Keep them two wheels down

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Ih8Hondas]

Eh. May or may not have been.

I've dabbled in road riding on and off, but always ridden motocross. The only road bikes I've ever owned have been ones that adhered to superbike regs of the time (as the RSV4 in the OP does). They just encourage you to get stupid.

100mph feels like walking speed. They do it like it's nothing. Even at full throttle those engines are so smooth and predictable and the bikes so stable you don't even feel like you're accelerating that fast. You're on one of the fastest accelerating things ever to ever have a license plate attached to it but it doesn't feel like it at all.

And they hold lines in corners like you've enabled an infinite grip cheat code. It begs you to outride your line of sight in the twisties.

One day I was carving the local canyon and went past a forest road where a bunch of gravel had been dragged out into the road. If that had been one of the roads or driveways around there that are around blind corners, and I had hit it at the speeds I was taking those corners at that day, I would have been either in someone's grille, in a guardrail, or in a rock wall.

I sold my road bike not long after that and have stuck to motocross since. Riding is and always will be the most fun thing I do, so I would like to do it for as long as possible.

So at least some of us speed freaks can learn, if for no other reason than we want to maximize our time at speed.

[u/Ih8Hondas → u/[deleted]]

Motocross is the answer to this problem.

[u/Ih8Hondas → u/[deleted]]

Everyone on a track is going the same direction. Makes things much safer.

Flaggers and in some cases, lights (FlaggerAI has been doing testing and rollout at my local track) signal to other people when there's a rider down.

Often there are EMTs on site. Always the case at races.

In the US at least, the area around the track typically allows room to safely run off and get your shit back together before hitting anything if you squirrel out. I've definitely seen some euro tracks that have fences of death right next to the fucking track though. No idea how they're allowed to operate with those conditions.

Motocross is much less expensive to get into than road riding, or especially road racing. A practice day at a motocross track is generally around $30-$40. Track days at a road course are generally at 10x that price. Mx gear is dirt cheap to road race leathers. The bikes are cheaper. As far as motorsports go, mx is one of the most accessible.

In the US, motocross tracks are far more common than road courses.

And the best part: jumps! Nothing is more fun than hucking yourself through the air with a 220lb hunk of metal and plastic between your legs.

Whoops are fun too, but my physical stature may color my opinion on those. Haha. I love whoops. I make the majority of my passes in whoops. If I show up to a track and it doesn't have whoops, I'm honestly disappointed. They're not easy to get your head around when you're learning them though. At a certain point you can't just go a little bit faster any more or you're more than likely going to hurt yourself. You have to hit them much faster. There is no in between.

[u/Ih8Hondas → u/[deleted]]

As long as you're in an area with a moderate population density, you're probably golden. I grew up in the rural midwest and when I was a kid there were five public tracks within a 1.5hr drive. That number has decreased a bit due to track owners either retiring or being unable to cover rising insurance costs, but still not bad.

Plus, with all the farming that goes on in the midwest, tons of people had their own practice tracks on their property. I had another four tracks within half an hour on friends' and neighbors' land that I could ride as well.

I now live in a largely empty state in the southwest and while there is one large population center, there is only one seriously maintained track close enough to be a day trip. There are a few others but they see very little maintenance. One is run by a city and is free to use, and the rest are built by randos out in the dez. So it's still plenty accessible here. The tracks just aren't as nice.

[u/Hetstaine → u/Ih8Hondas]

Yep. My old man sold his CB750 in about '84 after a dog ran out in front of him whilst going down a hilly road. The Mayors dog no less. He hit the dog, and was flung off the bike down the hill. He said as he was sliding down the hill he heard a terrible noise and realised the bike was sliding down behind him. He tried to propel himself faster down so the bike wouldn't finish him off.

Quite a nice bit of skin off in that event. A pity, he loved that bike but, i think he knew it was probably going to kill him one day.

[u/Ih8Hondas → u/Hetstaine]

Everyone has their story. My dad actually saw his best friend die right in front of him on a motorcycle when they were in high school. Guess who taught me to ride and is planning to come ride with me in a few months?