The Athlete: KANE FRIESEN
Episode: Fastest Nose Wheelie | Premiere: Aug. 30, 2006

Perry's Thoughts:
What can I say about Kane except, WOW! What this guy can do on a sport bike, and the ease with which he does it, boggles my imagination. As a fellow motorcycle enthusiast who has ridden motorcycles almost all my life, I left this show feeling incredibly humbled. Kane is an example of how one man's constant need to push the envelope of his personal sport forces technology to keep up.

Eli's Thoughts:
If ever you got an impression of someone just from pictures, it would definitely be Kane. Kane is a chain-wearing, tattoo-sporting, pierced wild man — or at least he is at first glance. Here is a young guy who has literally taken the bull by the horns, and learned to put it on its head, feet and every which way in between. All the business with sport bikes is crazy cool. The ability to watch this sport up close gives it massive show value. Meeting Kane, I found he was a very talented guy who is pushing this ever-growing sport. Watching him practice made me think, how in the world do you ever get so good at this? Clearly a natural, he pulled countless maneuvers on his bike while on only the back wheel. We had a good time with him and his crew, all of whom rode sport bikes as well and pulled tricks on their bikes anytime they could sneak one in. We took his bike to Race Tech to completely redo the front and rear suspension. Paul [at Race Tech] was a master of the mechanics; he had everything down to a science and could back everything up with more knowledge than most bike people would understand. When the bike was ready, I was pleasantly surprised to find out we were doing the stunt on my home turf at Perris Valley Skydiving, where I have spent the last 10 years putting in more then 13,500 jumps to perfect my sport of skydiving. We used the skydive center because the runway is over 5,000 feet long. Fortunately, I was able to take him into the wind tunnel to get a feel for the vertical wind. Practice day was extremely hot. I've got to hand it to Kane for working very hard with the crew to get shots while being completely suited up in leathers. He attacked the runway with amazing speed and confidence. On stunt day, you knew he was there to shatter the previous record of 98 mph. As he went faster and faster, he had to go farther and farther back, until finally it was getting hard to see where he was starting. He broke the record in no time, but anything under 130 was not going to be good enough. He pushed that bike nearly to its limits and there it was — 137, with one wheel on the ground!! He was clearly happy about the speed and with good reason. Kane was a great guy to work with and will definitely continue to be on top of his game — and bike.