Life with a passion
Born 1989 in Slovenia I have been riding motorcycles since I was 6 years old on a Honda MX and my Dad taught me how to ride them and started the fire in me for Motorcycles and I started riding with 2-stroke motocross bikes from Honda. The passion for cars and bikes was handed to me through my dad, who always had the opportunity to bring back home some of the coolest rides and I enjoyed being around those vehicles and I love to watch or ride on the back seat.
When I became teenager having my first income I started saving money for my first own motorcycle and bought a Honda CBR900RR and from that moment on me and my friends rode everywhere. I even built a bike just for racetrack purposes and we practiced as many times as possible, all my money went into the tires and servicing the bikes. It was worth every penny for me and I never regretted anything.
During my childhood bikes and cars where also a valve for me to get my energy out since I was always highly active. Horseback riding which I was very successful in and got selected for the tryouts for the famous Lipica horseback riding school, aside of climbing, running, mountain-biking, scuba diving and swimming I never skipped the opportunity to challenge myself with any form of extrem sport or including bungee jumping, parachuting and much more…I was kind of living on the edge for many years.
Motocross Disaster
Motocross was always part of me since my early childhood and I loved the speed, the jumps, riding through the deep tracks and then jumping the tables or just spending time in the nature. Being able to control a bike in dirt needs extensive practice and throughout most of the years I only had minor accidents, outside of dislocated joints (hips, wrists and shoulders) and bruises but nothing minor. Then in 2013, I was 22, during a practice day on the tracks in the middle of the woods, my friends and myself spent the whole day riding the tracks and I had a few fails. Tired after whole day my friends already left the track I decided to do another round and then disaster hit me, during a high speed curve I was thrown out of the curve, flew almost 5 meters high and landed on my butt in the dirt..I heard loud crack noises and blacked out on the floor. Since i was alone on the track it was pure coincidence that an old couple was walking their dog near the track and the dog found me lying on the ground while I slowly regaining my consciousness. The couple was trying to talk to me and asked me if I was able to move and I remember replying that I don’t feel my legs. They left me on the ground and called the ambulance. A few moments later the ambulance came, they did their checks and I remember the moment when my adrenaline was going away and all of a sudden I had unbelievable pain of course they gave me morphine and took me immediately to the hospital. In the hospital they did a few more tests and during the MRI they discovered that 2 of my vertebra where broken and hitting the nerves and it was a very complicated surgery that could not be performed in Slovenia. So they flew in a specialist from Austria the next day. It took them almost 8 hours to put me back together and they left me with the uncertainty of not being able to walk ever again. About 5 days later when the swelling went down, happiness for me, I felt my feet again…you cant imagine what this meant to me. Riding bikes is my life, I thought I would never be on a bike ever again. The next 3 weeks in the hospital my best friend and my mom helped me every day with my training and I made small progress. I was determined that I wanna be back on the road so all I did was eat, sleep, practice every single day I forced myself to do as much as possible. In total I had to wear a harness for 8 months and spent 1.5 years rehabilitating. Strengthening myself was my goal and I spent every minute on it. Almost 2 Years later I sat on my bike again, a Gixxer 600. Since that day I never visited a MX track again, riding off-road again was almost 5 years later.
Back on my feet
My passion for bikes kept growing and it brought the attention of MotoGP on me and was approached to work in MotoGP for a short while, a huge opportunity to work with some of the race teams. It was during that time that I met many amazing riders one of them being Valentino Rossi, the Doctor, for me and many other people in the world the best rider on this planet. A friendly, kind and charismatic rider with one passion, motorcycles. However I stopped working in MotoGP as I could not see myself doing this for a long period but i enjoyed every minute of it.
Over the years I kept riding my various road bikes and enjoyed my life. Ducati Panigale and BMW R1200GS where always my favorite up until today.
The Good and Bad always follow
Out of nowhere another disaster hit my body, July 2019 brain stroke, I was just about to turn 30 and alone at home when it hit me, usually a brain stroke comes in phases and I did not know that I had my first little stroke at about 8PM when I went to bed and felt extremely exhausted, my head was super heavy and my body had absolutely no energy. With my last remaining power I dragged myself to bed and fell asleep for a couple of hours. Then at 3AM I woke up with a huge pain in my left side and I stood up to get my meds but I fell down on the floor like a stone. I could not move, my left side was numb and i was in pain. With my last energy I tried to reach my phone on the bed, by pulling down the sheets with my right hand until the phone dropped down next to me. It took my some time to overcome face id and punch in the code with limited vision, but I managed, still not knowing what was going on I called my neighbours who then called the ambulance. The police and the ambulance took the door down to enter the house and I was taken to the first hospital, from there I was then transferred to the brain stroke center, as they where expecting another stroke to come and they wanted to keep a close eye on me over the next 72 hours. In total I stayed 3 weeks in the hospital, again jumping off the edge of death and happy to be alive but knowing again that I could probably not ride a bike for a while of maybe even forever. Out of the hospital I was again determined to make it back on the bikes again and started my daily routines and took my rehab very seriously, every day I had to practice and train again. While undergoing numerous analysis on the cause of my stroke it was discovered that have blood clods, apparently because of my high cholesterol. On top of that they discovered that I have a little hole in my heart…meaning surgery again in January 2020 I got my heart surgery to close the little hole. My life changed completely, going on a strict diet and stroke rehab changed everything. A couple of months in rehab I was able to control my movements again, good enough to ride a bike. Hell Yeeeahh, I was up on my Ducati and went for my first short ride. Of course not without struggles, my head is still heavy and I am quickly tired out and sensitive to noise and light but work in progress. I started riding my KTM SXF and was happy I could enjoy riding it a little. Thanks to my good friend Marc, who offered me to train my riding skills again I started practicing off-roading again since December 2020 making huge steps since then with my goal to ride on smaller Enduro events and traveling with my bikes in the near future coming closer every day. On top of that my better half has been supporting me as much as possible.
Never give up !
Its still a long way to go for me but I wont give up, riding is my passion and nothing will stop me from it.
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