How I Spend It: astronaut Tim Peake on motorcycling 

When I was a kid I had a poster of a Honda 500cc motorbike that I just thought was the coolest thing. I was fascinated by engineering, technology and also by things that were a bit risky, like speed. I loved the idea of motorbiking. My parents didn’t.  

It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I decided to act on my passion. I was 25, went on a week-long course, got my licence and bought a Honda CBR 600, which is a pretty poky machine. At the time I was a helicopter instructor in the British Army Air Corps working at Middle Wallop in Hampshire, and those days were just idyllic. Top Gun wasn’t that old a movie at the time. I’d been through flying training and was then an instructor and so it was impossible not to draw the parallels. Cheesy as it sounds, I’d be racing along these beautiful Hampshire roads knowing that I was going to spend the day jumping in a helicopter and teaching students how to fly. And I’d be humming the theme tune of Top Gun as I rolled up to the airfield.

And then I proposed to Rebecca, my girlfriend of two years who was also in the military, and my CBR 600 turned into an engagement ring. I literally sold one and bought the other. She asked me what I’d done with my bike and I said, “It’s sitting on the kitchen table.” 

There followed a long, long break from owning a bike. I was jumping around between various different postings, and then the European Space Agency selection came up and I was chosen as an astronaut. So I went for 10 years as an astronaut not having a motorbike. It’s only recently that I’ve been able to pick up that passion again: I’ve got a Triumph Tiger 900 in the garage that I ride whenever I can. 

I want to go adventure touring. When I was looking down from space I became obsessed with Patagonia. And every time our orbit took us over South America I would set the alarm to be at the window. I think I must have come down with about a thousand photographs of Patagonia and its ice fields. It’s an area I’ve seen so much of from space but is actually a mystery to me in terms of what it looks like on the ground. I also fell in love with Kamchatka off the east coast of Russia. There would always be a couple of volcanoes smoking away as part of the ring of fire there. And I think it holds a special place in my heart, from when I was 18 and did a trip to Alaska. The wilderness, the remoteness and the isolation appeal to me. 

Apart from the Apollo and Gemini pilots, the International Space station astronauts have travelled faster than any human being has ever gone. It’s 25 times the speed of sound. So that’s about 17.5 thousand miles per hour. I do get an adrenaline rush from biking, most definitely, but it’s not quite the same. I think the thing about biking that appeals more is the sense of freedom. When I jump in a car it’s all about where am I going? When I jump on a bike I don’t care about the destination. It’s not about that. It’s the journey. 

Limitless: the autobiography by Tim Peake is published by Century at £20.