BMW Motorrad’s Chris Pfeiffer will be in Switzerland this weekend to contest the first Streetbike Freestyle World Championship event that takes place from 15 to 18 February at the Zurich Exhibition Centre.


The 36-year-old current European Stunt Riding Champion has been looking forwards to this unique event, which takes place indoors on a specially designed 50-metre asphalt course.


“This is a one-off world championship event and the fact that it takes place at the most important motorcycle show in Switzerland means that there will be loads of people there,” said Chris. “I’m really looking forwards to performing in front of such large crowds. The organisers do a great job and build an indoor asphalt surface in the exhibition hall especially for this event. It costs them a lot of money but the benefit is that we have plenty of grip to do our best stunts and make sure we really entertain the crowds.”


The championship event itself forms part of the SWISS-MOTO motorcycle, scooter and tuning Exhibition in Zurich, which is the ‘curtain raiser’ to the season and attracts up to 60,000 visitors from all over Europe every year. For the first time, the Streetbike Freestyle World Championship will be held in the Zurich exhibition halls and the riders only have a small area in which they have to display their best and most extreme tricks.


Pfeiffer and his BMW F 800 are up against some serious talent in the quest for this world championship title. A truly international line-up of rivals includes former world champions AC Farias and Humberto Ribeiro from Brazil and Portugal; American riders Joshua Borne, Nicolas Brocha, Daniel Farris, Ernie Vigil and Alex Flores; Belgians Steven Fransen and Bart Van den Eynde; Finns Michael Hilska and Joni Tammela; Spaniard Narcis Roca; Swede Matti Tepsa and Hungarian Balazs Herczeg.


“The ‘track’ is only 15 metres wide and 54 metres long, so there’s not a lot of space, but I get a real buzz from being this close to the crowd,” said Chris. “I like to involve them in the show and love it when I can hear their reaction to various tricks I’m doing. The area we have to perform in will allow me to do all my stunts, but just not as fast as usual! It’s the first time there are so many guys across from America riding and it will be interesting to see how they do against the Europeans.”


The first of two qualifying rounds starts on Saturday, with a two-stage final taking place on Sunday from 1200 until 1600. An international panel of judges from Austria, The Netherlands, England and Finland will decide who will become the 2007 Streetbike Freestyle World Champion.