I’ve done a lot of interesting stuff in the process of filming the Speed TV shows, but some of it has been a bit dangerous. Cycling blind at 112 mph on a beach, in the slipstream of a racing truck, got the heart pumping. Flipping that racing hovercraft could have been messy. Nosediving a Suzuki 450 cc motocrosser into a Welsh lake knocked the stuffing out of me. I crashed the sledge at 80-odd miles an hour, and you’ve already read how Brian had a hand in demolishing the beautiful carbon-fibre, downhill go-kart on Mont Ventoux in France. But it all sounds a bit ‘So what?’ compared to the next challenge. The idea is to set the highest speed ever recorded on a Wall of Death.
There used to be dozens of them in America and Britain, some set up permanently at seaside resorts, while others would travel to shows. The different walls would try to out-do each other with dafter ideas until one show had an adult male lion in a sidecar. Not many walls remain now, just a handful in Europe and America, but showmen in India have started building them again. From what I’ve seen, though, they’re a bit jugaad.
Probably the most famous show still working is the Ken Fox Wall of Death, and I’d seen it at the Spalding bike show a few years back. The show lasts about 15 minutes, costs a couple of quid to get in, and the family have been touring since 1995. The crowd stand around the top of the wall, under a Big Top type tent, looking down on the wall and the riders below. It’s mega when they have the race, with three riders on the wall, all zig-zagging up and down at 30-odd mph, nearly touching the wire at the top, right under the noses of the crowd. The whole thing is a good show, but even while I was watching it there was a little bit of me that was saying, in a squeaky little voice, I could do that, I could do that. It’s not screaming, not drawing attention, just quietly stating it.
When I saw the show I never thought I’d get a chance to see if I could, but that’s the TV job for you. The original idea was to attempt 100 mph on a Wall of Death, over three times as fast as anyone reaches on the world’s remaining walls, but when the researchers looked into it they reckoned that would be impossible because I would have to be pulling 10 g to do that. 10 g is ten times the force of gravity. Under 10 g a bloke who has a mass of 11 stone, about what I am, weighs 110 stone. That’s because mass is constant, but weight is relative to gravity. If you were on the moon, where the gravity is about one-sixth of what it is on Earth, you could pick up something that you could never shift on earth, but its mass is exactly the same. A human head, that makes up about 8 per cent of the mass of an adult, in my case would weigh about 12 lb, or 5 kg, if you chopped it off and put it on a kitchen scale (but just take my word for it). At 10 g my neck muscles would be trying to hold up 8.5 stone (55 kg) of head, plus the 15 kg or more of helmet. But that’s not the main problem; it’s the fact that the g-force is too much for the human body’s circulation system and the heart isn’t strong enough to pump enough blood to the brain. The blood congregates in the lower half of the body and that causes black-outs and a g-LOC – a gravity-induced Loss Of Consciousness.
It was decided – I can’t remember who by – that I could probably cope with 8 g, at the very most, and that equates to a speed of about 80 mph. Still, the chances of blacking out and losing consciousness are high. And to even attempt that speed we need to build the biggest Wall of Death ever made.
Hugh Hunt, an Aussie professor at Cambridge University, worked out the ideal diameter to be 120 ft (36.5 metres). Ken Fox’s Wall of Death, the one I saw at the bike show, is 32 ft (9.7 m) across. I always weigh up the length of things by how they compare to a truck’s trailer. The biggest trailer you get on a British road is a 40 ft fridge box, so the diameter of Ken Fox’s wall is less than the length of one of those. The wall that will be built for my record attempt is three times as big. It’s so big that it makes me think, How am I ever going to stick on the wall?
But that’s all well down the line. When I said I’d do the TV programme and attempt the record, all I knew about the Wall of Death was what I’d seen with the rest of the crowd. The TV lot approached Ken Fox to be involved in the programme, to be the expert and teach me how to do it. He agreed, and on 10 February I went to visit him and his family at the yard they’re based in, near Ely in Cambridgeshire.
Ken Fox is the third generation of his family to be the owner of, and rider on, the Wall of Death. It’s a family business that involves his wife, two sons, Luke and Alex, and his daughters-in-law, Luke’s missus Kerri and Alex’s other half Abbi, plus Jamie, a young woman rider, and other riders and crew like Danny Danger and Ken Wolfe. The Fox family have two walls; one dates back to 1928, and Ken built the other one himself, from Oregon pine, in 1994–5. They’re loaded onto the back of trucks and driven around Britain all season. The walls take a good day to assemble, but only three or four hours to break down. They ride antique Indian Scouts, one of them over 90 years old, 1970s Honda CB200s and a motorised go-kart.
It was arranged that I’d spend two days with them, learning the basics, and I turned up knowing nothing. I didn’t make out I knew what I was on about or even had the first clue, so anything Ken and the family told me, I listened. Right at the start Ken said I would be better off not even knowing how to ride a motorbike, and being a completely blank canvas.
To put the shits up me, before I even started to be taught how to ride, I sat on the handlebars of his Indian while Ken set off and rode the wall. He was dressed in his jeans and trainers, like he was off to walk the dog, and so was I. As we were riding round and round he was pointing at the camera and telling me where to look and saying all the things he could see, but everything was a total blur to me and then I started to feel sick. Ken told me to wave, but because of the g-force I couldn’t lift my hand up, I was just glued in place. But in the show I’d seen Kerri and Jamie, two slim women – eight stone soaking wet, I reckon – doing what they can do, none-handed, lying on the bike, riding side-saddle none-handed, and it’s amazing.
Then it was my turn. Lesson number one was me sitting on the bike being pushed around on the flat base inside the wall, with the engine running but in neutral, so I got used to the noise of the bike. Even that made me dizzy. Next I rode around the bottom, completely on the flat, and after that I was so dizzy the boys had to hold me up when I stopped.
I’d sit down for five minutes and try again, but I was getting dizzy really quickly after every break. I still hadn’t reset the system in each five minutes off while I sat on the floor, so Ken said the best thing to do was half an hour in the wall, then go out and have a cup of tea, before going back in for another half an hour. That 10 or 15 minutes having a cup of tea and reading the Daily Sport in my van was enough to reset the system and get back on it. When we climbed back into the wall we’d start where we left off, but up another gear on the bike so I was going quicker, or a bit higher up the track. The track is what the Foxes call the 45-degree banked section that forms the transition between the flat and the vertical wall.
During a riding session we’d break halfway through and spend five minutes talking about what I’d done and what I was expected to do next, while we stood in the centre of the wall. Then I’d do a bit more riding before going outside for another reset.
At this stage, when I was still on the track, I was riding in my woolly hat. None of the Fox riders ever wear a helmet and I was all for doing it like they do, but then Ewan, the director, said, ‘Look, you’re going to have to wear a helmet when you do the attempt, so you better get used to riding with a helmet on.’ Fair enough, I thought. It made sense, so I wore my black and yellow road race AGV helmet. It’s not part of the Fox family’s show to wear a helmet, but for what I was planning to do they understood.
No one mentioned if the girls or Alex, the youngest son, had ever had any crashes, but Luke had a big one in Germany when he was younger. He put his wheel over the top of the wall, and there’s only one outcome when you do that. He was thrown 18 foot to the ground and skinned his chest. He finished the show before going to hospital, though. They say you’ve got to get back on straight away, if you’re physically able to.
Even Ken had crashed the year before I joined them for lessons. He was stood on the side of his Indian, so both feet on one of the old-fashioned footplates that were fitted back then instead of footpegs; his arms straight out, crucifix-style, looking up at the crowd stood around the top – it’s one of the most impressive stunts they do on the Indians. Then one of the brackets holding the footplate to the frame broke and he came off. As I said, the Wall of Death riders don’t wear helmets, they look more like they’re off to ride a horse than a motorbike, so when Ken hit the floor he didn’t have any protection. He bashed his head and did this, did that, and nearly ripped his ear clean off. It was hanging on by a thread, Luke says, and it had to be glued back on at the hospital. As Ken was in the ambulance the police turned up at the wall and wanted to impound everything, but Luke, the eldest son, wasn’t having any of it. He got onto his dad (who must have had the phone to his good ear) and Ken was all for pulling his boots back on and discharging himself to sort it out; but Luke rang the Health and Safety bloke who inspects the wall and he told Luke the police had no right to take the bikes because no one else was injured. Eventually they left them to it.
So although people might think they could ride the Wall of Death, even the professional riders, who’ve been doing it for half their lives or more, are pushing their luck and when it goes wrong it hurts. The problem is, they make it look too easy.
I wasn’t trusted with the Indians, I was doing all my riding on an old Honda CB200, from the late 70s, early 80s. If I saw it on the street I’d think, what a heap of shit, but it’s a Wall of Death machine. Big respect.
By the end of the first day I’d only got halfway up the track, the 45-degree slope. I didn’t know if that was good or not, compared to other learners. It didn’t feel too good.
Normally when we’re filming, the cameramen, the soundmen, the directors and I are all as thick as thieves and stick together, usually going out to eat together, but I was invited to eat a homemade curry with the Foxes that night and I was happy to. Right from the off, me and Ken were on the same wavelength. Ken is really straight-talking to the point of being rude. Very Mick Moody-ish in that way. And like with my boss, you know where you stand. Ken is a Scania man too. And you can tell he enjoys going on the wall every time he rides it. He wouldn’t tell me his age, probably in his mid fifties, and you wouldn’t mess with him.
Even after spending all day there, I was sat round their table talking with the whole family for five hours. In winter the family live in static caravans in their yard, and when I first met them, in February, they were itching to get out to the shows. They’re out from before Easter to October and I think that’s great. I love the whole idea of it. Ken runs one wall, while Luke runs the other one, so they can cover twice as many events.
Luke, the eldest son, was 28 when we started the filming, and had a baby due any day, with Kerri. She got the job of a Wall of Death rider after seeing it advertised in the local job centre. At the time she applied she thought it was something to do with horses, and had never ridden or had any interest in motorbikes. She was 19 when she landed the job and joined the Ken Fox Troupe, and Luke must have thought all his Christmases had come at once, because she’s not hard to look at.
While he is younger than me, Luke sees a lot of things the way I do. He loves his job, but he wants to try different things as well as the Wall of Death. He’s just put a 1000 cc Yamaha R1 engine in a Mini, mucking about to get a Subaru back axle to fit. Luke and his brother Alex started riding the wall when they were 11 years old, and Ken’s dad and granddad were Wall of Death men too.
They explained they class their show as family entertainment, not a motorcycle show. Their biggest event is the Glastonbury Festival, another big one is Bestival, the music festival on the Isle of Wight, and they do other music festivals. They also do country shows, steam festivals and bike shows, but they say they get better crowds, who appreciate them more, at music festivals than at bike shows, because at bike events the ‘Power Rangers’ – the kind of sportsbike riders in bright leathers who think they’re it – rock up and they all think they can do it so they don’t get into it the same way.
I’ve met some sound people, during filming: Jason Rourke, who built the top speed record bicycle; Dave Jenkins, the racing truck driver; David from Hallam University – and the Foxes are right in there, though I’m not classing one better than the other. These people are the soundest I’ve ever met, but this filming job was different, because it’s probably the first time that I’ve really entered someone else’s world. Normally they’re brought in to help me.
Late that night I drove back to the hotel and sat on the bed thinking things through. I had arrived at the Foxes’ yard in the morning believing, I can do this. Then after riding on Ken’s handlebars all I could think was, Bloody hell … When I started going round in tight circles, even at walking pace, I was so dizzy that I felt the chances of me riding on the wall were even worse. I couldn’t even ride on the track at the bottom. These two days were dead important, because if I didn’t get a grip of riding on the wall then the whole thing that had been planned would be off. With everything I’d done before, all the speed attempt records, I just thought I had to put the effort in and we had a good chance, but this time I had my doubts. After sitting on the little Honda and being pushed around by Ken that morning, I honestly thought, This isn’t happening, but after a cup of tea stuff would slowly improve. The familiarity helped things fall into place. As I sat on my bed I was fascinated by how the human body was working. I’d felt so dizzy I couldn’t stand, but then the brain started working out the maths of the situation and decided, Right, we need to do this, this and this. I don’t know what was happening, but my brain was working out how to deal with it.
At the start of the second day, I had the confidence that my brain was cleverer than I was and it was working out how to deal with the job in hand. It was working it out subconsciously, saying, We need to alter this chemical balance here and we’ve got a bad earth there.
We started the second day where we ended the first day. I’d do a run of five laps, stop, sit and talk about it, run again, then go outside: fresh air; cup of tea; Daily Sport. Then back in again and aim to go a bit faster and a bit higher for another five laps. With the speed I was going at, the centrifugal force was trying to sling me out to the side of the track and onto the transition of the banked track and the vertical wall. Ken explained that it was good that I could keep control of the bike and I had enough confidence to turn it in and keep the bike on the track when nature’s forces wanted to send me and the bike onto the wall, but I still wasn’t going quite fast enough to stick to the wall. I had to fight to keep it on the track to build up enough speed to make it stick to the wall.
I did that for a while and then Ken said, ‘Right, you’re up to the right speed and you’re not too dizzy, you can get up on the wall now.’ But getting my head into making the transition from the track onto the vertical wall took some doing. By now it was really hard to stay on the track because the centrifugal force was pushing me off it.
Ken was a brilliant instructor. He’s taught a load of people to ride the wall, and the way he splits the lessons makes it not seem such a big deal to be riding around a vertical wall, only a day-and-a-bit after I was dizzy just being pushed around on the flat at walking pace. He went about it the right way. I’d ride at one part of the track, then we’d go out and have a cup of tea, then I’d ride a little bit higher.
Ken would say, ‘Look at the wall, look at the front wheel, look at the wall, look at the front wheel.’ He repeated it until it got boring, but he was right. He had me on the wall in less than two days and I did 40 laps solo. The problem is, when I did make it onto the wall I didn’t know up from down or left from right. I was totally disorientated.
The right speed for Ken Fox’s Wall of Death is about 25–30 mph. It feels fast in a 32 ft wooden drum, but it’s bugger-all compared to the speed I’m going to attempt. Ken and Luke said they can get to 40 mph on their wall, but at that speed they are at the point of blacking out from the g-force starving their brain of blood.
Because of their experience they know what happens just before they black out, and that when their vision goes they need to tense their whole bodies and back off the throttle slightly until their vision returns and they can go again. Tensing the body tightens the blood vessels to stop the body’s blood sinking to their legs. They know where that crucial point is: the rider’s vision goes grey; then they get tunnel vision, where you lose peripheral vision; then you lose vision totally, that’s the black-out; finally you lose consciousness. It can happen quickly and I’ve got to learn where the point is. I need to learn what it feels like to very nearly black out and come back again. If I do black out, it can go one way or the other. I can collapse on the handlebars, let off the throttle and crash into the bottom. Then it’s a case of straightening everything out, dusting myself down and going again. But the other way is I pass out, keep hold of the throttle, got out of the top at over 80 mph, and go into the rafters. Which is likely to kill me. I don’t need to be doing that. I need to learn, Right, I’m blacking out. Tense up, back off.
With a much bigger wall, you need to be going faster to stick to the wall, but because it’s a bigger diameter the g-force is lower than it would be for the same speed in a smaller diameter wall. Still, I’m trying to go twice as fast as blacking-out speed on the Foxes’ wall. I was told most people black out at 6–7 g. And I’m trying to withstand 10–12 g. There was talk of me wearing a g-suit, like fighter pilots wear. These compress the body to help deal with slightly higher g-forces for longer. It’s not a magic bullet and at the time of writing it’s been decided there isn’t a lot of point in using it, so I’ve got some serious acclimatising to do.
Plus, I don’t just want to be the fastest ever rider on the Wall of Death, I want to do it on a bike I’ve built myself. The default would be to use a modern 450 motocross bike, something that would only need a few modifications and then be ready to go, but I explained to Ken that I wanted to do it my way, like I did with the Pikes Peak race. That isn’t always the easy way, and I’ll admit it isn’t always the right way, but it’s in my DNA. Ken had seen the TV programmes, so he knew about the Pikes Peak Martek. The bike I plan to do the Wall of Death attempt on is an old Triumph Triple engine, from the 1970s, in a Rob North replica racing frame. It’s a bike like my dad owns. Ken liked the idea and his lads came to see the bike at my house. Well, it was still a bare frame when they came, but they reckoned it would work because the centre of gravity looked like it would be in the right place, nice and low. Then it’s a case of getting the handlebars in the right place.
It’s more important for me to build this bike for the Wall of Death than for me to spend time preparing a bike for the TT or anything like that, because I really believe nothing else I’ve done in life can compare to this attempt.
I can’t even imagine what the wall is going to look like. It will be built for two weeks and the TV show is going out live, with, I’m told, Davina McCall presenting it. What’s it going to be like stood in the middle of this 120 ft diameter, 20 ft tall wooden Wall of Death? It was originally going to be built in my garden, but because the TV show is going to be broadcast live – or that’s the plan – the TV bods don’t want the weather to be an issue. So it will be built in a warehouse and have shipping containers positioned around it to stop it from flexing.
Even after the speeds I’ve been at the TT and the Ulster Grand Prix, and now with the little bit of experience I’ve had actually riding a Wall of Death, I still can’t imagine what it’s going to be like. And I have the added problem of trying to fit in the training that Ken says I have to do, plus build a one-off bike, in what is turning out to be the busiest year of my life.