To the limit and beyond
Michael Cowton delves into the world of local TV personality and former motorbike racer Guy Martin.
Welcome to the world of Guy Martin. That is if you dare. Because this man is an enigma. I say that because he defies easy explanation.
Watch him on television, and you will grasp this reality, because his mind so often fires in different directions simultaneously.
Sitting across the kitchen table at his home, it is certainly entertaining, listening to the rapid-fire, staccato chatter and later managing to join the dots.
A Lincolnshire lad through and through, Guy Martin has always lived within 20 miles of the Grimsby hospital where he was born, except for one brief spell spent sleeping inside a truck in a concrete yard in Northern Ireland.
Devoid of airs and graces, you take him as you find him, and that is all part of his enduring charm.
Up at 5am every morning, perhaps enjoying a “lie-in ’til seven on a Saturday”, he takes the family’s three dogs for a walk before cycling to work.
He has been with the same landowner for more than a decade, and is passionate about farming, often sitting in a tractor cab for hours on end, listening to his favourite podcasts, lost in his own world.
“People think I work for television throughout the year but that is not the case,” he says.
To many, it would appear a punishing schedule, but to Guy it all makes sense. The heavy vehicle mechanic turned land worker; the winner of multiple international road races, plus scoring 15 Isle of Man TT podiums; presenter of travelogues, critically acclaimed documentaries and taking on crazy world records; he can add to that a million-selling author, with his sixth book recently hitting the shelves.
The title of his latest book All The Medals Have Been Handed Out is a line he has often used whilst working part-time on truck maintenance.
“I work with a cracking bunch of lads at Moody International, a Scania centre in Grimsby, where we will go in early on a Saturday so we can finish early. I don’t want to drag stuff out, so I say to them that all the medals have been handed out so come on, let’s get cracking, get the job done and let’s get home.”
Guy’s latest book is a further chapter in his eventful life and runs from the period 2022 until the present. The pages recount experiences at the extremes of endurance, recounting stories of drug cartels; an Arctic mission with the Royal Marines; motorbike challenges; plus, naturally, a few smashes, breaks and sprains along the way.
One television show saw him in Colombia, where he was kidnapped, beaten, waterboarded, shot at, and shown round a cocaine factory in a jungle clearing. In another travelogue, he joined the Royal Marines at their winter training camp in Norway, where he plunged into icy waters, marched up mountains and camped out in the freezing wilderness. He sees these escapades as his own challenge from misery, and yet he is far from being your archetypal depressive character.
“With the Colombia trip, I had been doing television long enough to know there was no way anyone was going to die here. The most harassing part of the filming was being kidnapped and getting waterboarded, a form of torture that simulates drowning by pouring water over a cloth covering the nose and mouth, causing the sensation of suffocation. I thought it couldn’t be that bad, with just a wet rag over my face, but then I understood how horrible it was. I was bundled into a car and driven around for half-an-hour.
“They were beating me up and I was saying, ‘Is that the best you can do?’, egging them on. James, the producer, had said prior to the kidnap that if the waterboarding proved too much, to use the safe phrase, ‘Uno, dos, tres.’ Having got me in a state of panic because I couldn’t get any air into my lungs, I couldn’t deal with it and said, ‘Eins, zwei, drei’ in German instead of Spanish.
“They continued with the waterboarding before James heard what I was saying and told them to stop.”
Home life
Safely back home, today Guy lives with wife Sharon, whom he married in September 2025, their eight-year-old daughter Dot, and three dogs.
According to Sharon: “Guy has such an amazing life. He’s just a bloke who gets to do some crazy, amazing things, but he knows sometimes he needs to ground himself and reflect upon how lucky he has been in life.”
Pushing himself to the limits of endurance is part and parcel of that life. With no medals, no big ceremony at the end of it all, Guy is simply driven by putting himself through the misery. And coming out smiling.
“I have worked with the same television crew throughout, and nothing is scripted. I tried talking straight to camera, but it didn’t feel natural. Eventually, they got someone to stand next to the camera and I started talking to them.
“They ask me questions and I gibber away, that’s how it works. I’m not embarrassed to ask stupid questions.
“I have worked with some amazing television presenters, but I would never say I am one of them. They can get enthusiastic about whatever you put in front of them because they are paid to do that, but I am not that person. That is why we have been selective about the material we film. If I am not into it, I cannot put on an act.”
Guy retired from road racing officially in 2017 because, he admits, he wasn’t getting the buzz out of it.
“I was semi-competitive, and I felt I was simply going through the motions, it wasn’t interesting me anymore. When you are riding around a circuit, whether it be at the Isle of Man TT or a road race, and if it is not grabbing your full attention and instead you are thinking about what you are going to have for your tea, then that isn’t safe!”
One of Guy’s greatest loves remains pedal cycling.
“For 20 years I had raced mountain bikes, with a passion for 24-hour races. They are miserable, but I love them. I never won anything, but I was alright at it, but then I got bored with it because it wasn’t miserable enough. Then I found out about the Tour Divide, an annual, amateur mountain bike ride traversing the length of the Rocky Mountains from Banff in Canada to the Mexico-United States border. The 2,745-mile ride is an extreme test of endurance, self-reliance and mental toughness. With no entry fees, no sponsorship and no prizes, it is strictly self-supported. It took me 18 days and seven hours to complete.
“I like simply to grab my rucksack and sleeping bag and disappear. Two years ago, I cycled to Hull, caught the ferry to Holland and cycled through Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria, then to Istanbul in Turkey. Last year I flew back to Istanbul and cycled all the way to Tbilisi in Georgia, and on to the Lagodehki-Balakan border, planning to cross into Azerbaijan. I thought I would be okay on a pushbike, but Azerbaijan has kept its land borders closed for entry since 2020, making it generally impossible to enter the country from Georgia by land. A border guard suggested I ride back the 50 miles to Tbilisi, fly to Baku and cycle back across the border. Instead, I cycled to Tbilisi, flew to Istanbul, and caught a connecting flight to Manchester. I was so fed up I hired a taxi to take me home.
“This year I might fly to Tashkent and cycle to Almaty in Kazakhstan, which is about 1,000 miles, or I might do the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland, although that doesn’t sound very adventurous, does it! Sharon acknowledges that I am not worth knowing unless I can purge the body by suffering for a couple of weeks. I love my own space. I am a bit of a loner in some ways.”
Guy Martin clearly is not comfortable being a public figure and rejects any notion that he is a celebrity. Having struggled to come to terms with the fame brought about by his media work, he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, although he admits: “It hasn’t changed anything, it just confirms why I do certain things in a certain way.”
Next challenge
Diving into his bucket list, I discover the ‘300mph job’, a world record he is hoping to achieve on two wheels. His eyes light up when he shows me the bike he is building to get him over the line, a custom turbocharged Suzuki Hayabusa which he purchased as a standard specification bike before he began adapting it with help from a few friends.
Clearly, he is happiest away from the madding crowds, in a tractor cab, in his shed, in the folds of his family. It is his way of coping with fame. However, he may hate me for saying this, but the problem with being Guy Martin is that no matter how much he tries to avoid the spotlight, to many fans he remains an action-packed hero; a stereotypical ‘Boys’ Own’ character often representing a heroic, adventurous, brave figure, navigating perilous situations, no matter how staged they may be at times. Whilst that may well be the case, it still makes for great television.
All The Medals Have Been Handed Out is published by Ebury Publishing, £22
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