I guess right now it would be daft to sit here on route to Penrith and try to say lets do a bit of a catch up Blog shall we, i mean lets be honest, i haven’t Blogged since round 5 which is far from acceptable and where on earth would i start, round 6 i hear you say.. flippin’ hell i struggle to remember what was going on yesterday let alone 5-6 months ago lol so here’s how we’re gonna play it..
As you all know the outcome of the 2014 British Superbike Championship was pretty good for me, however, whilst at the time history was made with me being the 1st person to ever win 4 BSB titles the fact that Kiyo couldn’t race me in those final three races kinds knocked the edge off of things a little, for me personally as well as for plenty of race fans out there, i found it pretty difficult at the time to deal with, i wanted that head to head showdown with Kiyo more than anyone but upon reflection i never asked the guy to crash did i? For sure he was unlucky and so were the fans to a certain degree but i worked so hard all year long, despite all manners of media and journalism criticising me a little at times for my lean spell wins wise mid season reality is when i wasn’t winning i was third at worst apart from one 5th place and 2 crashes so a total of 10 wins and 23 total podiums of which only 3 i think were 3rd’s was far from terrible!!!!
That’s all in the past now though, 2014’s title was special, to me, you may well say why was?, well the way i see it, straight after Brands hatch i was so so busy media wise, going here there and everywhere that by the time i actually got the chance to sit down and reflect on the whole thing i’d almost made my mind up what i wanted to do for 2015 and from that point in i was only looking forwards, not backwards!!!
Quite a lot happened after the season finished regarding opportunities for next season and there really were some exciting things that had me real close to contemplating a change, however it’s my belief that if you’re not 100% certain in a decision then you shouldn’t make it, that and the fact that the PBM team and i have worked together now for the past 3 seasons and taken 2 titles and a very close 2nd place made it a bit of a no brainer in the end so i’m staying at home for another season and absolutely cannot wait to get back out riding again, i know the team and Birdy are super motivated to get the absolute max out of the bike for next season, with other manufacturer’s coming in with all new bikes we’re certainly going to have to work hard but then that’s exactly what this game’s about, team work, the guys working hard, me training hard, testing cleverly, giving the correct feed back and moving forwards together, i’m really looking forward to it.
Quite a lot happened after the season finished regarding opportunities for next season and there really were some exciting things that had me real close to contemplating a change, however it’s my belief that if you’re not 100% certain in a decision then you shouldn’t make it, that and the fact that the PBM team and i have worked together now for the past 3 seasons and taken 2 titles and a very close 2nd place made it a bit of a no brainer in the end so i’m staying at home for another season and absolutely cannot wait to get back out riding again, i know the team and Birdy are super motivated to get the absolute max out of the bike for next season, with other manufacturer’s coming in with all new bikes we’re certainly going to have to work hard but then that’s exactly what this game’s about, team work, the guys working hard, me training hard, testing cleverly, giving the correct feed back and moving forwards together, i’m really looking forward to it.
One thing that i’ve been on with for way too long now is a new website, i’m not using that as an excuse for not Blogging, what i am saying is that there was supposed to be an all new site early on last season and i kept thinking i’ll Blog when the new site’s live, well, the rest is history and now i’m sat here rather embarrassed that it’s taken so long to get that site going but hey ho, hopefully we’re not far off now.
I don’t know how many of you went to the Motorcycle Live show, i went up on the first saturday but had a pretty manic schedule so i never really got the chance to look at anything, a couple of my personal bikes were up there on display which was pretty cool, one of them seems to be spending more time going from show to show than it does getting ridden lol!!!
As we speak i’m sat on a train up to Penrith, i’m off up to see the team and back home again tomorrow, we met up just before Motorcycle Live so it’ll be interesting to see what plans have been made since then going forward.
I’m really looking forwards to getting away soon, a week in the Czech Republic then straight away again after that too, this year for some reason feels like it’s been about the longest one i’ve ever lived lol, i guess at least it was a good one lol, catch up with you soon guys and girls, Shakey #67
