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Well, I just recently won the "Over 54 but under 56 Class for little fat guys" at Chicken-Licks Raceway and the gate was full. There were 3 of us!
actually I was DFL on an '87 Husky and loved every second and roost of it
I could ride to all kinds of tracks and trails and i lived in Minnesota in Suburbs of Minneapolis, we would ride on the street but slowly and on the shoulder until we got to our spots.
The Shop
In the 70's to mid-80s...I rode at tracks in Santa Cruz, San Jose, Morgan Hill, the hills of Los Gatos, the hills of Los Altos...hell...we rode out near the San Mateo Bridge! Had my own little riding area in the hills between Santa Teresa and Almaden.
Good times!
Less having kids and getting married I would say is just as much cultural as it is financial. I would even go as far as saying some drops in home buying would be cultural too. I'll explain what I mean.
Marriage- You kind of pointed out already in your post and it goes both cultural and financial. Some men don't make enough to attract some women. Financial on the men's side, cultural on the women's. Society/Culture has put it into young women's heads that a man needs to make so much money to take care of her so she feels financially secure while basically taking away the fact that physical, mental and emotional connection are needed. What happened to two people that love each other building their empire together? My wife and I have done it. When we got together I was barely over minimum wage working at a motorcycle shop. Got married when I was jobless and she was only a little over minimum wage. We built all that we have together. That is gone now. I can't even count on two hands the amount of girls that I went to high school with that are married to guys almost or over twice their age and have large amounts of money! It's horrible.
Now to go along with that we have a culture that is all about me me me and go around be free, sleep with whoever you want whenever you want. People are waiting longer to get married or skipping marriage all together just because they want to sleep with whoever they want whenever they want. Now it's their lives to do what they want with, but I truly believe that is a huge reason marriage is declining.
Homes- This new generation of millennial's, which sadly I am grouped with by birth date only, is so babied by parents that don't discipline and don't teach their kids about work, value of a dollar or morals for that matter. These kids are being told or forced to get jobs and sit in mom and dads basement all day playing fortnite until 4am and then sleeping in until 1-2pm. Mom and dad aren't doing anything about it so these millennial's stay home with mom and dad until finally dad has had enough and tells mom the kid has to go or he goes. Obviously this isn't all situations, but it is becoming more common. I know a few of these people personally.
Pay reproductive aged males just enough to get by after tax (and do not reward them for their efforts), and all these things will go in the toilet. Isn't that already happening?
A majority of Boomer and Gen. X males made enough to marry, breed, buy homes, and moto down. I would say a majority of Gen. Y males do not make enough to do these things. Gen. Z remains to be seen.
It isn't the fault on any one thing. It is a paradigm shift that our species will have to deal with.
Demographic decline is inevitable. Motocross decline is inevitable. The economy, society, and our sport have been mismanaged.
Its also likely that you are struggling to pay other things
And wont have money to use it much or to be able to pay go racing,
So you put it off all together thinking that your situation
Will improve and you will be able to afford to do it in the future.
Also it can be embarrassing, or even if not embarrassing
You feel like you wont be competitive against
Modded new bikes, and i can tell you first hand that even people in the C class feel that way.
No to mention its hot outside. I don't think it's just motorcycles and golf thats in decline.... its anything outdoors.
He might be back.
Embarrassment is a personal issue. Not a bike issue. One day its your old bike, then you get a new bike and youre embarrassed because you got last in a race.. learning to enjoy the sport is all that you need. Too many people ride old vintage bikes and have fun to have an embarrassment argument.
A friend of mine happened to take me to a roller derby match earlier this year. I was meh, but over the summer decided to go to the local rink to try skating on my own. I sucked. But a month later I joined a local rollergirl team and bought my own skates & the most expensive gear available.
I'm not gonna lie I haven't been to a moto track since. My skating dues are $35/mo, and my entry level skates were $150 + a few sets of good $100 wheels for different surfaces. I have about $600 in gear so far.
I love riding and have been on bikes since I was 16, but the last couple of races I went to I was either the only woman racing or just one of 2-3. There weren't a whole lot of people there to begin with either. I had fun so mission accomplished. But when I was just starting we had two gates full of 125 D riders and there were a LOT of girls riding back then.
idk the economy isn't the same like it was before. Money that might go into bikes is going into student loan payments, rent, data plans, and there just isn't much left over. There are too many cheaper options for entertainment and recreation today. Also, a lot of people don't have access to decent health insurance and that is a must for riding motocross.
Also our current supply of cheap $1500 used bikes will dry up sooner or later. Fewer bikes bought today than 20 years ago. So used bikes will become less available and probably more expensive.
I don't know what solutions there are other than for the remaining riders who have means to concentrate everything and tailor the sport to those of us in the middle-upper classes. Nobody is gonna start making brand new MX-ready motocross machines for $4000 and even if that did happen, good luck finding somewhere to legally ride them if you are in a big city where the jobs are.
At this point I am just thinking of selling both my MX bikes and getting another EXC or an electric dual sport if/when one is ever made, and calling it done. I'm past my prime and really enjoyed all I did in moto so far. I miss the 80s and 90s, all the weird bike evolution, the day-glo plastic and fun times. Our sport is grown up now and we'll never see it return to those glory days.
Pit Row
And im not saying you have to have a new bike to be competitive, but when you show up on the 10 year old bike
And see the latest and greatest with
Suspension done , aftermarket pipe
And every thing else, you feel defeated
, on the other hand vintage races are great
I would much rather race my 03 against other
Older bikes that against 2019's
And i doubt im the only one who feels that way.
Who's parents weren't into it saw the other 2 or 3 riding in a field on a little home made track and went home and begged there parents, and that happened in every city and town.
Then the field turned into more houses
That can be done, that should have been done a long time ago.
Many of my local tracks also had separate kids tracks where they would run races in parallel with the adult track. Safer and more enjoyable for the kids and kept the class count down and they day moving faster.
Just my observations. I wish I had a better idea on how to help/fix the sport.
BIke prices aren't coming down and that's a problem especially for sport accessibility in today's economy.
idk what can be done about access to riding areas and tracks. $35/day is fair for the track owners considering the equipment and water they use. But that adds up quick for someone wanting to ride 2-3 times a month, when we have expensive health insurance, rents, data plans, ect competing for our dollars. Racing is usually a $100 affair so that's even more of a stretch for young adults and new riders.
The sport caters to affluent riders today, in almost every way. Can't blame any of that. The down side is that the sport contracts and withers as time goes on. It's nowhere near as popular today as it was in the 90s and especially the 80s. The rules haven't changed much to encourage more grass roots racing, there just isn't enough of the right kind of pressure to turn around what little we have left.
Getting that dopamine hit is at lot easier with iphones in your hands while sitting on the couch
Post a reply to: So, you want to "grow the sport" or return Moto to it's former glory?