| 
30.03.2007, 18:48
James Toseland: Cosmopolitan lifestyle of the biking pin-up with a perfect sense of timing
Brian Viner Interviews: The keyboard-playing rock star and 2006 Centrefold of the Year also has a naked ambition to claim his second world title
Published: 30 March 2007
Who is the coolest, most fanciable British sportsman? I know it's a question more for the readers of Cosmopolitan magazine than The Independent, but let's ponder it anyway. Is it David Beckham, or is his image fatally undermined, like that of the silent film actor John Gilbert, as soon as he speaks? The wonky tooth and tattooed neck surely count against him too, not to mention the decline in ability. Who else?
Mark Ramprakash must be in with a shout, especially for those who saw his salsa in Celebrity Come Dancing, but he can be moody. Jonny Wilkinson is a strong contender, and certainly acknowledged as something of a hunk even by heterosexual men, although he's maybe a bit too intense to be truly cool.
Then there is 26-year-old James Toseland, not yet as famous as the trio named above but at least as dishy, as well as easier-going than Jonny, sunnier than Ramps, with better teeth than Becks, and at the absolute top of a decidedly macho game, which requires him to ride a motorbike at speeds in excess of 200mph. He was World Superbike champion two years ago and currently leads the WSB rankings again, after finishing runner-up last year. On Sunday, he aims to extend his lead by winning at Donington Park, the first time World Superbikes has been back to the celebrated Derbyshire circuit since 2001.
And, as if riding a motorbike faster than pretty much anyone else in the world did not make Toseland a Boy's Own-style hero, he's also a rock star in his spare time. He is the keyboard-player with a band called, one hopes not too presciently, Crash.
Whatever, those Cosmo readers have already made their minds up about his fanciability. In 2006, Toseland did a naked photo-shoot in the magazine, posing on a bike with the petrol tank covering what is known in the trade, or was that day, as his exhaust pipe. "My friend said I could have done it on a mini-bike," he says; the obligatory gag about penis size merely compounding his coolness, by showing that he has a sense of humour. "It actually won Centrefold of the Year award last year," he tells me, raising his voice over the sound of Crash practising next door.
He is due to join them on stage shortly, in the basement of a bar on Watling Street, in the shadow of St Paul's Cathedral. It is in many ways an improbable place to interview a biker from Sheffield, although I suppose the City is home to London's ancient merchant guilds and Toseland is nothing if not a speed merchant; Cosmo's 2006 Centrefold of the Year has clocked a personal fastest of 216mph.
He attributes his career, oddly enough, to his parents splitting up when he was three years old. His mother then acquired a new bloke, Ken, who rode a road motorbike. "Until he arrived in my life, nobody else in my family knew what a motorbike was," says Toseland. "He bought me a TY80 Yamaha one Christmas when I was nine, and that was it. I was hooked."
The road to success, and an income substantial enough to make him a tax exile on the Isle of Man, was straight and smooth except for one horrible obstacle; in 1995 Ken committed suicide. "That was," recalls Toseland with a Yorkshireman's understatement, "a difficult time. Career-wise I had just done enough by then to get sponsorship. If it had happened earlier, I wouldn't have had the funding to carry on. But personally, of course, it was devastating. Him and my mum had quite a rocky relationship, it was on and off all the time, but then it got to a stage where my mum was made very ill by it, and decided not to go back to him. When he realised himself that that was it, he took that decision. I was disappointed in him."
It remains a source of sadness that Ken is not around to see what he started; Toseland's aim this season is to become world champion again, and not many are betting against him. "After five years with Ducati I moved to Honda last year, but I didn't have traction control on my bike, so to finish runner-up without that kind of aid was really encouraging. This year Honda have given us some electronics, and I've had two seconds and two firsts so far. If I do become two-times world champion, then they have 99 per cent said that they will help me move to MotoGP to take on Valentino Rossi, and I'd say that with the package I've got, a good team and a good bike, I can be very competitive. I'd be the first serious British competitor since Barry Sheene."
Of course, in a career that yielded two 500cc world championships, Sheene famously broke just about every bone in his body; to the end of his life he had to get special dispensation not to walk through the metal detectors at airports, because there were so many nuts and bolts holding him together.
Toseland is sanguine about the prospect of accidents; he already has a 16-inch rod in his leg after breaking his femur in three places in 2000. "That was a bit of a low point," he says, with more of that Sheffield understatement. "I wasn't only wondering whether I'd race again, but would I walk properly again?"
As it turned out, the only legacy of the injury is an enduring ritual of mounting his bike from the left. "I couldn't get my leg high enough from the right-hand side," he says. "It's fine now, but the habit's stuck." Unsurprisingly, his mother frets more than he does about safety. "She cries before every race," he says. "And although she comes to most of my European races, she can't watch once she's there." The one concession he makes to her anxiety concerns the Isle of Man TT, in earshot of his home. "My mum would never let me take part in that," he says. "And in fairness I wouldn't want to. Road-racing is a totally different discipline."
It is almost time for Toseland to join Crash next door. I ask him if the feelings before a race and going on stage are comparable? "Yeah, quite similar, although I get more nervous before a gig. Also, you're aware of everyone staring at you. 'Come on then, entertain us,' that sort of thing. On a bike you have your helmet on with the visor down and you're going at 200mph. You don't feel self-conscious about it. On the other hand, if you make a mistake on a motorbike, you get hurt. I've had a few Les Dawson moments on the keyboard, but there's no massive consequence."
His Les Dawson moments, from what I hear of Crash's impressive cover versions of Robbie Williams and Bryan Adams songs, are few and far between. "My gran played the piano," he tells me afterwards. "I used to make a noise on hers so I was told I had to have proper lessons. I got to Grade Six, a decent level, but that's when the motorcycling started getting serious. By then I was good enough not to forget anything, though. I met the rest of the band in a bar at a caravan park in Newquay in 1998 - they were the resident band there - and when their keyboard player left, I joined them."
So, the 64,000 dollar question from a slightly envious middle-aged married man who has never ridden a motorbike and can't play the piano: does he pull more women as a motorcycling champion or as a piano player? He laughs. "Probably as a piano player," he says. "But I'm not available at the moment. I've got a proper girlfriend now, after two years as a bachelor." I wish her luck. If the looks on the faces of the girls in the basement of the Calico bar are anything to go by as Toseland ambles past them, she will face competition as furious as anything he is likely to face at Doningtonthis Sunday.
 FASHIONISTA LOVES VALE... |
Showstopper...the bike so priceless it may have to be scrapped! 
Today
Sponsored Links 
Gi 
Linear Mode
