Posts
2862
Joined
8/16/2006
Location
Ormond Beach, FL
US
Edited Date/Time
1/27/2012 6:54pm
While trying to identify the cause of the reduction of racing going on now, Reded replied:
Around my area it's not so much the tracks that are available, (which are actually far and few between) it's the land that isn't available for people to go and just enjoy riding, which IMO leads to them eventually wanting to race. When I was a kid there were numerous places to go and ride a dirtbike within 10min of my parents house. Right now I can't think of a single place where I could go and enjoy an afternoon just free riding with some friends without a landowner or the cops hassling me. It's just not worth the hassle and instead of spending all of my time at a track which is over an hour away, I sold out and so did a lot of other people.
It got me thinking.
This is where I grew up in Western NY. The little "A" pinpoint is my childhood home. The red area is where we rode every (and I mean EVERY) day. We could ride anywhere within that area on trails that we made/found, and if you look in the bottom right, there is an arrow there. This is a set of old railroad tracks that would take us anywhere we wanted to go out in the country. If I had gas money, we could go hundreds of miles from home, and I was any a little kid.
The green area is where we set up some practice tracks and raced around a bit. This is what got us all interested in racing in the first place.
The purple area was all undeveloped land that we could explore whenever we felt the need.
Bottom line, riding was completely available, it lead us to racing, and when we raced, there were 500 guys on a weekend at Zoar Valley MX. Just some info from an old guy.
Around my area it's not so much the tracks that are available, (which are actually far and few between) it's the land that isn't available for people to go and just enjoy riding, which IMO leads to them eventually wanting to race. When I was a kid there were numerous places to go and ride a dirtbike within 10min of my parents house. Right now I can't think of a single place where I could go and enjoy an afternoon just free riding with some friends without a landowner or the cops hassling me. It's just not worth the hassle and instead of spending all of my time at a track which is over an hour away, I sold out and so did a lot of other people.
Around my area it's not so much the tracks that are available, (which are actually far and few between) it's the land that isn't available for people to go and just enjoy riding, which IMO leads to them eventually wanting to race. When I was a kid there were numerous places to go and ride a dirtbike within 10min of my parents house. Right now I can't think of a single place where I could go and enjoy an afternoon just free riding with some friends without a landowner or the cops hassling me. It's just not worth the hassle and instead of spending all of my time at a track which is over an hour away, I sold out and so did a lot of other people.
It got me thinking.
This is where I grew up in Western NY. The little "A" pinpoint is my childhood home. The red area is where we rode every (and I mean EVERY) day. We could ride anywhere within that area on trails that we made/found, and if you look in the bottom right, there is an arrow there. This is a set of old railroad tracks that would take us anywhere we wanted to go out in the country. If I had gas money, we could go hundreds of miles from home, and I was any a little kid.
The green area is where we set up some practice tracks and raced around a bit. This is what got us all interested in racing in the first place.
The purple area was all undeveloped land that we could explore whenever we felt the need.
Bottom line, riding was completely available, it lead us to racing, and when we raced, there were 500 guys on a weekend at Zoar Valley MX. Just some info from an old guy.
Around my area it's not so much the tracks that are available, (which are actually far and few between) it's the land that isn't available for people to go and just enjoy riding, which IMO leads to them eventually wanting to race. When I was a kid there were numerous places to go and ride a dirtbike within 10min of my parents house. Right now I can't think of a single place where I could go and enjoy an afternoon just free riding with some friends without a landowner or the cops hassling me. It's just not worth the hassle and instead of spending all of my time at a track which is over an hour away, I sold out and so did a lot of other people.
If I had been raised there today, no way I ever would have ridden motocross.
Like you mentioned, I would ride from when I got home from school til dark... Like you, we had all kinds of places to ride and we made our own trails too. Now, any vacant land is behind a fence and the police come and run you out.
I miss those times and like you, this play riding got me into racing...
Everything here is gridded off and fenced. All you can do here is ride on tracks.
There is one area off 95 at the 5A exit that people ride. Problem is, there are a ton of ATVs and 4X4s with a lot of beer mixed in. I never take my sons to ride there...
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In the early 80's we could drive south from Palm Beach Gardens on I-95 on any weekend and in a 20 mile span there were a half dozen tracks in open fields with guys riding in plain view of I-95. Of course all the land was developed years ago.
I use to be able to ride out of my back yard and trail ride or ride sand tracks all day or hop over a couple of paved roads and get all the way to the intercoastal waterway or even the ocean if we dared to sneak across the Donald Ross bridge. These days all that land has been turned into golf courses/developments or is protected scrub land that is off limits to anyone.
These days the closest legal area to ride is an hour and a half drive to Thundercross MX in Okeechobee.
I don't care how much people don't want to believe that noise isn't a factor, it IS. I've seen what noise has done to the sport in my locale and because of that I'm anti 4stroke. I realize they make good power and it's easy to go fast on them but if they come with a high price in terms of money and land closure, are they really worth the ease of rideability?
$4990.00 in 2012
Honda's idea that a kids bike should cost ten times as much as when we were kids doesn't help. Three to four times as much? Maybe. Ten times? I don't think so.
2004, I stopped, looked around, asked myself, WTF am I doing here?
Wanna go back 35, maybe 40 years?
West Virginia baby.
No, this is between Edgewater and Titusville. Exit 5A west of the interstate. I know a lot of guys with quads that play in the mud holes all beered up...
Yep same deal for me growing up in the 60’s. My riding spot was literally across the street, and we rode bicycles, minibikes then full sized bikes for years!
Great time wouldn’t change it for nothing.
Then they “MOVED A MOUNTAIN” and put the Glendale #2 fwy right thru it. Didn’t stop us though we made another track but if you messed up you could go off the hill onto the FWY! Lol
Nowadays can’t find anywhere to ride for free and make your own track.
I can’t imagine trying to start off in this sport with $8000.00 bikes!
super popular taneum area 90 minutes from seattle
where have all the people gone?
seems like no one rides anymore
S
Texas has never had much public land for trail riding. All the trails we rode in the 70's were all bootleg or private pay to ride areas, and they still are. We currently have over 20 tracks within 100 miles of DFW airport. There is no shortage of places to ride here, but the rider numbers are way down and that's has everything to do with the higher cost of new bikes, imo. Motocrossers always want the latest and greatest, but we never understood that the trick shit we long for is also going to be the downfall of the sport. It's just another case of "be careful what you ask for".
Pit Row
And like the OP (and probably millions of other racers across the country), I started free riding EVERY day and THEN got into racing. Without land to free ride on, I'd of never gotten into MX.
In Utah, we're lucky, there are plenty of places to ride. But we are constantly fighting to keep them open (and fighting better funded, better organized and better connected environmental opponents), and it's unfortunate, but we are losing! And the same thing is happening all over the west!
The ENTIRE motocross industry (racers, teams, gear companies, aftermarket companies, manufacturers, dealers, etc) needs to step up and start funding and raising awareness for this cause! The Blueribbon coalition (link in my sig) is a nationwide land use advocate group that is doing great work fighting the better funded radical environmental lobby (imagine what they could do with equal funding?).
So run this out a couple years/decades....as more and more riding areas are closed, less people start riding. As less people start riding, less people start racing. As less people start racing you get less racers. With less racers eventually the sport dries up.
EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT IS EVEN REMOTELY INVOLVED WITH MOTOCROSS NEEDS TO JOIN THE BLUERIBBON COALITION!
S
The other front of the battle takes place in court rooms and on Capitol Hill in DC. And that is the front that the BRC is actively engaged in, and that is the front where BRC needs your money.
Sure, BRC helps on the "education" front...but its fighting lawsuits, filing law suits, getting laws passed, fighting laws, raising awareness that the BRC is out funded by the radical environmental lobby.
Please, Join BRC, and get your friends and family to do the same. It will go a long way to keeping the sport we all love healthy and growing.
Post a reply to: Interesting thought from Eastflorida's thread