We all know that racing motorcycles at a high level isn?t as easy as the top lads make it look. But for most, riding the bike is the easy bit. Because there?s a lot more stress involved in forging a career as a professional motorcycle racer than you might think. In fact, a lot of the people that you think are professional racers, probably aren?t. They?re probably plumbers, or furniture salesmen during the week. So what?s going on and why is the motorcycle racing industry such a ruthless one"

Cash

One of the biggest issues stems from the fact that racing motorbikes costs a lot of money. They?re expensive to buy, expensive to run and expensive to repair (or replace) when the inevitable happens. So a race team, whether it?s at grass roots level or Grand Prix needs cash to operate. And plenty of it. So what often happens is, a race team will sign the rider that can bring the most cash to a team, whether they?re the fastest applicant or not.
That means as well as being fast, if you want to get anywhere in the bike racing game, you?ve got to be really good at finding sponsors. In fact it?s probably the single biggest challenge facing most riders in the UK today.

Telly

A lot of people seem to blame the telly for the fact that motorcycle racing isn?t a ?mainstream? sport, and therefore overflowing with cash in the way football is. Their argument being that if BSB and the like was on BBC1 on a Sunday afternoon, everyone would watch it. And if everyone watched...