One of the world's leading stunt riders, German-born Chris Pfeiffer, has been a BMW boy for a long time now, but recently he swapped the Beemer badge for a Husqvarna as part of the entertainment at the Ice World Championship in Germany.
So what was it like riding a Husqvarna TE449 with spiked tyres?
"The power delivery is so smooth, and I really like the riding position. I'm a tall rider but I found there was enough room for me to ride in a stand-up position. It's a real enduro bike and the engine is built like a BMW engine. But I don't think it can be compared to the BMW because they are both different bikes and I have ridden them in very different conditions."
The Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship is a 'speed downhill skating tournament' where competitors wear hockey skates and heavy armour and literally fight to be first past the post, and Pfeiffer provided the warm up entertainment, if you will.
His Husqvarna TE449 wore spiked tyres and he navigated the undulating downhill skating course while cracking off wheelies and getting airborne in front of thousands of screaming energy-drink fuelled punters.
"The crowd's reaction was fantastic, they made even more noise than they did in the final of the race. People were really going crazy because they just couldn't believe I could do wheelies and stoppies on the ice and stay on the bike," says Pfeiffer.
However compared to the year before, things were much warmer and slushier. In 2010 the -10℃ temperatures were perfect, but this year saw unseasonably high 10℃ temps. "The conditions for the two events were so different - this year I didn't even get the chance to practise because it was too warm and all my test runs were cancelled," explained Pfeiffer.
"But I wasn't nervous, I've been doing it too long for that. I just felt excited and a sense of anticipation. When I got there, the track was so slippery you couldn't walk on it - because of that, I wouldn't have been able to put my feet down once I was riding on the ice. But with the spiked tyres, once I got used to it, it was like riding on asphalt really," concluded the four-time World and European Stunt-Riding champion.
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