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We used to ride down the r/r tracks to the land fill were all us kids made a track, would go hang out ride, race, meet friends and new faces . It was the best memories growing up in the 70s.. all kind of bikes that made it there,old and new and almost new dirt bikes enduro bikes mx bikes street bikes,. Seen my first Honda Elsinore there a brand new 1973 rode my first new bike there my 1973 suzuki tm 125, , no car /truck no fees gas was cheap no one hassle you,, we all had all kinds of gear from worn out work boots and jeans to race leathers and jerseys.1970s it truly was the best of times to be a dirt biker.in Gibsonton Florida
In AUS.. race days are empty.. transmoto events are sold out the day of release. no one wants to pay fees of a race day to spin a couple of laps on tracks that are below average prep.
its bad when private training tracks cost the same as a race day to go ride and you get more time, better track prep and less people to worry about on the track.
Again missing the point . Equivalent in the sense it was a state of the art race bike then, and more affordable to a working class person then .
Hey Hogkiller, not to hijack the thread, but in my opinion the 1973 Suzuki TM 125 was the most beautiful MX bike ever produced ! Sounds like your childhood mirrored mine in many ways.
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I remember going to the dealership with my dad in 1985 when I he bought a brand new Honda XR350…and I remember him and salesman complaining about the price, and how it’s getting to expensive. And how he can’t believe he paid almost double for that bike than he did the 73 Elsinore Honda (I think he said he paid $1200 for the 250 and was paying $2600 for the 350).
when I paid $5600 OTD for a 2006 Honda CRF250R…that seems like way to much money.
My point, is that it always seems like the current bikes are too expensive.
True . And wages don't seem to keep up . That's an issue . I see manufacturing jobs with the same starting wage as 20 years ago . When I was a kid , in the 70s , my mom didn't work . My Dad was a truck driver and we lived comfortably on his wage . Family of 4 .
Ok I'm done yelling at a cloud
It's like stockholm syndrome with some of you..
Dirtbikes have always been an expensive thing to get into as a hobby, much higher barrier of entry than most other hobbies/activities.
I think local racing is past its prime, but there has never been a better time to ride dirt bikes and be a fan of racing.
All the bikes off the showroom floor are awesome and perform well with minimal modifications. This used to not be true.
There are tons of ways to learn to ride, from local coaches to AJ Cat's app. There is also so much content where you can watch how pros ride. We even get inside looks into racer's lives and how they train.
We can watch the races on our phones. You used to have to just read the results a week later.
At least around me, I can drive to Budds Creek, Southwick, Field of Dreams, Englishtown, and a few sand pits in NJ. I know there are not as many tracks as there used to be, but the prep and time that goes into the tracks around me is pretty top notch. Especially Field of Dreams.
I have nowhere to even ride motocross anymore with out multiple hours driving. I used to have all kinds of places to ride. If you are going to do any amount of MX riding, you need to own your own land, equipment, and have a lot of time to build/maintain tracks
I didn't read everything but off road/Hare scrambles/GNCC type racing is likely much of the future. The days of going to the track at 7 am waiting until 10 am for a 5 lap moto and then waiting 3 hours for another doesn't make much sense for many. Not when you can show up race your 60-90 minute race, load up and be home by noon. I think we will see AMA Nationals begin to cut back in the next few years and end up at 6-8 races a season. Antsie spilled the beans for most of the riders it is not worth the money. Race SX then WSX make good money and live your life
Relatively high maintenance isn't such a bad thing. It can aid in rewarding competitors and those who own bikes in a different way. It's something you can't engineer into something, but there are secondary benefits that require this kind of investment. Magazine, media etc... all thrive off that kind of thing.
Sure, I know some people like just to pull and go, but I don't think we should discount then reward mechanisms here. Same with results. Now racing has become so accessible, it has lost some of its mystery. Again, you can't engineer that back in.
But these are tangible things that we shouldn't discard as 'bad'. In many ways they are good.
Yep. For the cost of even just admission for one day to some tracks you could buy a football, soccer ball, and a basketball that will last years. That’s obviously not even counting the cost of the bike, the maintenance, gas, etc. It always has and always will be a very privileged sport, much like golf is. Very few children growing up have the opportunity to even ride. The next RC never even touched the handlebars.
1970,s truckers made more than Dr,s. Today drivers can’t afford to see a dr. There’s not a single job in ne Wi. That pays what they made in 1975. Yeah it’s Real bad. Why do ya think I went to work for the 1099 Russian Chicago mod- Eastern European co.s. Now I hv exp back to the late 80,s . Trained by a Captain of the state police at the biggest pipeline co in America. In charge of the worlds strongest hhg drill rig trk line. Perfect dvr & psp points . Which is a miracle driving junk with the co.s being a target for inspection. Because there safety rating is at the point of being shutdown. Destroyed my back, neck, everything really. Every day out there I see a meat wagon pulling a driver out of the cab. You literally work yourself to death for peanuts.
Back then my dad was a coal miner making about $15/hour (in '85)...now he's a coal miner making $27/hour.
Wages have always always lagged well behind the cost of living, but they always go up.
I don't really buy the "its too expensive" reason for the sports decline (at least for people leaving the sport), I say its priorities. In a relatively small capacity it does keep people from the races and buying bikes...but I think, by and large, people can afford whatever they prioritize in their life. At one point, I owned a $800 truck, so I could afford a new 2001 CR250. Riding was my priority, so I went cheap on a vehicle so I could afford a new bike (I easily could have purchased a $10K truck and said I couldn't afford to ride). At another point, all I could afford was a used bike (a 2009 YZ450)...riding was a priority, so I bought the cheap used bike and rode it until I could afford a new bike (a 2015 KX450)..I easily could have simply said I couldn't afford to ride...anyway...I've had friends who say they can't afford to ride any more, but they can afford a $80K truck. Or they are always taking expensive vacations. More often than I think people like to admit, its a priority thing, not a cost thing.
I will admit that cost will be a barrier of entry to someone who is trying to get into the sport, though.
the middle class is gone.
the only people who have deposable income are the upper middle class corporate types and the small business owners
marriage and birth rates are dropping too.
all the married guys i know are spending their $$ on wives/family
Pit Row
the divore rate is dropping because marriage rates have been dropping
The reason I stated it is because the figures you are using paint an inaccurate picture.
You are showing divorces per 1,000 people. Well, in a sample group of 1,000 people how many are too young to marry, too old, not looking/ trying, married, separated, not happily married not looking for a divorce. etc?
In other words divorce is relevant only to those that are in the married and/ or divorced samples, not 1,000 random people. They make it hard to figure this out and present figures that distort the answer.
Going from 400,000 to 800,000 yearly divorces in a ten year period is a lot. Going to 1.2 million per year in 1980 is really a lot
This Is why they say 50% of adults will be divorced in their lifetime. Your figures don’t portray this.
Ok, I expanded it and, 90s weren’t that great as a lot of people didn’t have much then either (unless you had a Mitsubishi on a balloon payment).
There was nothing awesome about Bush and Clinton’s first term. It was much like the decades before.
the middle class was still largely in tact up until the early 2000s
sure...there were parts of the country where things werent doing good but the job losses that started occuring in the 90s didnt really set in until the mid 2000s
that whole way of life is never coming back and the only people who have some semblance of a middle class life with decent pay and job security are the corporate elites ...(and that isnt saying much, tbh)
its tough out there.
I think one of the big hurdles effecting motocross, and other types of racing today is the cost of entry.
Like a lot of you said, what got you into motocross was going to a random field or some old abandoned land and making a track in the 70s and 80s. No one can really do that anymore.
Nowadays you need a truck, a garage, money for both of those things, money to spend maintaining the dirtbike and getting to the tracks that are around an hour or more away.
I’m in my late 20s and luckily I was one of the people that bought a house in 2017 before housing prices skyrocketed.
If I was paying rent, I’d have to live in an apartment, with no place to keep my bike. Me personally, I would sacrifice and find a storage unit or friends house to keep my bike. But you have to think, someone new to the sport thinks of all that shit and can’t afford it.
Wages haven’t really went up AT ALL, unless you’re a minimum wage/fast food worker. The only thing that has happened, is we have merged the middle class closer to the lower class.
I don’t race because in my late 20’s, after paying mortgage, taxes, truck payment, cell phone, internet, food, gas, utilities, ect. AND higher risk of injury, I just lose interest in spending more money than I can afford to sit around at the track all day and run a 5 lap moto. OR I can spend $20-$45 and go ride on Saturday or Sunday, get there and leave whenever I want, and put in as many motos as I want.
On the plus side I’m starting my own side business soon, so then maybe I’ll have the money to race ect.
It’s just sad that a single man, making decent money, has to “struggle” if they want to race moto every weekend. I think that’s why it’s somewhat become a rich man’s sport. Catch y’all in the 30+ class when I got more $
If someone smarter than me (not difficult to find) can pull sales of MX bikes for each year (in units and not dollars) since 1980 to present to show what we are really talking about. Might need to be just any dirt bike to make it easier. And if this person is a computer and analytical wiz - you can overachieve by doing it by brand. This may give us a glimpse of what we are talking about.
Totally agree, the loss of jobs through NAFTA and to China in the 2000s has been horrible for Americans.
I used to think all of this old guys in the 90s with the “Buy American Made” bumper stickers were weird. Today, you almost can’t.
I'm surrounded by middle class people....they own homes or rent decent homes (1500-2500 sq feet), they drive nice(ish) cars (nothing luxury...but newer cars), they have some toys (RV's, ATV's, etc), they go on reasonable vacations, their kids are involved in extra curricular activities...these are middle class folks...making high 5/low 6 figure incomes. I honestly don't see how the middle class is dead?
Maybe living in the most expensive parts of the country (Bay area, NYC, Southern CA, Seattle etc.) the middle class is dead...but in middle America it's alive and well.
The only test that I could find with the approx. MSRP of the 78 YZ125E had retail at $1,024. Using that number and going from January to January, the 2023 is actually quite a bit more expensive than compared with inflation alone. The 23 YZ125 'should' cost about $4,902, so the $6,999 MSRP is almost 43% higher than just the CPI inflation rate.
I guess it was the '79 price I was looking at and it was actually $1257, so I was a little high. Blazier says it was the cheapest 125 msrp of the year.
http://pulpmx.com/2014/07/10/gps-classic-steel-87-79-yz125/
I was 15 years old in '97, a yz125 had an msrp of $4899 according to that inflation calculator today thats $9294. $5k was alot of money and a kid like me wasn't buying a dirtbike with an after school job unless you saved for a looong time and didn't spend money on anything else. Dirtbikes are expensive relative to their use for most people.
I bought my first bike in 79' at 13 with money from my paper route for 600. XR75 trail bike. A new KTM 85 is 6500 if you add that plus gear for a kid and some spares you are in likely 7500 before the kid throws the leg over it. And as some have said i had plenty of places to ride in SoCal.
For a father and son to get into riding it is close to a 20k investment.
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