If you surround yourself with short people, you?ll start believing your tall. If you surround yourself with ugly people, you?ll start believing you?re a looker. And if you surround yourself with slower riders, you?ll start believing you?re god?s gift to motorcycling. And I should know, because it happened to me; I really thought I was fast.

It all started some 15 years ago, when I was darting from one bike racing club event to the next, spending all my dad?s cash to try and win little plastic trophies. And I didn?t do bad at it. I could go to most club races, enter the Supersport class on my Triumph 675, and I?d never be too far away from the front. And with every plastic trophy I won, my ego got bigger and bigger and bigger.

It got so big that I decided the only place for me was the British Superbike paddock. I thought I was ready for ?the big leagues?. So, believing my own bullshit, I persuaded a team to buy a pair of CBR600RRs and run me in the British Superstock 600 Championship. It was going to be brilliant. I?d already ridden most of the circuits that the BSB circus visited, and was pretty confident I could go as fast as anyone else round them, particularly on a stock 600.
It was during the very first lap of the very first session of the very first round that I realised I had severely overestimated my abilities. It was back in early 2008, but I can remember it as though it was yesterday. I was going as fast as I possibly could, I thought I should have be...