I'll add my congratulations to the pile - you just got the vote of confidence from your instructor that your standard of flying is god enough to undertake this important exercise as well as the confidence boost from actually proving your new skills to yourself.
I too suffered from squeezing the yoke far past the point at which it was giving me any useful feedback on the forces acting on the aircraft which makes an assessment of how to react to those forces (light touch / heavy correction) more difficult as you're relying more on visual input.
Strangely I too rode motorbikes (& quite frankly am not generally a great fan of heights).
I used to (and still do if I find the workload greater than usual) have to make a conscious effort to hold the yoke with finger tips rather than the whole hand - it improved things for me no end (apart from anything else it helps me relax & concentrate much better, particularly during the approach phase) & has the added advantage of not ending every flight with cramped hands.
Well done again.
