Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger Talk Why Motorcycling Racing Is 'Just Fun,' And How You Don't Kill Your Best Friend

The Arch Motorcycles boys went racing. And somehow, they haven't yet become the next Netflix true-crime documentary.

07:45

Jonathon Klein

By: Jonathon Klein

Jul 6, at 6:00am ET

Add RideApart as a preferred source in Google

Comment

Arch Motorcycles remains one of those few boutique motorcycle manufacturers that has stood the test of time. Others have come and gone, usually in the same breath as them introducing themselves to the world, only to be forgotten just as quickly. But Arch, headed by designer and engineer Gard Hollinger, and perhaps the most motorcycle-driven man in Hollywood, Keanu Reeves, continues.

And not just that: It's thrived.

Hollinger and Reeves' friendship goes back nearly twenty years, as Reeves was set up with Hollinger to talk about customizing one of the actor's motorcycles. The two got to talking, the pair feeling each other out but getting the sense that they were two like-minds, and Hollinger got to egging Reeves on with a "Yeah, that idea would be cool, but what if we built something from scratch? Something rad?" And that's what they did.

That friendship turned into Arch Motorcycles, a company that now has a handful of motorcycles, a waiting list as long as my arm, and a devout following from its customers—the group, along with Reeves, go on rides pretty frequently together around Los Angeles. And there's a reason why they're not just garage queens, as the motorcycles they've built together are truly not like anything on the market.

Ages ago, I went to Arch's HQ in Los Angeles, talked with Hollinger at length, and then was lucky enough to ride one of the company's bikes with him. It may look cruiser-ish, but it had more akin to how you feel when you're riding a horse. There are vibrations and noise and heat and sensations that have been bred out of the current motorcycling range. There's a tactility to the motorcycle. You don't just ride an Arch, you experience it. A piece that had been integral to that original talk that Hollinger and Reeves had.

But they also just wanted a fun motorcycle, an ethos their new venture aims to take further.

To show just how far Hollinger and Reeves can take their engineering and dogged determinism, the duo bootstrapped a race team to compete in the Super Hooligan class in MotoAmerica with a prototype race-spec motorcycle, and is the subject of the new docu-series, streaming on Samsung TV Plus. Produced by the pairing, the show takes viewers behind-the-scenes as they pulled together the motorcycle, the team, the rider, and themselves to take to the track.

Why? In Reeves' own exclamatory words to me, "It's fun, man!"

I was lucky enough to sit down with the duo ahead of the launch and ask them about their history, racing motorcycles, and how they haven't killed each other—the latter of which caused concern by both of them about my own workplace safety.

RideApart: What's going on, gentlemen? It's been 15 years of Arch, and a lot has happened in that time. Neither of you have died, though. Gard, I think Keanu might be trying to kill you, though.

Gard Hollinger: [laughs] Slowly.

RA: I'm curious why you think Arch has succeeded where so many other small manufacturers have failed.

GH: Oh man. I think the original objective and the authenticity and then also an element of being too dumb to know when to quit.

RA: So you guys joke throughout the first episode about that. Is there a special sauce to your friendship that has allowed you guys to just stay friends and not kill each other over those 15 years?

Keanu Reeves: Why would we kill each other? I don't know. What kind of workplace environment have you been in?

RA: I work in media. You should know this!

KR: Yeah. Knives out. Yeah, we don't have knives out. We have a common goal of trying to make beautiful things and share that with other folks who might appreciate it too. And I think we don't fight in the kitchen. We disagree sometimes.

GH: We do it gentlemanly.

KR: Yes. No pistols that dawn, yes. And you're usually right. So that helps. It's not true. That is true. It's true.

RA: The series is about you guys going motorcycle racing, which is kind of having a revival right now, both with Liberty Media buying MotoGP.

[Keanu crosses his fingers]

RA: Those fingers are crossed on my end too. And MotoAmerica is doing really great stuff under Wayne Rainey. And there's even better access to things like the Isle of Man TT. What do you think is the pull for that right in this very moment? Why do you guys think that you guys ... I mean, you guys are attracted to it, obviously, but why do you think that it's having that next moment in the cycle?

GH: I mean, I hope that it's that people are coming back to enjoying something authentic and challenging and tangible, and that you have to go out in the world to do that you can't do in front of a device, which there's wonderful things about that. But I hope that it's because people are becoming sentimental.

KR: No, kids aren't sentimental. I mean, there's corporate investment. There's a lot of investment that's going into resources.

GH: Is there?

KR: Yeah, Liberty springing investment. Well, MotoAmerica. People aren't fleeing, and there's some of the investments in terms of ... And maybe this speaks to your question, just people wanting to watch the opportunity to watch it, the deals that MotoAmerica are trying to make in terms of exhibition. And so there's energy and resources and imagination and trying to build it up.

GH: That's an example of our conflict. [laughs]

RA: It was solved really quickly. Where's the pull come from for you guys? Where does that pull to go racing for you two come from personally?

KR: Well, my father left when I was [everyone laughs] and ever since then I've been trying to make this ghost proud!

RA: You have a history though with motorcycle racing, and racing in general! I'm...

KR: Sorry. I'm being a jerk. It's fun, man!

RA: Is it that simple? It's just fun.

GH: Kind of. Yeah. I mean...

KR: It's creative!

GH: It also feeds the development of our product. It gives us a platform to show that product and to learn from it.

KR: And competition!

GH: And competition!

KR: Yes, and wanting to develop our product to be the best I could possibly be. I hate calling it a product. Our motorcycle. Anyway.

RA: Oh, I get that way when someone says an article is content. It's like, no, it's an article. It's humanity. It's everything.

GH: I think also in the challenge of the ambition and the challenge to succeed where maybe you're not expected to succeed.

RA: That goes back to that kind of fun. It's that challenge. To that point, you guys have been doing this for, like I said, 15 years. You've been putting together a pretty sustainable business model for the company and to build really beautiful, awesome bikes. Was it so different to take what you have learned during those 15 years and apply it to racing? Was it drastically different between the two?

KR: Yes [laughs].

GH: There are elements of it obviously that carry over, but it's been a new challenge and for me, a fun challenge. I think my appetite to learn new things has grown as I've gotten older and it's been fun.

RA: Arch didn't do so bad in the standings and its first foray as a freshman team. With a brand new motorcycle, where's your head at going forward in the series? Is the sky the limit? Are you guys going to Isle of Man TT or what are you doing?

KR: There are two races in each round. I'd love to have completed at least 50% of the races. I hope that we finish at least one race in every round.

RA: It's an admirable goal.

KR: I want to start with that.

RA: Start small.

KR: For me, that would be a super win for this team. And not from the rider side; this is not a rider expectation. This is just a team-building and motorcycle expectation. If we do that, we will have a competitive motorcycle, and our riders will put us on podiums.

RA: That's a hell of a goal. It's a good one.

GH: I would just say I hope we get to all the routes. [laughs]

KR: Low bar [motions low]. High bar [motions high].

RA: Middle bar [motions to the middle]

KR: Maybe mid bar. Mid bar.

RA: To that middle bar!

What do you think?

View

Comments

KR: So you see, you can go higher.

RA: You could do it. I have faith.