Motorcycle Racing

Watching a motorcycle race is exciting, but have you ever wondered about the science behind the speed? From before riders reach the track until they blaze across the finish line, science plays a key role. Find out about the concepts behind motorcycle design, track surfaces, drafting, protective clothing, and much more!

Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne knows what it is like to live on the edge. The most successful rider in British Superbike history, he is the only person to have won the championship six times. Shakey is a living motorbike legend, with legions of fans across the country. For the first time Shakey tells his life story, from being abandoned as a newborn baby in a London hospital, to multiple brushes with the law and working night shifts on the London Underground to fund his early racing career.

They call him the Paddock Playboy--a disgraced Formula 1 World Champion. A tattooed bad boy with a reputation, he has a penchant for supermodels and supercars. An alpha race car driver earning more headlines in gossip magazines than trophies. I was hired to clean up the mess he made. I was his PR professional. He calls me his nanny. I have my own problems I left behind in New York. But I found all new ones on the race track.  He thinks his sexy, smart mouth and bad attitude will drive me to quit, send me home packing. He thought wrong. He messed with the wrong woman this time. Oh, and that...

A meaningless tryst with a younger man. A one night stand on the anniversary of a tragedy. That’s all he was supposed to be. I needed him to make me forget. He asked me to give him everything. I’m 38. He’s 26. That’s the least of our problems. The ruthless personal assistant of a top team on the grid, I’m as Type-A as they come. I make the world go ‘round for my athletes. Then I blow off steam dancing my ass off at London punk shows. There was no problem a fierce attitude and big, black boots couldn’t solve, until I met Brodie. Icelandic driver, Brodie Lusk, skated through ...

First rule? Don’t sleep with your best friend’s little sister.  Second? Don’t sleep with your teammate’s sister. Danica He’s my big brother’s teammate and everything I am not. He’s a rich, arrogant, entitled snob. He lives in an Italian villa, for God’s sake. I live in a hole in Prague. People think he’s hilarious, charming—the smooth-talking, panty-dropping F1 race car driver. Always with a joke, a mischievous, sexy smirk.  But nothing about my life is funny, and I’m not here for the reasons my brother thinks I am. Dante If one were paying attention—and I am—...

Joey Dunlop's story is one of towering triumphs and desperate tragedies in almost equal measure. Born poor—dirt poor—with no running water, no electricity, he was the definition of the everyman hero, earning the title 'King of the Roads' in what must be considered one of the world's most extreme sports—motorcycle road racing. And as well as being voted Northern Ireland's greatest ever sportsman, he remains the most loved and most successful road racer of all time.

Dirt bike racers don't let anything stand in their way as they blaze to the finish line. Tight turns, steep hills, or huge jumps - these riders brave them all. Take a look at dirt bikes, how they work, and the races they compete in.

They say I'm hell on wheels. The fastest, hardest, most successful motorcycle racer alive. They say I don't know how to lose - that I always get what I'm after. And I always do, except for her - my illicit obsession. Years ago, I chose fame over forbidden temptation. Back then, she was way too young. Too off-limits. My best friend's little sister and way too good for a rough, dirty street racer like me. Now I'm back - rich, hardened, and fallen from grace after getting kicked off the racing circuit. But Hailey Prescot might just be my saving grace.

Everyone had dreams of making it big in Formula 1. Me? This is my F1 nightmare. He was the broken bad boy. He dropped panties with one sexy smirk, a beacon to every girl desperate to land an angsty fixer upper. My first love, my best friend--he stole my heart, my virginity, then obliterated my life when he moved to London to follow his race car driver dreams. I’ve avoided him like the plague, but now I’ve been thrust into his world again. He’s not the same boy I fell in love with. Now he’s all man--a millionaire celebrity athlete. And I’m not the same quiet, nerdy girl he left ...

Michael Dunlop is quite simply the greatest road racer on the planet. Brother of William, also an accomplished rider, son of the late Robert and nephew of the late great Joey Dunlop, Michael can fairly claim that racing is in his blood. Now for the first time he talks in depth about his family story, how he got involved in the family business and how he manages to keep getting back on his bike despite all he knows of the deadly risks he encounters every time he crosses the start line.

Two of Fairbury's most nationally famous citizens were Carl and brother William Goudy. They both raced nationally and held world records in early motorcycle racing between 1911 and 1916.Carl won the big Chicago motorcycle race held in September 1915. Carl loaned his fast Excelsior motorcycle to his brother William. In January of 1916, William was killed in an accident on a Bakersfield, California, track while doing practice laps.Carl's grade-school girlfriend told him that she would not marry him unless he gave up the dangerous sport of motorcycle racing. Carl gave up motorcycle racing in ...

Within the staggeringly dangerous and high-pressure sport of professional motorcycling, Jonathan Rea’s achievements are unprecedented. A legendary World Superbike Champion with more race wins than any rider in history, Rea’s trailblazing success shows no sign of slowing down. Now, for the first time, this remarkable sportsman tracks his life and career.

Graham Jarvis has been at the top of off-road motorcycling for the best part of 25 years and has competed in hundreds of competitions and races all over the world, from TV's Junior Kick Start in the early 1990s to the fabled and ridiculously perilous two-day Italian event Hell's Gate, which he has dominated in recent years and which is one of motorsport's most feared events. Having excelled at trials and enduro, Graham moved into the high-octane world of extreme enduro, one of the most exhilarating sports on two wheels, in 2011. 

Champion motorcyclist and truck racer, television presenter, practical joker or just plain survivor - Steve Parrish has been called them all. Parrish Times tracks his amazing journey over the last four decades, through a roller-coaster ride of emotions in surely the most dangerous and exhilarating sporting arena there is.

THE ARCHER is about a biotech research scientist named Diana who is an avid bow hunter and addicted to lattes. She develops a new drug, REDIGEN, which promotes the growth of red blood cells which is also found to improve stamina in bicycle racers. Several riders training for the Tour de France start using it. Finding that her father, has cancer, she sells her stock in MaxGen and retires to the mountains to be with him. Diana inadvertently discovers that the cause of a rider's death is her drug which has a danberous side effect. Her efforts to reveal the truth motivates many to seek her ...