When and why did you develop an interest in riding a motorcycle? It was 1998, I was working at Kodak in Harrow and travelling from Dagenham to Harrow and back daily. I used a Vauxhall Combo van and it would take 50 minutes to get there and anything up to 5 hours to get home, but on a good day an hour and 40 minutes.
A few guys I worked with suggested I take my DAS and get a motorbike to cut my journey time down. I just dismissed it and said “whatever” and carried on wasting a lot of my life sitting in traffic.
I used to travel to work with my brother. One morning he turned up at mine and we went to get in my van. I looked at the lock on my drivers door and noticed that it has been smashed with what I can assume was a screwdriver. After commenting my brother said “this side has been broken into as well” With nothing of value left in the van I decided to use the van anyway.
As I opened the door the smell that hit me and made me re-coil, as it did my brother. Someone during the night had decided to use the passenger footwell as a toilet and had defecated there and used all my petrol receipts to wipe themselves, that’s how they left the van except for 6 cans of beer in the back unopened. Obviously we had to go to work in my brothers car. Even after my lovely wife had cleaned it twice and decorated it with loads of air fresheners, I couldn’t make myself get back in it, (even with my wife telling me its cleaner than when it left the factory it was built in). That was why I decided to take my test and get a bike.
How old were you when you first rode a bike? 16 years old.
What was the bike and what were the circumstances? I think it was Suzuki TS185 trial bike with knobbly tyres. It was a friends bike and he asked me to take it for a ride while he went somewhere private with a girl he had met.
Of the bikes you have owned to date, which was the favourite, if there was one? The bike I own now. KTM 1290GT.
If you were given the opportunity to own any bike on the market which would it be? The new KTM 1290GT.
What is your favourite motorcycle related gadget? Its got to be my egg sitter cushion/seat. I use it on every bike I own and would recommend one to everyone who rides and suffers from numb bum.
Where is your preferred place to ride in the UK? North Yorkshire and Scotland.
And, overseas? I haven’t been to too many places overseas but the south of France takes some beating for me.
If you were offered the opportunity to go on an extended bike tour who, family aside who would you choose as a riding companion? I like to ride with anyone who rides a bike well, there’s a few of us from this group who I tour with regularly (you know who you are) That’s who I would choose to ride with all day long.
How would you describe to a non rider the attraction of riding a bike as opposed to driving a car? The feeling of not being trapped and the exhilaration of accelerating and freedom a bike gives you.
When do you intend to give up riding? I don’t know the answer to that one but until I am not able to get on or off a bike I suppose.
Describe your scariest moment on your bike? I was on my way home from a group night, I was riding along the high street in Abridge when a van travelling in the opposite direction, by what I can only describe as a lunatic, decided it would be a good idea to frighten me half to death by veering onto my side of the road and headed straight for me. When the van got within 10ft of me he swerved back onto his side of the road. It happened so quick I didn`t have time to brake.
