Biker Barry always took it to the edge

Barry Sheene, born September 11, 1950, lived his life at breakneck speed, and though he’s gone, his records still stand.

Good-looking, and an idol to many, bike racer Barry was just 20 when he became British 125cc Champion and even came second in the World Championships.

He’d taken chances to do it, and that’s exactly how he would continue to live each day and each race, right on the edge of disaster.

When he had a calamitous crash at the Daytona 200 in 1975, he was rushed to hospital having broken a collarbone, two ribs, left thigh and right arm.

Experts were still writing about the premature end of his promising career when Sheene shut them all up by climbing back on a bike just seven weeks later.

In fact, in ’76, he won not one but five Grand Prix at 500cc level, which won him the first of two consecutive World Championships.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=LKKXZCp3tsc%3Frel%3D0

Broken bones were no deterrent to his quest to be the fastest man on two wheels.

His father was an engineer at the Royal College of Surgeons, and Sheene was raised in Queen’s Square, in the Holborn area of London.

By the time his famous motorcycle battle with American golden boy Kenny Roberts came in 1979, Barry was head-over-heels with fashion model Stephanie McLean, a relationship which only added to his iconic image.

She was drop-dead gorgeous and he was still on crutches, but they were smitten with each other from the start. They would marry in 1984 and have a son and daughter.

Roberts was the rival who threatened Sheene most, at the ’79 British Grand Prix, and their head-to-head has gone into bikers’ folklore as the greatest race of the 1970s.

The American pipped him, after a classic nip-and-tuck race, by just three-hundredths of a second, prompting Sheene to quit his team because he reckoned their equipment had been shown to be inferior.

In 1981, the pair had become so obsessed with beating each other that neither won.

Again, Sheene was outspoken, as he often was. He had a short fuse, as well as an incredible hunger to be a winner.

Another crash in 1982 virtually ended his career, and Sheene spoke out about the many race circuits he considered too dangerous.

He was one of the first bike heroes to bring in big cash from endorsements, photoshoots, modelling, TV shows and so on.

But Sheene’s many biking injuries had left him with severe arthritic pains, and he decided that moving the family to sunny Australia might do him some good.

He got into property development and juggled that with TV commentating work but, sadly, more serious illness was around the corner.

Tragically, at the young age of just 52, Barry lost his biggest battle, with cancer of the stomach and oesophagus in 2003.