BACK ON THE BIKE WITH VALENTINO

IS it safe? The question every sportsperson is asking as Britain gradually uncurls from the brace position.

Forget hoping our shambolic government might lead by example. New slogan: ‘Stay alert; disguise yourself as a heavily pregnant woman; elbow way onto first lifeboat’. Is it safe? Remember Dustin

Hoffman in the film Marathon Man, being drilled for information by Nazi dentist Laurence Olivier? Poor Dustin didn’t know either.

Some sports have always been risky. On a 1-5 scale, from bowls to bare-knuckle bullfighting, football’s maybe a ‘two’.

Racing motorbikes, like Italian legend Valentino Rossi (left) looks like a solid ‘four’ to me.

Rossi has won everything and broken nearly everything doing it, ankles, legs, wrists. He’s seen his own shin bone waggling in fresh air.

But here he is in lockdown, at 41, thrashing round a dirt track like a lunatic and loving it.

Don’t think he is just oblivious to risk. He rode one lap at the Isle of Man TT, and said: “Awesome but too dangerous...” Even he draws the line at doing 180 in a 30-zone.

But Valentino lives far beyond safety, by instinct, desire, choice.

Is it safe? In the coming weeks, many of us will not get a free choice of answer to that, under the drill. We’ll have to face it.

Key workers have had to find a way to face it all along. Some called on higher instincts, above animal fear and self-preservation.

Valentino finds a higher ideal too, in his way. No life without risk, no joy without jeopardy.

I’ll be trying to channel a bit of his spirit now. And in a few weeks I might even take the helmet off.