6. He retired from racing because he got bored – and boredom can be fatal
When Guy’s attention started to drift during races, that’s when he knew it was time to pack it in. “I was riding round on these motorbike races thinking, ‘What am I going to have for my tea? What’s happening at work?’ When it’s not scaring you, I think we have a problem. Because if you’re not scared, then your mind starts to wander and that’s when things can go wrong.”
Guy Martin in the Desert Island Discs studio.
When it’s not scaring you, I think we have a problem. Because if you’re not scared, then your mind starts to wander and that’s when things can go wrong.
Guy explains how boredom led him to retire from racing.
Following a crash at the Ulster Grand Prix in 2015 Guy broke eight vertebrae, his hand, his ankle and punctured a lung. As he lay in hospital, he thought: “There’s more to life than racing motorbikes, right? If I wasn’t fully committed to doing it, I shouldn’t really be doing it because something like this would happen.”
It was a mindset: “You don’t mind crashing if it’s for a win, but crashing through a lack of concentration, I’d have a job living with that.” That’s when he knew it was time for something new.
7. He blames an imaginary chimp called Brian for his need for speed
Guy credits the psychiatrist Steve Peters’s book The Chimp Paradox with helping him understand the impulsive part of his brain. The book introduces the concept of the ‘Chimp’ as the emotional, impulsive part of our brain, contrasted with the ‘Human’ part, which is rational and logical. Professor Peters believes harnessing the chimp helps to improve performance and achieve success and happiness.
Guy has named his inner chimp Brian and says he looks like Ben Kingsley from the film Sexy Beast. “That’s how (Brian) talks to me, pointing at me and telling me exactly how things are going to be done… Do not mess with Brian.”
Quieting this inner chimp involves long, miserable, multi-week rides on a pedal bike. “The only way to deal with the chimp is to sit on a push bike and suffer for a couple of weeks at a time.” His wife Sharon has learned to read the signs. “She knows that’s not Guy, that’s Brian.”
8. Being a TV presenter does not come naturally to him
Despite being the face of many popular TV programmes since 2011, Guy is adamant he is not a natural presenter. “I can’t talk to a camera,” he says. “I just can’t do it because there’s nothing there.” At one point, the crew tried fixing up a system with a mirror, so that it would look like he was addressing the camera. In the end, they gave up and now Guy just talks to the director. “We just stuck to doing it the same way for the past 17 years.”
9. Talking about his wife makes him unexpectedly emotional
Guy married his partner Sharon in 2025, and dedicates his final disc choice, U2’s With or Without You, to her. “She’s everything,” he tells Lauren. “She deals with me. She’s brilliant.” As he recalls playing the song at their wedding, he starts to well up. “I didn’t realise I’d get that emotional when I started talking about Sharon,” he explains. “Our family, we don’t cry, we don’t show emotion. But I’ve just done that.”
Asked when he’s happiest, he replies: “Going out with Shazza and [his daughter] Dot for Sunday dinner. I can imagine Sharon wouldn’t expect me to say that. She’d say, ‘when you’re in your shed’. I don’t think it is. I love to sit and have Sunday dinner and watch the world.”
