Celebrity

When TV companies stop coming up with ideas, and I've got to go and do 'Celebrity Big Brother,' I don't want that to happen.

I've got my own TV stuff on the go, and it's all a bit oddball - it's one-offs, and I can do what, when, and how I want it, really. I don't have any scripts or people telling me to do stuff twice.

I'm a bit embarrassed about how little I know about the First World War. I didn't even know that tanks were used in it.

As far as I am concerned, the Ulster Grand Prix is my favourite race.

In my normal life, I am a private person doing a proper job.

The only thing I keep from the races I've won are the handle bar grips from the bike, the rubber bits.

I'm not much of a chef, so people keep buying me cookery books to broaden my culinary horizons, but I've not got far past shepherd's pie yet.

I'm a great believer in setting myself goals, and I like to think that, once I've a goal to aim for, I'll do whatever it takes to achieve it.

Racing's been good to me, but I'm bored of it.

I get home from work at six or seven. When I'm busy, I set my alarm for three, get out of bed at quarter past three. I have a cup of tea and read a magazine and take the dogs for a walk up the lane. Go through my text messages and reply to anything that needs it, then get my biking gear on ready to cycle to work.

If you were to be put off by every little problem life throws at you, you'd get nowt done.

You can't argue with physics, mate.

Pike's Peak was the single best thing I've ever done in motorbiking.

I don't go out. I work, go racing, then go to my shed and make things.

When I was little, I would open up lawnmowers and try to make them go faster. I wasn't strong enough to do some things, so I'd wait for my dad to get home from work to help me. He was great, but he never really encouraged me, and I'll be the same if I have kids: I'll leave them to do their own thing.

Going back because it's what I did and I was sort of all right at it is not a good reason to race the TT.

I race pushbikes more than I race motorbikes, but it's not the same.

Dentists, doctors, surveyors from Latvia wanted to come to England, do anything to get away from the Soviet regime.

Short-circuit racing is full of health and safety, but the reason I ride a motorbike is because of the danger, and there is no place more dangerous than the TT.

I don't go to racers' funerals.