"I'm Not Unaware of the Reputation I'm Getting" | Michael Mosiman on Crashing and a Recent Injury 4

One rider who has been quiet this off-season is Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GASGAS' Michael Mosiman. He finished third overall in the 250SX West series in 2022 with multiple top-three finishes, including a win in San Diego. Why have we not heard much from a rider who was and is on the verge of breaking through? Has he been 'flying' at the test track? I called him up on The MotoXpod Show last week to find out what that story is. He broke some info that most haven't heard as well as explained what he’s working on to step his game up.

For the full interview, check out the YouTube video right here. If you're interested in the condensed written version, scroll down just a bit further.

Jamie Guida – Vital MX: Michael! How have you been feeling, man?

Michael Mosiman: Dude, I am glad to be on the show. I've been feeling pretty good and getting back to it. I haven't been riding a whole lot. I just started a little bit later than some of the other guys but, yeah, getting back and getting the bike sorted out, so it's coming around.

Vital MX: Any particular reason why you are running a little behind that you want to talk about or not so much?

Michael: Yeah, I broke my neck at Ironman. I broke my neck there in the first moto, on the first lap, and then I finished the race. I got fourteenth and then went and got checked out. I didn't think it was broken but off some of the harder landings it was not feeling good. They said, "We don't think you should race," and sent me off in an ambulance. I had broken my C5 and C6 – stable fractures – but scary stuff. Scary stuff.

Vital MX: I heard that recently. You guys kept that on the DL a little bit. We didn't hear much about it, but I knew you had been quiet. What was the crash like at Ironman? What happened?

Michael: I didn't get the best of starts and it was like, "Alright, it's time to go. Let me just blow some doors off some fools and get to the front while I can." It is the best time to go to the front, at the beginning. I started trying to make some moves and I came down off Godzilla – that big table down – and there were ruts all the way across. The smaller ones were on the outside and then the worst ones are on the inside, and then the outside berm at the far turn had been freshly prepped. There was like six or seven people that went to the inside. One dude, he went to the outside and I went straight down the middle. I said, "I'm just going to bonsai to that outside berm and I'm going to go around a bunch of people right now." I went bonsai as one does, and I was going down the middle, and the guy from the outside starts cutting across to go to the inside. I was not expecting it. I was thinking to myself, "There is a perfectly good, smooth, freshly prepped outside berm and there are way too many people in the inside tight corner." I just could not fathom it – the guy cut over. I was in the middle, just fine and going fairly quick. He came over and I braked to miss him. There were braking bumps and now instead of going bonsai, I was on the brakes in the braking bumps and trying to miss a guy. I missed him but, because I was on the brakes in the worst section to brake, I got kicked and then went over the bars. I went straight on my head and managed to break my neck. It is a little frustrating too. When you get to the end then you wonder, "What would I have done differently there?"

Vital MX: It is just one of those things with this sport where it is just dangerous, right? Things happen and you must rely on other people at times to hopefully not do something dumb. It just happens.

Michael: It's tricky too because I'm not unaware of the reputation that I'm getting. Some are totally me and sometimes, when you go down, it is totally not your fault. It's just tough, because they look the same.

Vital MX: Since you brought that up, you'll have great finishes and then there are these little mistakes. You have talked about it and just said that you are aware of it, but I don't know how you can fix some of those things. Sometimes it's freak and sometimes it is not your fault. There are guys who just seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, you know? How do you overcome that?

Michael: It's a good question. It's not an easy question. I think I do have a path and I'll try to explain it. There is one part with concentration. People always say, "Remember to focus." Focus on what though? What do you want me to focus on? There are a million things. Seeing as I am in the off-season and critiquing myself as I am getting back to riding then I think I could do with better focus. Sometimes it's just coming easy for me and then I start thinking about other things – it's not good. The way that you focus on that is you have got to focus on what you are doing in the present moment. You cannot be thinking about the results! You cannot be thinking about the person behind you. You cannot be thinking about the person in front of you. You've got to be thinking about what you're doing in the present moment, but nobody does that perfectly. That's a piece on my end that I think is really important. I think there is a piece on the bike end in my earlier years of racing – even this past year some – that when you get at race pace, you tend to push things a little harder and you tend to ask a little bit more of your bike than you would in a different scenario. You are trying to up it one notch when you are already riding it at notch nine and a half. There is some concentration stuff and bike stuff that we are working on. Everything has got to come together. It is not an easy thing and then the other thing is the one that I've made quite a lot of progress on, though it's not always visual, and that is the self-image. If you are a fifteenth-place guy and you believe that you are a fifteenth-place guy, then it's going to be hard for you to stay in the top ten if you get a top-ten start. You're probably going to drift back to about fifteenth. Also, if you are a fifteenth-place guy and you go down in the first turn, because you are a fifteenth-place guy, that's going to drive you to get up to about sixteenth or something. In some ways you'll ride better. Where you feel you should fit in is usually about where you'll fit in. It's not an easy thing to expect yourself to fit into first place, you know, or thirty seconds out ahead. I've made a lot of progress in believing in myself and my capabilities. If you are in a good position that you don't see yourself being able to fulfill then naturally your performance is going to start to drop and you are going to see more mistakes.

Vital MX: You were talking about focus and sometimes not necessarily focusing on what you need to. Are you still focusing on race stuff or things other than that? If it's me out there, I'm thinking about going to get some Mexican food after. Do I want fajitas? That's not where your mind's going, right?

Michael: I mean, it can. I have a memory from when I was like thirteen and racing in the Junior World Championship. I was in seventh place, and I had a huge gap in front of me and a huge gap behind me. I remember that I was in the back corner. It was dead silent. You know, there were no fans and there was nothing on the track. I remember I was replaying the movie 'Taken' in my head – I watched the weekend before. I was just replaying it over and over. I remember realizing I was replaying it in that back corner. I was like, "I probably should focus on the race. Being world champ is a big deal!" That is a memory that sticks out. I wouldn't say that I have things like that often today. I'm very focused. I know the mental side, if that makes sense. It's difficult to understand in the first place and to seek out understanding. Once you do understand, it's even harder to apply it and that's where I'm at. I would say I did a fairly good job this past year but, at some point, I could have certainly done a better job of applying some of the mental strategies and exercises.

Scott Thomson – The MotoXpod Show: Just as you were describing it, I feel like it is like what we saw with Stew [James Stewart]. He would be in first and you could see the concentration was just gone for a half a second.

Michael: That brings up another thing that's tricky. It is complicated because you are told to focus. I would say all of us can agree that some of our best performances come when it is almost automatic, and we don't feel like we are trying too hard or even focusing in that hard. That is reality for me. Even in some of those performances your mind can wander. Another thing that I found is over-trying is probably one of the most prevalent things in my riding. I would say with most riders, when you see mistakes is when we are really trying hard. I think when you over try you almost clog up the space mentally and you are prone to making more mistakes ultimately, because you're not letting it happen. You're not letting it flow. You're not being patient to let the bike settle or to do what it needs to do. I think that's why, with different riders and different athletes, you see mistakes happen in more heavy battles or heavy moments. They start really trying hard because they have something to fight for. That's the tricky thing. How do you focus but also not over try? I think I'm learning about myself that I catch it when I find myself drifting and then try to focus. Then in the mirror trying to focus, I start over trying. If that makes sense? It's a complex thing and I probably know too much for my own good.

Vital MX: We all know by now that you definitely analyze everything. If you are struggling with something like that then you start trying to figure it out, break it all down, and you are focusing on that even more. It could just spiral down, right?

Michael: Yeah! When you do an action and at the same time you are questioning if you are doing it right or wrong or indifferent. I just went over three different theories and maybe that is why I'm having my problems.

Vital MX: What does Wil Hahn say? Is he helping you on the mental side at all?

Michael: We work with someone else – he is on the Zoom meetings with my mental coach. He would say I overthink it, for sure. I just don't know any different. It's in my nature. Whenever someone says that I'm overthinking then it's like, "No. You're under thinking!" In life there is paralysis of over analysis, right? I think there is even a biblical proverb that says, "If you watch the clouds and you are waiting for the season to happen, you'll never sow. If you wait until it rains, then you'll never reap." It's kind of this idea that if you are waiting for the right conditions, you'll never move. In that then I do agree that there is certainly an issue in overthinking. I think that's a more direct application of the term but, yeah, I'm overthinking the concept of overthinking.

Scott: What was one of the most unexpected things or maybe biggest developments in your life, on or off the bike, that you have gone through this year?

Vital MX: Other than a broken neck?

Michael: Yeah, you don't expect a broken neck. What you guys do not expect is that I got married. I broke my neck and then got married. I got the brace off the week of.

Vital MX: Time out for a second. How long were you dating this girl?

Michael: For a year and like seven months.

Vital MX: Okay, I knew you were dating somebody. I didn't realize it had been that long. Congratulations, man!

Michael: Yeah, thank you. Very happily married. It has been almost two months. I've had the craziest off-season.

Vital MX: How is the new bike compared to the old bike? What do you like about it? What needs improvement for you?

Michael: What do I like? I rode the stock bike first – bone stock on some outdoors. I was pretty impressed, speed-wise. The power was pretty good. The suspension when stock was quite soft for me. The general handling was pretty good. I feel like the bike sits a little bit taller than the last bike and it's a little bit more stable. The last bike had some twitchiness in the front that we were working through all year. I didn't change much. I'm the type of guy… I'm not going to blame the bike. I'm going to take a lot of responsibility on myself. I would say the thing that needs to be improved is that I think we can go stiffer still. They started me off on some stuff for supercross. It was pretty soft. I was like, "Alright, give me some stiffer stuff" on day two. Then we went stiffer, and I think we need to go stiffer still. I tried stiffer forks today and it was a lot better. You guys might be suspension gurus, but I'm still learning. One of the things I learned today is that when you have to really trust the bike in a corner, and really ask it to do a lot and turn sharp, you want something that's stiff and that's not going to give, because it gives you a more direct feel in the corner. It also gives you more room to go even faster if that makes sense. If you are too deep in the stroke it gets a little bit more unpredictable, I think. A lot of people, their stuff feels really stiff to them. It is because it's soft and they are riding deep into the stroke. It's giving them a harsh feeling but it's actually too soft where the top of the stroke is plusher. If you have it so stiff that you are only using the top of the stroke and occasionally you get deeper, then it's going to feel softer. It's actually going to be stiffer. We rode a different track; I got it pretty comfortable when I started getting up to a pretty good speed over consistent laps. Then we went to another track that had steeper transitions, was a little bit more awkward and a little rougher. I didn't have the best of day. I was thinking about it later that day, and I realized all the transitions were steeper and harsher. They are putting me deeper in the stroke. I would feel unsure. Sometimes when it goes deep in the stroke, it wants to pull one way or another in the rhythms and that's why sometimes people will go sideways when they go for a really big jump or when they land then they shoot off sideways. It has to do with the balance of the bike. The other part of it was in some hard landings into the turns – I was feeling a pause in the middle of my corner. What was happening was, because my suspension was not stiff enough, I would land and then it would go down and then back up before I got to the middle of the turn. Instead, if it was stiffer then it would be more one motion and it would not go down quite as much. By the time I got to the turn, it would plant because it is not having quite as much up-and-down motion. I felt super rushed on my entry to corners and I couldn't roll it like I'm used to, because it was wanting to push me high or my front end was getting light where I wanted to cut down. It's because it just wasn't taking that impact quite right.

Scott: It seems that you are in a really good mental headspace. Can you compare your expectations of going into this season compared to some expectations that you have had seasons prior?

Michael: I actually haven't fully set my goals yet. I plan to do that within the next week. However, just thinking about where they might go, my expectations last year were really high. I had some highs – I reached a level of riding that I hadn't reached before. I think the goals are going to be similar in some ways, because I obviously want to win the championship and it's time. It's win or no one is happy, including me. I don't want to focus on the result. I want to focus on my performance and what I have to do to have a winning performance. Not everything is in my control. I want to be proud of every day and every race, every weekend that I executed what I knew to do well. If I have a winning performance – internally and mentally – and if I am focused at a level that I'm happy with, then the results will happen naturally. You know what's interesting? I've heard this. I don't know that it's true, but you know how some athletes just go on incredible years where they win everything in their sport? Like how Michael Phelps goes into the Olympics and wins everything. If you ask most of those guys after the fact if they expected to have such dominance, they don't really expect it. The reason is they are not thinking about the result. They are thinking about the steps of performance and the results happen, because they are thinking about the steps of performance. The people who are caught up in the results usually end up missing on the results, right?