HAVING ridden past 150,000 onlookers cheering for his recently deceased best pal Dave Myers, Hairy Biker Simon King could no longer hold back the tears.
The surviving half of the beloved cooks on two wheels had just arrived in Barrow-in-Furness and been hugged by Dave’s widow Liliana.
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It was the culmination of Dave Day, a celebration of the Hawaiian shirt-wearing Hairy Biker who died from cancer in February aged 66.
In June Simon, who is best known as Si, led 46,000 fans on their motorbikes into the Cumbrian town where his co-presenter was born.
Liliana says: “Everybody was crying. I’d never seen Simon cry before, but this time he was crying.”
Those tears have not dried up over the intervening months.
Si, 58, is clearly emotional as he sits down to talk about a one-off BBC2 documentary titled The Hairy Bikers: You’ll Never Ride Alone.
At a special screening of the programme, the bereft star admits “it’s really hard” to watch old footage of the pair together.
I’d never seen Simon cry before, but this time he was crying
Liliana
That’s not surprising as the two working-class men with beards and long hair had been by each other’s side for 28 years.
They wrote 30 cookbooks, worked on 31 TV projects and Dave was a hit with viewers when he did the Cha-Cha-Cha on Strictly Come Dancing in 2013.
The duo travelled 650,000 miles around the world, visiting the Namibian desert, cooking with Mayans in Mexico and sumo wrestling in Japan.
Now Si finds himself having to strike out alone in the world of showbusiness and culinary delights.
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He is setting up a takeaway restaurant in Sunderland, working on a new stage show and has joined the This Morning team as their new chef.
But he says: “Just because he’s passed, it doesn’t stop you being best mates. He’s still with me.”
Anything Si does from now on will be “different to Dave and I. And I would want it to be different.”
It would be impossible to re-create the special chemistry with anyone else.
Behind the scenes
Dave and Si hit it off instantly when they met on the set of a Catherine Cookson TV drama starring Robson Green in 1992.
Si, from Kibblesworth, County Durham, was the assistant director and Dave was employed as a make-up artist.
They both went to the bar at a pub called the Egypt Cottage in Newcastle and ordered a curry each.
Their shared love for motorbikes, fishing and food inspired them to persuade the BBC to commission The Hairy Bikers Cookbook in 2004, even though the pair were total unknowns.
The corporation liked the idea of having two motorcycle enthusiasts travelling the world, cooking local cuisine but wanted famous hosts.
But Si says: “First of all we were told it’s going to be celebrity led, so Dave and I were like, ‘no we want to do it, why would we give this idea to somebody else, are you mad?’”
They realised that what they were doing was unusual in middle class TV land.
He continues: “We were two working class lads from the north, and we had an extraordinary career, but those careers were behind the camera.
“It was very rarely that you made the transition from behind the camera.”
The pilot they shot in 2004 was followed by the first series two years later, which proved to be a big hit with audiences.
Love at first sight
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The first series changed Dave’s life in more ways than one, because while filming in Romania in 2005 he met his future wife Liliana Orzac, who was working in a hotel where they stayed.
Si believes it was love at first sight.
He recalls: “It was definitely love. I’m not sure it was with Lili. Dave said ‘I really, really like her.’ I went, ‘shall we have a drink and talk about it?”
Dave kept in touch with Liliana via email and invited her to visit him in England.
His widow says: “He was a master of words. His emails captivated me, his stories captivated me. He was a good storyteller. And so that’s how we started.”
Valentine’s Day, God love Lil, I was always there
Si King
The romance blossomed and they got married in 2011 at Barrow town hall.
But it was a case of three’s crowd for the bride, with Dave insisting that his best man Si was in every photo.
Liliana says: “I don’t have one single photo just with my husband. There’s always Simon, me, and Dave. In all the photos in my wedding.”
That trend continued into the marriage, with Dave also inviting Si to join him and Liliana for Valentine’s day meals.
Si smiles: “Valentine’s Day, God love Lil, I was always there.
“I would say to Dave ‘It’s Valentine’s Day, just go out in London with Lil,’ and then Lil would go, ‘wait, where’s Kingy?’ And I’d be like, well, okay, I’ll come then.”
Riding on
It is clear that while many TV partnerships are just for the cameras, Dave and Si’s bromance was the real deal.
Si explains: “We were very different men, and with very different personalities, but we loved each other. And it was as simple as that.”
So it was a terrible shock when Dave was diagnosed with cancer in May 2022.
Si remembers: “I was driving and he rang me, and he went, ‘do you want to pull over?’ So I pulled over and he told me that he had cancer. And although the prognosis was quite bad, I said, ‘I’m going to help you.’”
The chemotherapy treatment and the illness were so debilitating at times that Dave couldn’t walk.
Most people thought he’d never appear on TV screens again, but the cancer patient bought himself a new bike and returned for an eight part series in January 2023.
Si says: “We thought our biking days might be over, but our Dave had other plans. He bought himself a new motorbike, and there was such an emotional moment when he could again get on the motorbike and ride it.”
Tragically, the doctors were unable to halt Dave’s terminal decline and he died in February with Liliana and Si at his bedside.
Dave Day
The idea for the motorbike ride from London to Barrow came from Liliana reading a social media message where a fan said they were having a ‘Dave Day.’
That was shorthand for an upbeat day.
Si says: “Dave was always positive, even right to the very end. He embraced the life that he’d lived. That was enormously important to him, that was the essence.”
It was “strange” for the surviving chef to get on his motorbike in front of the cameras without his “best mate” but he wasn’t alone.
There were 2,500 bikers, some with shirts sporting Dave’s image, at the start at the Ace Cafe in Northwest London, with the rest joining along the way.
When Si saw Liliana wearing Dave’s leather jacket and helmet at a service station in the West Midlands it was a tough moment for him.
I caught Dave’s helmet and jacket out of my peripheral vision. That was the first, like, ‘oh.’
Si King
He says: “I didn’t know that Lil was going to wear Dave’s jacket nor his helmet.
“And I caught Dave’s helmet and jacket out of my peripheral vision. That was the first, like, ‘oh.’
“Because there’s always points, isn’t there? Where there is a release of emotions. You just can’t keep it in.”
As they got closer to Barrow the well wishers swelled, waving from every bridge and crowding the pavement once they were in the town’s centre.
Si says: “There was one moment that we’d taken over all three lanes, and I looked back, and as far as my eye could see, I could just see the snaking tail, because it kind of climbs up.
“It just swelled your heart with love and affection.”
He concludes: “There were people waving, people with banners, people with photographs. It was absolutely unbelievable.
“And it constantly came to me that, you know, as we were riding ‘oh, David would absolutely have loved that.”
The Hairy Bikers: You’ll Never Ride Alone airs on Monday December 23 at 9pm on BBC TWO.
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