“I Won’t Recover”: The Potholes That May Force a Rider to Stop

There is a particular grief that comes when a lifelong passion is taken not by age or infirmity but by the simple failure of infrastructure—by the roads themselves, crumbling under the weight of neglect. For Stewart, a 62-year-old rider from the United Kingdom, that grief is not hypothetical. It is the immediate, tangible consequence of potholes that have grown so severe that continuing to ride has become a gamble with his life.

Stewart is not the first to speak publicly about the crisis. In 2022, Sir Rod Stewart—the singer, not the rider—took matters into his own hands, posting a video of himself filling potholes near his Essex home because “no one can be bothered to do it” . At the time, he said his Ferrari “can’t go through here at all,” and that he had seen an ambulance with a burst tyre . By November 2024, Stewart had threatened to sell his collection of five hybrid sports cars because the potholes had become too severe. “Unfortunately, because of the potholes on our roads, I may have to find new owners for them,” he wrote .

Essex County Council responded by promising an additional £37 million to address potholes and carry out larger-scale resurfacing work, saying it was investing “more money this year than ever” . But for riders like Stewart—the 62-year-old who has spent most of his life on two wheels—the question is not about Ferraris or sports cars. It is about whether a lifelong pursuit can survive the deterioration of the surfaces he depends on.

Potholes are more dangerous for motorcyclists than for drivers. A car can often absorb the impact of a deep pothole with minor damage. A motorcycle cannot. A wheel that strikes a pothole at speed can destabilize the bike, throw the rider off course, or cause a crash that a car would barely register. Riders learn to scan the road ahead, to memorize the locations of known defects, to adjust their lines. But when the defects multiply faster than they can be remembered, the risk becomes unmanageable.

Stewart told reporters he was unsure whether he could continue riding, that the cumulative impact on his confidence and his body may have reached a point of no return. The phrase he used—“I won’t recover”—carries a finality that no council press release can easily address. For a rider of his age, the decision to stop is not merely a matter of inconvenience. It is the end of a practice that has defined decades of his life.

The broader context is a road maintenance crisis that has been building for years, exacerbated by weather and budget constraints. Riders are among the most vulnerable road users, and they are often the first to feel the consequences of deferred maintenance. For Stewart, the question is not whether the council can fix the roads eventually. It is whether he can afford to wait.

AI Image Disclaimer: The imagery in this article was generated using artificial intelligence and is intended for illustrative purposes only, not as a documentary record of the rider or conditions described.

Sources: NME, American Songwriter, Exclaim!, BBC