He's young, a talented rider, good looking and seemed quite an accomplished pianist on SPOTY a couple of years back, he's probably a nice bloke as well. I hate him!

He's being forced to retire because of his wrist injury

Is that going to affect him tickling the ivories?

Is that going to affect him tickling the ivories?

Or even playing the piano? 😉

gutted 🙁

I'd heard he quit at the weekend, and rumours are that because he's potentially got a long career ahead of him as a concert pianist, or if he gets it properly together with his band, that it's just not worth him carrying on racing bikes and potentially doing himself more lasting damage that would threaten that career.

For anyone who has seen him play the piano, you'll understand his loss to bike racing is definitely the music world's gain! Jools Holland eat your heart out, seriously!

I've seen Crash play in the IoM a couple of times!

He's a great rider no doubt, but hasn't ever reached his full potential IMHO. Always seemed to be playing catchup in MotoGP, thought the jump from WSB to MotoGP too large, too quickly.
But heyho, great career, nice bloke, funny, talented.. Concert Piano though? Lounge Piano player in some bar near Picadilly probably..

Saw the crash in Germany and he got up holding his wrist and my mate and I commented that it didnt look good. Never a huge fan but he was very good just lacked that last 1% to really make a go of it in Motogp.

Thought him winning on the Honda in Worldsupers was more impressive as it was a bit of a dog from all accounts.

Met him several times on the WSB circuit - really nice guy.

His 2nd WSB title for Ten Kate Honda was a good one, defeating Bayliss on the Factory Ducati.

Didn't quite cut it in MotoGP but there are loads of factors in that apart from talent. Mind you, he managed to piss off his team mate, Colin Edwards, which is a hard thing to do - Edwards being one of the nicest, laid back guys you could meet. This drove Edwards to go all out to beat JT in his 2nd MotoGP season, which he did, thus sealing his departure back to WSB.

Concert pianist? Dunno. He's good but is he THAT good? It's like the difference between a good WSB rider and Valentino Rossi.....

Yes I heard about this the other day. Shame, as he's still got a number of years in him. But he's not been the same since his 2nd year in moto GP- I thought he did pretty well in his 1st year.
I sat next to him but one at dinner the day before he did the double at Brands WSB in his 2nd WSB title year. He was totally focussed - I wasnt, in fact I could hardly walk 😆

Gutting. I still think he had a potential career in MotoGP.

Ah well, hell of a shame.

At least he gets to spend a bit more time with his new partner:

[img] [/img]

Shame he didn't make it with Tech 3, but nothing left to prove in WSB.