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The Life Of A Ghost Ryder

January 18, 2013 by Bike India Team 3 Comments

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We talk to India’s best professional motorcycle stunt group to find out what a day in the life of a stunt biker is like
Story & Photography: Rommel Albuquerque

GhostRyder2
Ever since we were young kids most of us motorcycle riders have at some time or other wanted to perform motorcycle stunts. For me it started when I was about seven years old and started pulling small wheelies and stoppies on my BMX stunt bicycle. As I grew up my stunting went downhill, but every now and then I still try some stunt or the other on my own motorcycle. So you can imagine the smile I had on my face when I was asked to spend a day with India’s best motorcycle stunt group, the Ghost Ryderz, and watch them perform their jaw-dropping stunts live.

Who They Are
They had come down to Mumbai for a gig and that’s when I got to meet the group. They are called the Ghost Ryderz, ‘GRz’ for short. They started off as a motorcycle touring club in 2007 and later evolved into a fully fledged freestyle stunt riding team. They have about 30 members and their team is based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Three of their main riders are from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. For these chaps stunting isn’t just a hobby, it’s their profession.

GhostRyder

Says Shrikant Rajan, one of the team’s younger riders, “After passing the standard XII examination I got into college to pursue a course in architecture, but I realised that it wasn’t my cup of tea and my love for biking was increasing day by day. I met these guys, who called themselves the Ghost Ryderz, and found my calling. We all share the same passion and this is my profession now.”

GhostRyder3
Stunt Biking As A Career

According to me, any profession where your job translates into your life being at risk is never a light task. But is stunt biking as a career tough? Most people think it’s all fun and games, but Mikhil Mohan, owner of the team and the main performer, says, “It’s a very tough career. The main hurdles are high operating expenses, non-availability of proper practice spots in crowded cities and the negative attitude of certain sections of the society towards stunt riding and stunt riders. In India stunt riding as a sport is still in its infancy and a lot of athletes are not sponsored, making the monetary benefits rather meagre. Thankfully, our team has five sponsors and so we get paid well for our performances because of the fact that we’ve managed to keep our team at the top for the past five years. Moreover, we also do stunts for advertisements, movies and music albums. But we still don’t take a lot back home as we invest quite a bit back into promoting the sport and the team.”

GhostRyder4
What Does The Society Think?
Stunt riding being a dangerous sport is definitely not for the faint-hearted and in the context of the Indian culture, it’s an even tougher choice. Fortunately, most of the riders I interviewed shared a similar story. One of the group’s riders, Akshay, said, “My family is very supportive and my elder brother is also into stunting and we both practise together. In the beginning we faced a lot of problems in getting sponsors, but Bajaj decided to sponsor us and ever since it’s been going well.”

Mikhil says, “When we started we had a few problems with the local police and the perception of the public, who thought we were a ‘useless lot’. But after all our hard work and the respect that we have for the sport, we’ve earned respect from the society and even my parents and girlfriend don’t have a problem with it. The main reason being that we ride with all our safety gear in place and lessen the risk factor.”

Who Is Their Idol?
Well, the answer to this question was unanimous: Chris Pfeiffer.

m.salvi@nextgenpublishing.net'

Bike India Team – who has written 965 posts on Bike India.


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Comments

  1. prabu87@gmail.com'Prabu R says

    December 26, 2013 at 5:28 am

    Recently i had a chance to see these guys performing in the chennai trade center a week before after that my passion towards riding turned for stunts. Now i am interested in bike stunting as well. I wants to get some training and to be a member of their crew.

    I don’t know whom should i approach for this?
    Can you help me by mailing those details to me?
    prabu87@gmail.com

    Reply
  2. shyamkumar.kumar1992@gmail.com'shyam says

    June 11, 2014 at 7:13 pm

    I am a great fan of them
    Now I also buy a pulsar I start learning to stunt

    Reply
  3. Stephenmutum5@gmail.com'josh says

    September 14, 2014 at 4:45 am

    I m very interested in freestyle stunt ryding and its in ma DNA, but its about my brother he did quit a impressive work dispite of his young age but he never had any formal trainer, he just learn the basic from the ghost ryders vedio and now he can do quit impresive stuff like controled whellies, endos but his attempt to do cirlce wheellie have been unsuccesfull and he seeks for a proper trainer to fulfill his dream of becoming a profesional stuner..
    if u please let us know how to become a part ghost ryder and offer him a chance to train with great stuner like u guys it would be our pleasure,,
    can u please help by mailing all the detail about it at
    stephenmutum5@gmail.com

    Reply

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