The Top 5 Stupidest Mistakes I’ve Made in 25 Years of Riding

Ben Grayson
6 days ago
7 min read

I’ve been on and around bikes for a long time. Mostly, it’s been brilliant — I’ve seen amazing places, raced a bit, met some incredible people (and some very weird ones), and collected more great memories than I deserve.

But, as hobbies go, biking has its quirks. It’s expensive, seasonal, and — fuck me — it really hurts when you fall off.

Recently, while reminiscing over my questionable biking history, I started thinking about the sheer volume of stupidity I’ve managed to cram into 25 years on two wheels. So I thought I’d share my Top 5 Stupidest Things I’ve Done on Motorbikes, and hopefully hear some of yours too.

5. Faulty Tyre Warmers –Rockingham

racebike knocking someone off on a track day

Back in 2014 I was looking for a way to keep racing without bankrupting myself. Thundersport had just introduced Golden Era Superbikes — basically a class for 90s legends like the Ducati 916, Suzuki SRADs, ZXR750s, and my weapon of choice: an Aprilia RSV.

In my head this was the cheap way to go racing.

It wasn’t.

We turned up for a pre-season shakedown at a chilly Rockingham, my bike freshly painted, my kit pristine, and the air temperature colder than a taxman’s handshake. People kept giving my brand-new slicks that knowing “good luck mate” smirk as they walked past.

Warmers on. Noise test done. I even said the immortal words: “It’s cold, so I’ll take it steady this morning.”

Out on the sighting laps the bike felt horrible — heavy, vague, basically a shopping trolley with clip-ons. After a few laps of wobbling around I got bored and started to push a bit. The bike still felt reluctant, but I ignored it.

Coming out of the last turn onto the “straight”, tucked in, loving the induction roar, I was catching a small group ahead quite quickly. I sat up, grabbed the brake…

…and the world went quiet.

The revs died. I glanced down: 120mph. The front tucked instantly and my beautifully painted RSV went skating down the track without me.

I followed shortly after — on my face, shoulder and hip — bursting my brand-new leathers, warming up my left arse cheek, and eventually bouncing off the wall.

Lap 4. Session 1. Magical.

After checking all digits were intact and confirming I wasn’t dead, I discovered that my bike had gracefully continued all the way to Turn 1… where it collected a Suzuki GSX-R600 and unseated its rider.Awkward doesn’t cover it.

I got the honour of riding back in the Van of Shame opposite the guy whose day (and wheel) I’d just ruined. He was not in the mood to connect on Facebook.

Back in the pits I was treated to the usual warmth reserved for the idiot who bins it on cold tyres and ends everyone’s morning. Sympathy was in short supply.

Eventually we discovered the culprit: a faulty front tyre warmer. I’d essentially completed four laps on an ice-cold slick, and none of us noticed when we pulled the warmers off. Embarrassing, expensive, and something I will never, ever live down.

With hindsight?Yeah, okay… it’s pretty funny.

4. Bought a Benelli Tornado

After a tiny off on my GSXR600, I decided it was time for a change. I had £5,000 burning a hole in my pocket, and in a small Southend bike shop around 2005, I spotted it: a metallic green and silver Benelli Tornado 900.

It looked like a weird Italian jet bike with radiator fans under the seat, and a fuel tank that protruded directly into your balls. Painful but cool, apparently.

Ten minutes later I’m riding it away, smugly looking back at the sales guys who were staring at my cable-tied Suzuki pillion seat like: “What the hell has he done to that?”

Karma arrived quickly.

After a few days of riding and convincing my mates that Italian bikes are misunderstood engineering marvels, I was already questioning my decision. Every time I braked the tank crushed my groin so hard I swear my future children felt it.

One night we headed to the Ace Café. My Benelli got loads of attention — inflating my ego beautifully — until around midnight when we stopped at a BP.

My mate looked over his shoulder and started shouting and pointing at my bike.

“Yeah mate, I know it’s pretty.”

It was not, in fact, admiration. My Benelli was emptying its radiator onto the forecourt at a rate that would shame Niagara Falls.

AA time.

Everyone bailed instantly, leaving me alone with my steaming Italian masterpiece. The fault? Perished rubber bits in the cooling system — a recall no one ever bothered to do. So now I had to call the dealer (who’d already realised they’d been well and truly shafted by my part-ex) and beg for a warranty repair.

The only good thing? I returned the Benelli and bought a nearly new ZX10R — one of the best bikes I’ve ever owned.

The bad thing? I paid full bloody price.

Karma. Again.

zero motorcycles maudes trophy in the snow

3. Maudes Trophy – The Snow, The Pain, The Horror

Ever heard of the Maudes Trophy? No? Me neither — until 2024.

It’s basically a prestigious award given for completing a properly grim endurance challenge. Ours? Ride electric motorcycles non-stop around the four corners of the UK in winter.

1500 miles. Three days. Bikes can only stop to charge.

No warm, cosy pubs. Just misery.

We had a six-man team: Two riding, two driving vans, two sleeping — constantly rotating.

Sounds manageable, right?

Except November decided to average –5°C and electric bikes hate the cold.

On the road we lasted maybe 1h30 per stint before needing nearly 2 hours to recharge. Sleeping in the van was impossible because the van wasn’t running and therefore had no heating. Eventually we just stayed in our full bike kit permanently like miserable, quilted zombies.

Then came the moment that will haunt me forever.

2am. Norfolk. Car park. No toilets. No cover. No hope.

Sudden, catastrophic stomach cramps.I did the only thing I could do: I sprint-waddled into a graveyard and performed the saddest, coldest emergency dump in human history.

Trying to get six layers of kit out of the way without soiling myself was like defusing a bomb during a triathlon. And of course, there was no loo roll. So I used the only thing available: our microfibre bike-cleaning cloths.

Later I learned they were covered in traffic film remover — which explained the chemical sensation that accompanied my next riding stint.

By Day 2, we were hallucinating from sleep deprivation, running out of snacks, and falling off the bikes in the snow somewhere north of the Scottish border. The bikes were battered and barely charging beyond 85%.

By Day 3, no one wanted to continue — officially due to “safety concerns”, but really because we were broken human beings. But someone had to step up, so me and my teammate Macauley did the heroic thing and got back on the freezing, soul-draining electric torture device.

Drafting lorries at 55mph in –7°C, no intercoms, no feeling in our hands — it was surreal. My arse was still suffering from the graveyard incident and the TFR aftermath. I was spiritually and physically defeated.

We did eventually finish and stood in Liverpool holding a metal cup for a photo that almost nobody will ever care about.

For me, the Maudes Trophy will forever be remembered as: The Most Literal Pain in the Arse of My Life.

2. Jumped an SP1 Into a Field

I love sportsbikes. I love speed. I still giggle like a child whenever I get my knee down. One of my favourite bikes ever was the Honda SP1 — loads of torque, gorgeous noise, and a habit of encouraging stupidity.

We used to hang out at an old airfield in Colchester practising wheelies and annoying farmers. One day, a lad called Nicky turned up bragging about how fast his R1 was, so naturally we agreed to drag race.

It was autumn. Cold. Damp patches everywhere.

Did I care? Of course not.

We launched. Neck and neck. Me bouncing off the limiter like an idiot.

We had never actually agreed on a finish line, which turned out to be quite important.

I clicked 6th and realised we were rapidly running out of road. A 90-degree left was coming up fast — the kind you take at 30mph, not 70+.

I sat up and braked hard. The forks bottomed out, the front tyre chattered, and I had the crystal-clear thought: “You’re not stopping… and you’re not going fast enough to clear that ditch.”

So I did the only logical thing: Released the brakes, pinned it, and prepared to be launched over the bars.

Instead, the SP1 hit the embankment, compressed, and miraculously jumped — launching me 10 feet into the air, Superman-style, before nose-diving into a wet, muddy field.

The bike buried itself vertically like a weird agricultural tribute. A farmer stared at me from afar, hands on hips, utterly unimpressed with everything he had just witnessed.

It took six lads to push the bike out, utterly destroying the clutch and costing me £200.

Moral of the story: Don’t let anyone tell you a sportsbike can do motocross.

backflipping a wheelie on a suzuki gsxr600

1. A Wheelie bad commute

Mid-2000s. I’m in my twenties. Daily-riding a blue and white K5 GSXR600 and doing wheelies everywhere like the complete stereotype.

One sunny morning, I’m 10 minutes into my commute, pretending to be John Reynolds in my brand-new Arai. Traffic is light, I’ve already been beeped at twice — all standard stuff.

There’s a bus stop I call Wheelieville, and today there are three very attractive women sitting there.

Well… this is happening.

Ping the clutch, second gear, up she comes to around 45 degrees. I even look around the side of the bike at them. They are definitely impressed.

Then I look forward.

The cars ahead have stopped.

There is no physics-based scenario in which this front wheel is landing fast enough to brake.

I panicked and — like every squid before me — twisted the throttle instead of touching the rear brake. The bike shot vertical, tapped the tail on the ground, and I bailed off the back like a sack of shame.

I slid down the road on my face, shredding the visor of my week-old helmet. The GSXR skidded to a halt, split its cases, dumped fuel everywhere, and caught fire in the middle of the road.

Nailed it.

I crawled to the kerb, avoiding eye contact with the bus-stop judges, and sat there contemplating all my life choices.

In the ambulance I claimed “mechanical failure”. The attending officer listened carefully before telling me that my stunt had closed a major road, caused massive traffic chaos, and earned me: