rider profile:

rolf

Riding Background: Always have had at least one bike since I started riding, but often don't have a car. Commuting, sports (hooning), and touring in Australia, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, French West Indies. Six trips around Oz at last count and more than 20 Nullabor crossings. Love it.

Favourite Ride: Too many to list. Racetracks are always good. So was crossing the flooded Ord River on my GS1100G. Or, licence-less, in a group of 6 bikes, playing hide and seek with the cops ALL the way across the Nullabor on the way to Phillip Island, even playing pool with them one night - and making it. The detour to Wallaman Falls (NQ) that left the two of us and our sports bikes lost on a deserted farm track, in the dark and bogged to the axles in sticky red mud. Laugh! The first time I cornered at >240km/h on the GSX-R. Or, Kalgoorlie to Perth (610km)in 3 hours 45 min early one morning, including 2 fuel and bacon/egg burger stops, sunrise behind me. Scraping scooter panels while circling the Colosseum in Rome, in a pack of 20 other feral scooters, simultaneously terrorising dumb US tourists trying to cross the road. The day alone on wild mountain tracks in Mexico, pulling into a ghost silver mining town in a side canyon just on dusk. Or, my all-time one day distance record, New Years Eve 1989, Broken Hill to Kalgoorlie - GSX-R, wild weather, 4 time zones, 18 hours and 2,275km. All very memorable!

Worst Ride: 1st: Camooweal to Mt Isa, in the dark, with no lights (at all). I couldnt even see my watch! 2nd: That trip to SA with a mate involving his missing front sprocket nut, a 90km tow by occky strap, glancing collisions with roos, full frontal collision with a flock of sheep, minor entanglement with an Asian woman in peak-hour Adelaide, a blown shockie, panniers catching fire, and disrupting a funeral procession in Whyalla. Non-stop struggle at the time, but kind of legendary looking back on it. 3rd: Brisbane to Sydney via Armidale on the CB400N - in mid winter. I had a beard and a cold, frozen snot had cemented my helmet to my chin by the time I got to Glen Innes.

Worst accident: Losing the back end of the GSX-R, spinning 270 degrees and stepping off at 180km/h on a dead straight stretch of the North West Coastal Highway, 130kms north of Port Hedland, WA. Worst of my accidents because it was the stupidest, bloodiest, most expensive, and involved the most number of other people.

Current car: Toyota Landcruiser ute (1991)

If you could have any bike, what would it be, and why: One isn't enough anymore. Duc and Suzuki road bikes, KTM Supermotard, plus a Dakar-type desert-muncher, maybe KTM or Husqvarna. A limited-edition GP-based bike would be nice too if the budget is unlimited.

What are your most prized and important possessions: My wit and modesty

What item do you worship the most: I like to think I attract worship rather than dispense it

What is the best thing that has ever happened to you: Being born, probably

What is the worst thing you have ever done: Stole $6 from my Mum's purse. Closely followed by running my chain dry and shiny one time in 1993.

Best commercial: Carlton beer. Or, the Ford Ka ad where the cat gets it.

Hottest actor: The main guy in "Dude, Where's my Car?" (I like 'em young, dumb, and err, well you know)

If you were given $10,000 for plastic surgery what would you have done: Buy more carbon bits for the Duc (more carbon = less plastic, you see).

If you could choose your parents who would they be and why: The ones I've got seem ok. I'd hang onto them.

What do you wear to bed: skin

When did you come out: To myself, 23. First real M2M experience aged 24, in the back of a ute one cold dark Kalgoorlie winter night.

Teenage crush/idol: Mark Hamil (Luke Skywalker, Star Wars, ok, barely teenage orright?)