Keanu Reeves

KEANU REEVES

ON THE RECORD

The actor talks about his life on two wheels

Brian Catterson

I LEARNED TO RIDE WHEN I WAS 22. I was doing a picture in Munich, and this young girl had an enduro at the sound stages. I asked her if I could ride it, and she showed me where everything was. When I got back to Los Angeles, I bought a Kawasaki KLR600. I rode that for a little bit and then got my first Norton. I learned all about Nortons. I loved the shape of them, the upswept pipes, and then I came to love the smell of them and how they rode.

G OVER THE YEARS I’D BUY USED BIKES WHENEVER I WORKED. In Chicago I had a Kawasaki KZ900. In Portland, Oregon, I had a Suzuki GS1100E. I once got a 1978 Moto Guzzi T3.1 had an AMF Harley Shovelhead in Pittsburgh. When I went to Australia for The Matrix I got a 750 Norton, and then for the second Matrix I got a Sportster. I also had an old BMW 750 and an ’88 Suzuki GSX-R750.

€ I ONLY RODE IN THE DIRT ONCE WITH A GIRLFRIEND’S FAMILY THAT HAD THE M0T0RH0ME AND ALL THAT. I don’t remember where it was, but I remember the hole I fell into! I saw a little lake, grabbed the brakes, and slid right into a hole—hit the other side. I didn’t get hurt though. Since then I’ve broken some teeth, ruptured a spleen, broken an arm and a leg.

€ I’VE DONE SOME RACE SCHOOLS.

I went to the Freddie Spencer School in Las Vegas. That was a whole other world going from a Norton to a Honda 600, shifting on the other side and all that. It was nice to learn about trail-braking. I like to ride the canyons at night, when there’s a full moon, and you shut the engine off and coast downhill. I try to use the brakes as little as possible, just get the right entrance speed, set yourself up, and flow.

© I’VE STILL GOT THE FIRST NORTON I BOUGHT, AN INTERSTATE WITH A BIG TANK. I put rearsets

on it, Koni shocks and heavier fork springs, Axtell cams, raised compression a bit.

I have a ’72 Combat with Dunstall pipes. And then I have a “mutt bike” with a ’68-’72 engine; that’s a Fastback. And then a racebike I bought from Chris Scott of Supertwins. He had a mechanic named Dean Collinson, who worked on my bikes. Eventually Supertwins closed and Dean and I opened TT Cycles. We tried to make a go of it, and nine years wasn’t a bad run before we had to shut it down.

© ARCH STARTED WITH A HALFFINISHED DYNA. I went to see Gard Hollinger, and once I saw what he was doing, I asked him to make me a custom bike. We took everything off and just kept the engine. He built the prototype, I saw it and rode it, and it was amazing. It fits how I like to ride: I like being able to cruise, but then I also like the curves. E1U