The irony is that those closest to him pushed for his retirement after winning the 2008 World Superbike title because they didn’t want him to get hurt. No, really.

Superbike and MotoGP legend Troy Bayliss (56) has managed to injure himself yet again on a motorcycle. Bayliss was found unconscious near his dirt bike last week and had to be taken by ambulance to a hospital after regaining his faculties. He was apparently riding alone at the time.

This latest mishap follows a semi-recent broken ankle, which itself came after a frightening—yet still somewhat mysterious—bicycle crash two or more years ago that left him temporarily paralyzed.

Bayliss loves to go fast and may ride his motorcycle as often as Eddie Lawson—who rides more than any retired world champion—on a beautiful track near his Australian home.

He retired within sight of eclipsing Carl Fogarty’s all-time WSBK win record. The pressure to quit in 2008 after taking his final world championship was immense, and he eventually bowed to it, though anyone who knew him could see where his real desire lay. Famously, Bayliss once said his post-racing role as Ducati’s MotoGP test rider wasn’t valuable for the money or even for the chance to ride a top-level prototype, but because it allowed him “to stick the needle in my arm again.”

Yes, Bayliss suffered some reasonably frightening injuries during his racing career—an amputated finger, a lightened scrotum, and the usual assortment of broken bones and contusions—but expecting him to hop in the car after winning both races at Portimão in 2008, ride to the airport with wife Kim and Ducati’s Davide Tardozzi, and seamlessly segue into the life of a retired country gentleman, real estate speculator, or paid yammering ninny (TV analyst) was never realistic.

Bayliss lives to go very fast on a motorcycle.

And he will keep doing it—until he can’t.