Christopher McDonald - I Ride - Dirt Rider Magazine

Actor who has appeared in many major films including A Perfect Storm, Quiz Show, Terminal Velocity, The Skulls, Thelma & Louise, Awake and many more. But you probably know him best as Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore. 53 Years OldI've been riding off-road motorcycles since I was 15. It gave me the freedom to get the hell out of the house and out on the trails with just me and a couple of buddies, and I've loved it ever since. I've taken my share of spills, but that's just part of the game.I had an off-road injury that affected the job I had in Nurse Betty. They took the scene out of the movie, but it's in the DVD. I walk with a cane, and I play this trucker in a scene with Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock. The director said the cane gave me more character.One of the biggest thrills I had riding was with my son. We'd just done this amazing two-hour ride, and we had to cross one more road. He sat too far back on his Honda 150, and he popped the most gorgeous wheelie and went right into a ravine and disappeared. I thought, "Oh my God, I've killed my son." I got down there. He'd broken his collarbone but he said, "Wow! That was trippy." He gave me the scare of my life.My favorite bike off-road is my DR350. It's a '97, I've got a big sprocket on the back so I only need to go into third gear and I can get the torque to do anything I want.One of the reasons I got into riding was from watching The Great Escape and seeing the Bud Ekins' jump. Steve McQueen would be out in the deserts where I've ridden around here, and he rode everything. I literally bought a bike that he had, a 1970 650 Triumph Tiger that I'd take off-road. It still has knobbies on it. It's a Scrambler with the up-pipes. People go, "Is that a real one?" "Yeah, it is." It was a thrill to see how cool that jump was and to see him tear around the German countryside, and I thought, "That's what I want to do," and I've been doing it ever since.