Watch this Aussie stunt rider surf a motorbike

A motorbike surfing the waves of Tahiti: it’s the kind of thing that seems like the result of a drunken bet. But for Australian stunt rider Robbie Madison, it’s actually the culmination of two years of hard work and planning.

Maddison, a world record holder across a number of disciplines, completed the ride seen in the video on a modified KTM 250 SX. Speaking to Transworld Motocross, Madison’s mechanic Buddy Morgan said that the output of the bike wasn’t as important as the size of the paddles on the back wheel and the shape and angle of the skis.

Previous options they’d tried included a Honda CR500R to a KTM 450 SX-F four-stroke bike.

Even once they’d got the bike sorted out though, it still sunk 30 or 40 times, placing Madison in serious danger. Every time that happened, Morgan would have to spend four or five hours flushing the machine out.

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At one stage the bike hit Madison and was lost underwater for more than an hour before its flotation device brought it back to the surface.

As Madison told Surfer Mag, the video is impressive but can’t come close to conveying the intensity of the experience.

“At the end of the day, the images and footage say something pretty awesome,” he said, “but the ferocity and how gnarly that thing was can’t really be put into words.”