Motorcycles and the riding community have opened many doors for former model and current actor/reality TV star David Genat. Through his modeling career, he was on contract with Ralph Lauren and did a shoot with them featuring one of his prized vintage motorcycles. In Brooklyn, he participated in a ride hosted by Union Garage with U.K. football star David Beckham, who represented Belstaff. “I got to be a part of that crew riding vintage Triumphs around New York City with David Beckham, which was pretty cool,” David explains. “Motorcycles have always opened these really cool doors for me, and I got to be on “Ride with Norman Reedus” because of my motorcycle. I did all these little things through doors that opened that I don’t think would have otherwise.”
David’s genuine love for motorcycling even helped him land jobs. He tells an amusing story about becoming the face of Mont Blanc’s Emblem cologne, all because of his motorcycling persona. “I was on a motorcycle camping trip in Upstate New York with a bunch of friends,” he told me during a recent telephone conversation from his home in Dallas, where he was on a short break from filming NBC’s reality TV show “Deal or No Deal Island.” “My agent called me and said, ‘We’ve got the head of Mont Blanc in New York, and she wants to see you. Can you get there today?’”
David hadn’t showered in days and was miles away from New York. But he loaded his camping gear on his Harley-Davidson and, “cannonballed it down to the city, where I went to a super fancy hotel. I was completely covered in road grime and looked an absolute mess. I walked into this meeting with a very fancy French lady who loved it. She thought it was the coolest thing she’d seen. This ended up being a major, major deal for me and I had a contract with them for five years. I spoke to her afterwards and she told me she’d seen all these guys coming in clean cut and perfect trying to impress her and I walked in with a motorcycle helmet and my shitty leather jacket on. She was like, ‘Wow, this guy, he is something special.’”
She wouldn’t have known David’s background in modelling began on a dare. Growing up in Perth, Australia, a friend convinced him, when he was 20 years old and studying to become a graphic designer, to try out for a modeling reality show. He had to do an impression of Ben Stiller’s character in the 2001 film Zoolander and was good enough to get on the TV show, which he won. Ford Models then flew him to New York where he was told they thought he could be a male model. “I didn’t even realize that was a job, but I figured, okay,” he recalls. In 2002 he moved to New York and began an 18-year modelling career. Ten years into that role, he began acting lessons at the prestigious Terry Schrieber Studio. “I was going to do some theater and some acting stuff, but then I got asked to play “Australian Survivor,” and I played two seasons of it. The second season was kind of a returning all-star season, and I won it. That opened a bunch of doors for me with television and reality TV. I did a couple of other reality shows including “Celebrity Apprentice Australia” and hosted a couple of travel shows. I also hosted my own big format reality show called “Rush,” and through all that I became an ambassador for Harley-Davidson.”
David’s production company was producing a show for Harley-Davidson in Australia called “Free Rider.” It was an interview series, hosted by David, where he’d ride and talk to celebrities and other well-known people about their passion for motorcycles and riding. “I was with Harley for a few years with that, but came back to the States at the start of 2024,” he says. “That’s when NBC approached me to become a contestant on a show called “Deal or No Deal Island.” It sounds completely ridiculous, but it’s a lot of fun. The first season the prize pool was $14 million, and it immediately piqued my curiosity and that’s what I’m involved in now.” When we talked, David couldn’t divulge any details about the show, but as of March 29 it’s no secret that he walked away with $5.8 million. As show host Joe Manganiello explained during the final minutes of the episode, while David agonized over accepting a $5.8 million offer or opting to see if one aluminum case held $12.2 million or $75, “This would be the most money anyone has ever made on network television. If you turn this (offer) down, and you have $75 in your case, David, you would be the biggest loser in TV history.” He chose the former. Had he not, and wagered on the case, he’d have won just enough money for a few tanks of gasoline.
David’s life began in Perth, which he notes is about as far away from New York and the modeling world as one could get. But from the start, bikes played a large role in his life. “My dad didn’t ride, but my grandfather did,” he explains. “Some of my earliest memories are of being at my grandfather’s house, and he had a civilianized 1942 Harley-Davidson WLA. He also had a little Honda postie bike, and he’d put a wooden box on the rear rack. I couldn’t have been older than two or three years old, but he’d put me in that box and ride me around their yard. That was my first exposure to motorcycles, and it blossomed into a complete obsession.”
Large farms in Australia were a playground for David and his friends, as they all rode dirt bikes. Street motorcycles, however, didn’t enter the scene until he moved to New York. After taking the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course and obtaining his licence, his first machine was a Suzuki SV650. It matched his budget, and he liked it because it was a V-twin. What he really wanted was a Ducati Monster [Read our profile of Monster creator Miguel Galluzzi here], but he couldn’t afford one. “The SV had a similar style and had the same naked appeal that the Monster had,” he says. From there, he became interested in older Hondas and picked up a 1981 CB650 for not a lot of money that had been modified in the café racer style. “That’s where I really learned to work on bikes because that thing was trash,” he laughs. “It had been really stripped back, and was bare bones, and something was always breaking. The engine was bullet proof, but stuff was falling off it all the time.” This led him down the path of looking at vintage motorcycles while turning the SV650 into a race machine. He put time in on the track, and as his career progressed, began collecting more machines, including air-cooled BMWs and the Monster he’d always wanted.
“When I won “Australian Survivor,” which was about a half million dollars, whenever I was doing press, the question was always, ‘What are you going to spend the money on?’ For me, I was buying a motorcycle,” he says. This was 2020, and his original thought was to get a brand-new Ducati. “But Harley-Davidson reached out to me,” he recalls, “and they told me I shouldn’t buy a bike, as they’d provide me a new bike to ride just about every month and I became something of a Harley-Davidson ambassador (in Australia). But my heart was always interested in trying to find a bike like my grandfather had, so I began searching for a WLA.” Fast forward to 2022. David not only found a 1942 WLA, but also a 1947 Knucklehead. “It was a big year for me buying motorcycles,” he laughs.
He enjoys focusing on riding while escaping the Reality of reality TV shows. “It’s nice to be boiled back down to you, a machine and the road,” he says. “People often talk a lot of shit about you when you’re involved in a reality show, and I just love motorcycle camping and doing cross-country trips. I love that feeling of doing something challenging, like going on a trip from New York to Austin to take in the Moto GP on a 2004 Triumph Scrambler, and I’ve done the Iron Butt Challenge on that same bike. America has so many great motorcycle rides, like the Tail of the Dragon and the Blue Ridge Parkway, it’s just the most amazing way to see and experience America firsthand and meet people along the way. I ride packing just a tent and a couple of changes of clothes.”
Vintage motorcycles have become his passion, but he’s also embracing the modern. Half of his collection is in Australia and the other half in Texas. In the States, he’s got the Knucklehead, a 2015 H-D Roadster and, for something different, a Cake e-bike. “The thing I love about motorcycles is you can evolve the way you ride and your taste in bikes and your collection can change as well,” he says. “I was into city riding, then racing, then touring, and my love now is the vintage machinery. Look, I won’t take the Knucklehead cross country, but I love kicking it over and riding it with that suicide shift. It’s a challenge I enjoy, harnessing this thing and ensuring it’s running well. I try to do all my own maintenance and enjoy tinkering – I’m not taking engines apart, but these bikes aren’t riddled with electronics and they’re fun to play with.”
For all his life, David has found camaraderie is fostered through machines and many of his closest friends are associated with motorcycles. “It’s that shared love,” he says. “For someone who’s older, in whatever you’re doing, it can be trickier to make friends. And for someone who moves around a lot, I’ve always been able to find community with motorcycles. I’ve been in different cities and lived all over the place, from New York to L.A., Dallas, Sydney and Perth. In all those cities, and I’m sure just about anywhere, there’s always a community willing to accept you in motorcycles and I’ve loved that about bikes. I’ve always been able to connect with people through motorcycles.”
