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Fearless
A moment with
Allan Morrison of Fearless Motorcycles in Adelaide,
South Australia
July 17, 2026, by Guy
'Guido' Allen with Allan Morrison
Young Allan Morrison is the owner of Fearless Motorcycles in Adelaide and will be remembered by many as an exceptional entertainer and stunt rider. That was until a mid-show spill on a Harley ended the game and put him in a wheelchair and on a new career path.
We spent a little time
with him…
AllMoto: How did you get into stunt riding?
Allan: I started
working at the Glenn Middlemiss shop down in Morwell,
Victoria.
I got an RGV250, like every 17-year-old kid did. I'd
saved for it in a money box since I was 10 years old.
I got my license, and
the instructor tried to talk me out of taking the bike
home because he knew how dangerous it was. But I went
up the road doing 180km/h, showed every 16-year-old
girl I knew, and just rode around all night.
The next day, riding up in the hills, I rode off the road and smashed it to a million pieces. Broke my collarbone. Those things are so dangerous.
A video of a guy from
Europe, Gary Rothwell, came out around '95 or '96. We
went to Phillip Island for the GP in '98 or '99, and
he was there performing. I thought, "This is awesome.
This is so cool."
We had a GS125 Suzuki at the shop that we used to hire out to people going for their P plates. Within two weeks of watching Gary Rothwell, there were no tail-lights, indicators, instruments, or headlights left on it. I decided I was going to be a stuntman.
Then I got a ZX-7 and
then I met one of the reps from Gas Imports, who knew
Robbie Bolger. The rep told Robbie about me, that I
was doing the same stunts as him, and Robbie said to
come down to the World Superbikes in 2000. Robbie was
a charmer and told them I was the French stunt riding
champion – I don’t even speak French! I was told to
keep quiet. He probably charged them to have me but
didn’t give me anything. That was my first show.
I was getting $235 a
week at the bike shop and then I went to a stunt
weekend and the guy gave me $2500. Back then, it was
just me, Robbie, Matt Mingay, and Rob Jones.
Everything we were doing was at 200km/h.
Now it's all technical wheelies and slow circles, bikes covered in crash cages and plastic bungs. Back then, if you crashed your 1200 Bandit, no matter what it was gone.
AllMoto: When did you start this shop?
Alan: After my
accident left me in a wheelchair, I went back to work
at the Harley dealership three months later. I
couldn't jump on a bike, run it around the workshop (Ed's
note: Allan had previously been workshop boss),
or change front tires anymore, so they pulled me out
the front selling bikes. It was frustrating.
Some guy from Harley was
coming in telling me, "Allan, as soon as someone walks
in the door, you need to say, 'Good morning, welcome
to Adelaide Harley-Davidson. I'm Allan, this is Sue
over there.'" But Sue's not at her desk because she's
in the change rooms on TikTok.
Then they'd hand me a
list of 500 people who bought bikes two years ago and
tell me to ring them to sell another one.
Mate, if someone's got 50 grand in their pocket and wants to buy a Harley, I don't need to ring him and tell him to come and buy one. They've been waiting for it for fucking years; they'll just come down and buy it.
Harley started doing
these customer surveys on secret shoppers. The rebate
for the shop (if it went well) was massive – tens of
thousands of dollars a quarter. But if someone came in
just to buy a Harley-branded dog bowl and nobody
served them because the merch girl was on TikTok and I
was trying to show some couple what the 10,000 buttons
on their new $50,000 CVO Ultra did, they'd leave a
one-star review and we’d lose it all.
The final straw was when
a mate of mine – my apprentice – was killed on his
bike. I wanted to go back for his funeral to support
his family. They were like, "How did you even know
that kid?"
I roll out into the car
park, ring my girlfriend and say, "I just quit."
They tell me you can get
on a disability pension, and my mate's on one, but I'm
thinking, "Fuck that". No, I was wanting to go back to
work and earn a wage.
So I used my payout –
about six and a half grand – paid the bond on an old
shop on a corner, brought all my tools from home, and
started this place. I figured I only needed to make
$2500 a month to live. Six years later, here we are. (Ed's
note: this story was recorded in November 2025 –
we're now nudging seven years.)
AllMoto: So you tackle Harleys in the workshop.
Allan: Yeah, just
Harley work. We'll do everything. Dealerships don't
want to work on anything older, but I'm like, bring
the old bikes in. You hear it every day at
dealerships: "What do you want to keep working on that
heap of shit for?" They don't want to work on it.
But there is so much satisfaction in getting an old bike that comes in on a trailer, pulled into a million pieces, and fixing it. It means a lot to people.
AllMoto: Tell us
the good and bad about running your workshop.
Allan: I
absolutely love it. Every day, people ride past, and
every single person who rocks up has a problem or a
bit they want fixed. I love talking to the customers.
I've been doing this for so long that I've built a
great customer base.
You get the occasional
person you just can't make happy, no matter what you
do, or people who get bad advice from their mates, but
that's just part of it. Adelaide's small, so you get
your customer base, roll with it, do the best you can,
and keep moving.
***
Fearless
Motorcycles on Facebook
***
What about Tara?
And yes, Allan is called “Dad” if your name is Tara
Morrison – the lively, savvy and very quick racer
who has emerged as a major talent over recent years.
What’s that experience like?
Allan: Tara just came over to the shed one day after not really having too much to do with motorbikes as a kid. She said to me, "Can we take that bike out to a go-kart track?" Me being all excited, I said, "Yeah, yeah, we'll go tomorrow."
We took the bike out the next day. It was 20 bucks at this go-kart track. We're burning around, and she had the thing leaned right over. She had no real experience at all riding on a go-kart track or a road bike. She'd driven a go-kart around there and, when you go around a corner on a go-kart, you hold it flat. I think she was just thinking the same thing with a bike. After half an hour, I'm like, "Stop, stop! We need to get home. You're going to wreck the bike with all the road fairings on it, in jeans and your mum's leather jacket."
So we went home, got a
bit more organised, got her mum's leathers and
everything, and went back out there. Over the next six
months, she wrecked every pair of leathers her mum
had, wrecked every motor, knocked it over, let it
slide, and wore out every tire.
It was fun. Once we
drove to Eastern Creek, she fell off at a quarter to
ten and we'd turn around and drive home. It was one of
those days.
I think you can learn
not to fall off. But if you haven't got that 'I want
to win at all costs' mentality, you can't force that
into somebody's brain. You can talk to them, and some
people do, but I think it's a lot easier to work the
other way around.
If you're falling off for a reason, we try and find out why. Was the front tire cold when you ran wide? Were you braking too hard, the forks were too soft, bottomed out, and tucked the front end under? You learn from that, and then you change the bike or how you're riding to make that not happen again.
AllMoto: What's it like being Dad, pit crew and team mechanic? It's pretty full-on, isn't it?
Allan: It is.
At the start, I was very worried about what people
were thinking. Having been in the industry and the pit
scene my whole life, I knew there'd be other mums or
dads going, "Allan's football career turned to shit
because he got a busted knee, so now he's making his
son play football.”
Or in this case, “Allan
can't ride his motorbike now, so now he's making his
daughter do that." But unless I'm the biggest moron in
the world, I'm not going to force my daughter to do
it. I can't even make her go across the road to get me
a drink, let alone an egg and bacon roll!
Tara is tough. She's
busted a collarbone when someone T-boned her for her
18th birthday – plates, screws, and everything in it.
She crashed on another bike at 200km/h when a kid
stopped in front of her, just absolutely pole-axed
him, and smashed her other collarbone to pieces.
She high-sided, fractured her pelvis, and that's got screws in it. And then she goes out there the next race meeting and wins races. She's a force of nature.
***
Tara has a column in Australian Motor Cycle
News. Plug this term into your search
engine: tara morrison amcn
***
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