Ten minutes with… ........................
THROTTLE JOCKEY FOR TYCO BMW IN THE MCE INSURANCE BRITISH SUPERBIKES CHAMPIONSHIP
Former British Supermoto and Motocross champ turned road racer Christian Iddon gives us the lowdown on life as a British Superbike rider. When he’s not busy getting five stars on TripAdvisor, or spending four billion hours a day in the gym, of course… A little bit of graft never hurt anyone.
Funnily enough even though BMW do look after me I still enjoy going to work, and regularly do five day weeks as a builder. I know it might sound crazy but I can’t stand doing nothing, and as I’m getting old I thought it was better to prepare for the future early!
It hasn’t been a bad career so far…
Even though I’ve ended up in British Superbikes, my career started at the tender age of six, in the old schoolboy motocross championships. Besides the odd broken wrists and legs, I become a Motocross champion, before jumping over to Supermoto and winning a grand total of nine British Supermoto titles, while riding for Husaberg, KTM and even Aprilia; now that’s making me feel old!
In at the deep end
After that it was time to make the transition into road racing properly, where I jumped straight on the SMT Superbike and ended up jumping from championship to championship before committing to the Oxford TAG Triumph team back in 2011. After some time adjusting it all came good, and things spiralled from there…
Who knows what the future holds?
I’m not a magician! All I know is that I want to win a championship within a third discipline, and I’m going to be doing everything in my power to make that happen. I’d never give it less than 100% and I’m certainly not giving up yet!
The chances of going to World Superbike are slim…
I thoroughly enjoyed being in the World paddock, racing in Supersport for a year with the factory MV Agusta team before moving into Superbikes on board the Bimota BB3, even though due to homologation we couldn’t actually score any points. It was still a good season though, and we even cracked a wildcard in BSB where I put myself on pole at Assen!
BSB is an unbelievable championship to race in…
The rules are absolutely spot on when you look at the results and the atmosphere is unreal, which really makes things special for us riders. The only problem with British Superbikes is there’s no way you can be a World Champion in there!
But it can also be cut-throat...
Many riders have struggled to get to grips with BSB, and it’s purely because of the close machinery and the depth of field. I mean, at Thruxton I’m pretty sure the difference in time for the field was about a second – you don’t get that anywhere else in the world. When Giugliano first came into the series he’d probably never even heard of me, yet he never went quicker than me anytime we both jumped on the bike. BSB is hard work!
You’ve got to be fully committed.
At the end of the day, it’s not like a game of tennis where it’s all up to you, as there’s so many variables; but if I wasn’t putting in 100% I don’t think I could live with myself. I don’t have a girlfriend or anything as I just see it as a distraction at this point in my career, and I make sure I’m training my ass off to be the best I can. At the moment I’m doing at least 11km every morning before work, followed by gym in the evening.
I run Airbnbs alongside racing 200mph Superbikes…
Variety is the spice of life after all! Although I put everything into being the best racer it’s always worth having other ventures, which means I now have three places I’m running on the side for a bit of fun. I’ve even got five stars on TripAdvisor! If any of you folk need a place to stay, you know where it’s at…