We're proud of our safety record," Paul says. "About two thousand people go through the school each year and we have maybe five accidents." He takes us through the system of coloured flags the marshals use to control the circuit, how to leave and enter the pit lane and the cones used to mark the correct riding line. Other trackside cones are helpfully labelled "Brake" and "Gear", indicating a need to slow down or change down. Despite last year's mishap, "Turn" has not yet made an appearance.

Other tips do nothing to relieve the state of my nerves: "You need second for the hairpin. The camber's steep and if you stall the bike you won't get your foot down, it'll fall on top of you."

Paul explains that we will have an hour on track, and that at the end of the session our instructors will score our riding. "It's not down to how fast you go – it's how you take on board what you're told and how you put it into practice. We're a school, we want people to learn."

He pauses. "Your instructors will let you ride as fast as they think you're safely able to go. We've never had anyone complain they didn't go fast enough."

Down in the pit lane I find my bike, No 16. The school uses Suzuki GSX-R600s, 150mph road bikes modified for use on the track: the seat is lower, there are no lights or mirrors, and no speedometer – knowing how fast you are going is a distraction.

My instructor introduces himself. Brenden Marchesi is a softly spoken Australian who has worked for the school for five years, as well as having a career in bike racing. I am impressed – anyone with a name like Brenden Marchesi has to be world championship material. Brenden says we'll do a few laps and he will show me the line to take around the circuit. All I have to do is follow.

Although this instruction is simple, I nearly don't make it as far as the track. I start the engine, find first gear with my left foot and ease the clutch out. The bike starts to move, I lift my right foot to where I expect the foot peg to be, but it's much higher up than I'm used to and I miss it. Off balance, I veer towards a long line of bikes parked neatly at the side of the pit lane. For a moment I envisage hitting the end one and seeing the others tumble like dominoes, before I find the peg, haul the bike round, and follow Brenden through the barriers of yellow-painted tyres out on to the circuit.

Now I'm riding I feel better. The bike is fast, responsive and surprisingly comfortable. The crouched position makes it easy to tuck down behind the screen. Soon Brenden starts to up the pace, while keeping an eye on me in his mirrors.

Approaching the hairpin I drop down a gear too far and lock the back wheel; the bike slides and weaves. At the end of the lap I follow Brenden down the pit lane, and we take off our helmets and remove our earplugs. The marshals have radioed in to the pit manager that I'm using too low a gear in the corners and making the engine scream. Brenden asks if I know what gears I'm using. I don't. He tells me not to worry.

"Show me your position for the corners," Brenden says, "I'll hold the bike." I hang both buttocks off the side of the seat and lean down in what I hope is a reasonable impersonation of someone who knows what they're doing.

"Too extreme, at most you need one cheek off." He tells me to move my feet back, tuck my elbow down and look out past the side of the screen. Acutely aware of the purpose of the pristine, plastic sliders just below the knee of my leathers, I ask Brenden about putting my knee down on the tarmac through the bends.

"If you learn to corner properly and you need to get your knee down it'll just happen. Often you just need to stick your leg out. You do it to gauge how far on to the sides of the tyres you are, not for its own sake."

Back out on the track, Brenden waves me past. Now I have to find my own way, but his advice helps and I'm riding more quickly and more smoothly. The bends and straights start to merge, each one begins to flow into the next, joined by the invisible thread that is the race line. My actions are becoming automatic: under the footbridge, off the saddle, brake, change down, lean, gradually open the throttle through the corner.

Accelerating hard out of Gerards, the long, sweeping bend at one end of the track, I feel the steering go light as the power starts to lift the front of the bike, then flick right and left through the Esses, brake hard into the hairpin, through the chicane with the intimidating wall in the middle, change up early and accelerate down through Devil's Elbow, back under the bridge. One-and-a-half miles, 75 seconds.

Another stop, more advice, and it's over. The hour seems to have lasted 10 minutes, but back in the pits I realise I'm physically tired. Brenden seems pleased and gives me 10 out of 10 for "improvement".

Back in the briefing-room, I ask Paul what people take away from the course. "Mainly confidence. You learn what a bike can do. If you've gone a bit too hot into a bend on the road, hopefully you'll now move off the bike, lean in a bit further and get it round.

"At the start you can see people are nervous, but when they come in off the track they've all got big, silly grins on their faces. It's not often and there's not many places you can give people that sort of buzz."

This seems like fair comment to me. Riding back from Mallory I remember Paul's last warning – "Leave the track behind when you go, take it steady".

I do, but the grin still lasts all the way home.

Next week: our landlubber reporter joins the BT Global Challenge for its final leg