Chris Addison

Born Devonport, Tasmania, Australia 16th February 1955.

Self employed since 1981 as a computer network engineer. Before then, I was a qualified carpenter, and started a cabinet making business which is still running today, but now owned by a good friend, and fellow biker. Even though the cabinet making business was successful, I really wanted to be a computer programmer. I went back to university to study, and eventually left the building trade to concentrate on my new career. I often wonder if I did the right thing.

Other interests:

I love boats and the water. My grandfather was a boat builder, and my father has never been without a boat since I can remember. As a child, we spent every weekend out on the boat. I like scuba diving, and looking at coral and fish, but I don't have the patience to fish. I have had my own boat for many years, until I started travelling in September 1999.

I really enjoy most forms of music, and I been attempting to play guitar for 33 years.

Travel obviously interests me; I love to see how other people live, see historical places, works of art, and marvel at how they were able to achieve some feats in the past without the machinery and knowledge we have today.

My dislikes include petty people and computer games.

Riding History:

I started riding bikes in 1972, at the age of 17, while at university. My first bike was a Honda XL100, which cost about $600 (Australian) new, as far as my budget would go at the time. These days, $600 wouldn't get much more than a set of tyres. I had some protests from my family, but they have always respected my right to decide. Although the bike was barely suitable for the job, I went out to the local motocross track which was built in a creek bed, natural terrain as all motocross tracks were then, and learned to ride. A few get-offs later, I quickly learned what not to do. Since then I have had a whole range of on and off-road bikes, including Bultaco, Montessa, Husqvarna, Suzuki, Yamaha, Honda, BMW, and now KTM.

I competed in various off-road events, including trials, motocross, flat track and short circuit, enduro's, and pony express. (Flat track is a dirt oval, short circuit is similar, but with right and left hand corners. Pony express is 15 to 45 minute laps for about 5 hours, two riders. One rider comes in, the other goes.) I have never road raced, though some friends that took it up recently said that it is the most fun they have ever had on two wheels. I did an advanced rider training course on a go-kart track last year, and I really enjoyed riding as hard as I could on a proper race circuit. I rode nearly every weekend until I was 26, and got injured (not badly). My girl friend moved in to help me, and two sons later......... Apart from a few pony expresses, I never raced again, but I started doing long trail rides (400-5000 klms) with a few other ex-racers.

Where I live is almost perfect for dirt bikes. I can leave my home and ride to the most northern point of Australia, Cape York Peninsula, 2200klms away, as the crow flies, and only encounter maybe 200klms of sealed roads, the rest are dirt tracks of almost every conceivable type. This has to be one of the best rides anywhere in the world. It takes in tight and twisty rainforests, deep wheel rutted sand roads with bushes at the side that whack your knuckles for hours at a time, bulldust that can swallow a bike, corrugations that will have your forearms sore for days, roads so long and straight but all you can see is the next rise, river crossings that are impassable in the wet season, with some interesting obstacles such as salt water crocodiles, moss covered boulders, and really spectacular scenery, if you are brave enough to take your eyes off the track for long enough to take it in.

Then, I could go north-west, through the gulf country to the Northern Territory, or south, but that's another story....

I am by no means a great rider. I would describe myself a reasonably fast, safe rider. Riding has endured as one of my true passions in life. For me, there is no better way to distract yourself from the stresses of work and family than to go for a hard ride. It demands absolute concentration, and leaves no room for other thoughts.

Adrenaline is the best drug there is. If governments weren't so preoccupied with wrapping us all up in cotton-wool, closing riding areas for kids because of  litigation worries, and branding motorcycles as dangerous, then perhaps we wouldn't have as big a drug problem with the young people that we have today. If young people are not given the stimulation they need, they will get it one way or another, unfortunately that is often chemically. Both my sons learned to ride, and I believe it will make them better and more responsible drivers. It taught them respect for speed, the necessity to concentrate, or pay the price by way of pain. Pain is a great teacher. I'll climb down from my soap box now.

I have combined by passion for travel and riding motorcycles to do this trip, certainly the biggest, most exciting ride of my life, and hopefully not the last big ride. Alaska to Tierra del Fuego anyone?

'Interesting' crashes I have experienced:

Anyone who rides often in the dirt will have a lot of stories to tell. We all come off regularly, and I have lost count of how many times I have lost skin from my elbows, hurt my shoulders, hands, feet, knees.......you name it, in spite of wearing all the right protective gear. Mostly these are just temporary annoyances, but occasionally a big one happens.

The first one I will describe is the one I mentioned above, that led to my family. It was at what we call a lap and short circuit race meeting. This is properly prepared surface, one an oval, the other has left and right handed corners, but it is generally all flat, no jumps or berms. I was 26, and at the peak of my rather ordinary race career. I had a sort of sponsorship from Yamaha (YZ250G), and I was getting quite good at this type of racing. I was very good on starts, I almost always got the hole-shot, and a friend who used to be able to ride around the outside of me, and wave at me to rub salt into the wound, taught me a few techniques. This day, we were evenly matched. The final race of the day was an 'all-powers handicap'. What that means is 125, 250 and open class machines, and A, B and C grade riders together. The handicap is worked out from your performances throughout the day. My friend and I were the back markers, and in a six lap race, we had been given almost a two lap handicap from the slowest riders. This meant that there was a dramatic difference between the fastest and the slowest, and we were passing riders everywhere, and the closer we got to the front, the slower they were. It was the last lap of the last race, only two more riders to catch, and a rider in front of me was going snails pace into a corner, and I could tell by his line he was going to go wide, so I took the inside line. Then somehow he did a high-side right in front of me. I still can't figure out how he did it, but anyhow, I had the underside of a YZ125 right in the middle of my line. I rode over it, but anyone who has ridden the old monoshock Yamahas know they had a real problem with the rear end kicking on sharp bumps. I did an 'enddo', no injuries, and was getting up to remount, when another rider came along and ran into my arm, and dislocated my shoulder. That stopped me riding for about 4 months. What was really significant about this crash was that my girlfriend moved in to help me. We married had two great sons together, but unfortunately the relationship didn't last.

My biggest one happened when I was 27. My first son was 6 weeks old, and it was Christmas (our summer, and very hot). About 50km from where I live, there is a place called Keel Bottom Creek, and it has some great natural terrain for marking out random tracks. A friend and I were having a bit of a race, and part of the track was an existing dirt track. I can't call it a road, because it had never been graded, it was just two wheel tracks through the bush that meandered aside the creek. It was very dry and dusty, and I was trailing in his dust. I was riding my Husqvarna 430CR close to flat out, at least 130km/h I'd guess. I moved from one wheel track to another looking for better vision through the dust, but what I didn't see was an ant hill (termite mound actually) in between the wheel tracks.  It would have been maybe 20-25cm high, quite small, but at that speed it kicked me out of the seat so high I was vertical doing a hand-stand on the bars. When I came down, I missed the seat, and I was dragging along next to the bike still hanging on, still going 130 odd, with a huge eucalyptus tree looming up awfully fast. I decided that I had to part company with the bike, and unlike most crashes, I don't remember a thing about what happened next until I was past the tree. I thought I had stopped, so I went to get up, and I did another somersault.

There were tyre marks on the trunk of the tree, higher than I could reach. The handle bars were broken. I had obviously hit the tree too. Although I had gloves, jersey, motocross pants and boots, and of course a good helmet, I had cuts all over one hand, a friction burn on my back about 30cm diameter, my leg hurt, and my head hurt. I turned out I had concussion, and on my left thigh, all the flesh had separated away from the muscle, and about a litre of blood was sloshing around under the flesh. The doctor wouldn't drain the blood for fear of an infection, so I had to have a pressure bandage on my leg for months until all the blood drained naturally. Twenty years later, one thigh still has a different shape to the other. The friction burn on my back wept for about 6 weeks. I couldn't wear a shirt, and I couldn't sleep on my back. My wife wasn't impressed. Now she had two babies to look after. I didn't have any days off work, but it was a bit of a nuisance.

The next one was potentially the most dangerous, but I was very lucky, and stupid. A group of us had just ridden about 400km of dirt, and were heading up to a spectacular waterfall to camp the night. What preceded this particular leg of the trip was the stop at a hotel at the bottom of the mountain range. I had two beers as I was really thirsty. I know from past experience that one beer is enough for me to loose the edge when riding, and I usually never drink and ride. Anyhow, I was getting along at about maybe 120km/h when I noticed the others in front were getting away from me, so I upped the pace to try to catch them. I lost concentration, and I was in the middle of tight corner doing about 140kph. I couldn't wash off enough speed. The road was gravel, and had a loose 'ball bearing' surface, so braking was ineffective. The road was through a rain forest, so right up to the edge of the road was thick greenery. Even laying the bike down would have had me sliding off the side off the road and into the trees. I rode as tight as I could, but I went outside the guide posts, into the greenery. All I could see was leaves brushing past my goggles at warp speed. I kept my line, I thought I would come back out of it, but the next thing my bike dropped away from underneath me, and I went face first into a soft dirt bank. There was a creek and a concrete culvert (to take the water under the road), and the bike went into the creek. I smashed the front of my Bell Motostar 4 helmet, which is one of the strongest helmets made, and the bike escaped with damaged steering head bearings, and a gouge out of a fork leg. As for me, I put a tooth through my top lip, and I had sore chest muscles. We fixed the bike (Husqvarna 510TE), and I completed the ride back the next day. On the plus side, I provided a bit on entertainment for everyone with the way I looked. My top lip was about five times it's normal size, and provided a real challenge to laugh, and drink beer without pouring half the can down the front of my shirt. The whole crash was witnessed by a lady rider. She still talks about it occasionally. She is the wife of a friend and real motorcycling character from Cairns (and KTM agent). She would be one of the best female riders in Australia, as well as a nice person.

The next one didn't happen to me, but it was frightening. Some people love seeing crashes, and I do too, as long as no one gets hurt. 

A group of us were heading north along a narrow road, with tall grass (maybe 1.2m) on either side. There was one rider in front of me, Dennis, a guy I had only met that day. We were sitting on about 120km/h which was quite comfortable because it was a fairly smooth road, but a kangaroo jumped out from the side of the road, right in front of Dennis. The kangaroo tried to jump over him, but only made it over the handle bars, and hit Dennis right on the chest. It took him clean off the back of the bike. It all happened so quickly that he didn't even have time to go for the brakes. His bike (XR600), went another 30m or so before falling over. The kangaroo died from the impact. Dennis was laying in the middle of the road, and was in real trouble with breathing. I had to keep my cool, and check him out properly. He couldn't talk. I checked him for neck and back problems first, then broken limbs. He seemed to be getting enough air, but it was causing him severe pain to breath. I was fairly certain nothing major was broken, maybe just ribs. We had to wait almost an hour before the others came along because someone had two punctures. They stayed with Dennis, and I took off for an ambulance, which was about an hour away in Mt Garnet.

Imagine being hit on the chest by a 40Kg odd weight at 120km/h. Lucky he was fit. He had to go to hospital for 2 days with severe internal bruising, but no broken bones. Possibly what saved him was he had one of those old plastic chest protectors, that are only designed to shield the rider from rocks being sprayed up from the rider in front.

Kangaroos are a real danger in Australia, as are pigs, cattle, and emus. I have hit three kangaroos now (on a bike, more in a car), or should I say two, and one hit me. I haven't come off as a result yet, but one ran straight into my leg. It hurt so much that I thought I might have broken the leg for a while. It did tear a buckle out of a $500 pair of SIDI boots though. A friend on mine had a similar experience, but it did break his leg. He didn't stop, he knew it was broken, so he just kept riding another 100km or so to the nearest hospital!

More crashes coming!

If you have read this far, you must have patience. I hope you enjoy reading my stories. Don't hesitate to send me a message if you have any particular comments or queries.