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Steve McQueen is motorcycling's biggest icon, a new survey has shown, largely thanks to one of the most enduring scenes in cinema history.

The late American film star took a quarter of the vote to come top of the Motor Cycle News (MCN) London Motorcycle Show's poll, narrowly beating 1970s 500GP champion Barry Sheene into second place.

A skilled and enthusiastic rider in real life, McQueen's popularity with bikers is undoubtedly down to his role in the 1963 prisoner of war film The Great Escape, in which he tries to flee from German soldiers on a motorcycle.

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An MCN spokesman told the Metro: "The survey is a revealing insight to the biker's mind.

"Despite numerous celebrities currently riding motorcycles, a 44-year-old image of McQueen sat on a Triumph is instantly recognisable by many generations, rivalling that of The Beatles on the Abbey Road zebra crossing."

Although he did many of the stunts himself and even donned a Nazi helmet to double up as one of his pursuers, the famous moment in which McQueen supposedly executes a spectacular jump over a fence was actually performed by his friend Bud Ekins.

The remainder of the poll's top ten included a number of motorcycle racers, such as Valentino Rossi, as well as stunt biker Evel Knievel and a host of other actors like Marlon Brando, star of the 1953 biker gang movie The Wild Ones.

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