L.A. is such a car-driven city, and it's great to see so many people - I think people are hungry to get on their bikes and get out of their cars and get off of oil and save money and save the environment.
I have what is probably the largest big bike collection in the city: a Fat Boy, a sportser Harley Davidson and two Yamahas. All these are 1200cc-plus bikes. Riding these bikes is something I still do and some trekking as well.
I ride a Harley and a chopper. Those are the two bikes I ride the most.
People perceive me as this kind of hippy intellectual, reflecting and communing with nature or in a pyramid somewhere chanting. Really, no. I love speed, fast things, quad and road bikes, and bombing down a mountain.
I am so pathetic with machines in real life, it's not a joke. I'd rather walk, or even run, than take the car out myself. I like to be driven around. Yes, I like fancy cars, and fancy bikes, too. It's my dream to learn how to ride one myself, but for now, I am content being driven around.
I have several guns. I have several dirt bikes and ATVs, good old country-boy things.
A lot of the bikes are carbon wheels now, and you don't have as good a braking surface on a carbon wheel in the wet weather as you do on the old aluminium rims.
I wanted to put a really good kids' racing bike out there for kids under 14: 10-year-olds, eight-year-olds, right down to balance bikes for kids.
Don't get me wrong, I think bikes are terrific. I own several of my own, including a trendy mountain style, and ride them for pleasure and light exercise.
Once I decided to retire from bikes, there was no thought to go racing again. I wanted to have a full year off and maybe even see the world a bit.
