When Do Motorcycles and Salt Water Mix Well?
Posted by Mike Werner on Aug 6th 2016
|
|
| The answer to that question is obvious; when your name is Robbie “Maddo” Maddison, the Australian X-gamer and stuntman. |
|
|
| Robbie has done the impossible, he surfed with his motorcycle in Tahiti, riding a 20 feet wave on his KTM 250 SX dirt bike. It sounds unbelievable, but as you can see from the video below, it truly did happen. But... |
|
|
|
|
| Of course, there is always a but. This is a marketing stunt for DC Shoes who sponsored the whole event. So it's not a live video, but a video edited using several segments. |
|
|
|
|
| But don't get me wrong... this is nevertheless an incredible stunt that took 2 years to prepare. The KTM motorcycle was fitted with rubber floating skis in the front, and the rear wheel was fitted with a special tire that had paddles. The paddles would turn with the tire, displacing the water, while the front stayed up because of the rubber skis. The notes do not say what the minimum speed was for the bike & Maddo to stay afloat, but looking at the video, I'd say it was a decent, even impressive, speed. Watching the beginning of the video where Maddo rides a river is impressive and unreal. |
|
|
| In the video you see Maddo riding his bike out of the jungle of Tahiti into the sea water, searching for a big wave, and then riding it down to the beach. But in real life, this was several video segment; well filmed and nicely put together. |
|
|
|
But for riding the wave, Maddo was launched from a boat, and almost drowned when he want into the 20 feet wave. But as a long time surfer, he managed to exit the wave gracefully and finish the video. Another video will be published shortly, a “making of”. That could be interesting to see how it really went down. Just watch the sky – blue sky, then cloudy, then blue again. But you really need to watch the video to see what I'm talking about. It's impressive. Tell us what you think of this stunt? Nuts? Incredible? Daring? |