If you’ve been hearing about Keanu Reeves’ motorcycling hobby and his connection with the elite custom bike shop Arch Motorcycle, but never really been able to figure out what the deal is there, this GQ interview brings us into the actor’s bike life and introduces his motorcycle collection. Which is awesome, by the way.
Based on the movies of his that I’ve seen, I would not describe Reeves as a particularly expressive actor. In fact, he seems more animated and excited talking about bikes in this YouTube video than he does in any of his movie scenes that I can remember.
He’s clearly an earnest enthusiast, and his personal collection of motorcycles is really cool. Watching this made me feel like he’s an active piece of motorcycle culture; as opposed to Rich Guy Throwing Money At Vanity Project.
But my favorite nugget from this interview is the fact that his The Matrix co-star Carrie-Anne Moss Roy did her first motorcycle riding ever on a big, unforgiving Ducati sport bike for that scene in The Matrix: Reloaded that I remember absolutely loving in 2003.
The bike in the movie is a 996 and the bike in Reeves’ care is a 998, which appears to be from the small batch of “Matrix Edition” 998s Ducati sold after the movie came out to capitalize on the hype around it as opposed to an actual prop, but the dark green Matrixy color does look cool as hell regardless.
It’s always cool to see somebody be passionate about motorized hobbies. And if you’ve been wondering what Reeves’ connection was with the motorcycle world, now you know.