Full Chat podcast: Billy Ward on how bikes helped to get him through his divorce

Presenter and producer Billy Ward is the latest guest on the brand new motorcycling podcast, Full Chat. 

Ward has been presenting and producing travel television shows for nearly two decades, working with the likes of Charlie Boorman and Ross Noble. 

He is the fifth guest on Bikesure’s new podcast, hosted by former Olympic sprinter Iwan Thomas and footballer-turned-presenter David Prutton, after Michelin star chef Paul Ainsworth, former athlete and television personality Kriss Akabusi, Isle of Man TT racer Peter Hickman and Olympic hero James Cracknell.

Billy Ward reveals his love of motorbikes helped him through one of the toughest periods of his life  

During the episode, Ward detailed how riding bikes became a form of escapism whilst coming to terms with his divorce, and explains how getting on two wheels helps with your mental health. 

“I married a really beautiful divorce lawyer, stunning. I mean she was stunning, and she was earning proper good money and I thought – ‘I’ve made it, I’ve literally made it here. I’ve married this beautiful woman, so attractive, intelligent, articulate, loaded and with a great career.’ So how do you think that happened to end for me?” Ward joked. 

“It really ended in what they call an 80/20 one-off split and 80% was for her and 20% was for me. That was 2005, and that was a proper disaster of a divorce. So I walked away from that divorce feeling pretty badly burnt and pretty roughed up, so I bought a brand new KTM 990 to sort of smother all my woes. 

“I got the bike and I rode from Whitley Bay to Cape Town. I did that to sort of escape everything. I was already a rider, but I’d never done adventure biking. I’d gone to the Isle of Man or Wales for the day, or Scotland for two or three days, but never did the proper adventure riding where you’d go to different countries. 

“It just gives you that time to think and not be distracted by other things. Your body is in muscle memory zone. You just want to be in that helmet, enjoying the visuals, enjoying the feeling of being on a motorcycle and enjoying that privacy and calmness that you can get from just being alone in that helmet. 

“I don’t really play music (whilst riding), I like to hear the engine. I like to feel the vibration, feel the engine and feel where the clutch is. If I had music on I think I’d lose a bit of that.”         

Plenty more episodes of Full Chat to come

There’s plenty more to come from our brand new motorcycling podcast about everything on two wheels. Each week a celebrity guest will detail their history of bikes, along with some funny anecdotes.  

You can listen to Full Chat on Spotify, Apple, YouTube or various other platforms if you want to see what all the fuss is about.