How Motocross Saved My Life.

For most of us, we like to think of motorcycle riding as a way of life. Even a lifestyle if you will. For me that is certainly the case. Until recently however, much of that mindset was based on a by gone day. The title of motocross racer was indeed a dusty crown that resided only in my distant past. Although I still wore the occasional MX influenced t-shirt and always sported “lifestyle” sunglasses, I was anything but a motorcycle rider. Hell, I had even done the unthinkable. I had posed. The truth is, I didn’t even own a bike.
The process to this point began years and years ago. Sometime during college I realized that I probably didn’t have the funds necessary to continue riding and racing. So, with the self understanding that I would buy a bike after I graduated, I sold my bikes and gear and took a temporary retirement from the ranks of motorcycle rider. Well, we all know how this goes. You finish school with an obligation to old Sallie Mae and a credit card debt that Ronald Regan would have been proud of. So you put off the bike thing for another year, then another, then another. Slowly, you forget about the thing all together. You don’t even bother to thumb the pages of the latest dirt mag when you pass it a the grocery store.
I suppose it would not be so bad if it was only motocross that slips from ones grasp. Somehow though, for some of us, with the motorcycle goes the motivation that we needed to stay lean and fit. With no race season on the horizon, I stopped thinking that I need to skip the Super Sized menu. I even laughed off the first 10 pounds of weight I put on after college as “getting older” poundage. The fitness gauge I had used for last 20 years was gone. I no longer had early season practice laps to ride. No more pulling off the track after a few laps and realizing that I needed to start running again. I just kept gaining weight and started doing things that guys that don’t race motocross do. Those things that don’t require you to be at “racing weight”. I spent more time at sports bars than I did participating in sports. That is not as much a comment about increasing my bar time as it is about decreasing my athletic endeavors. Golf (riding, not walking) and billiards squeaked onto my activities list….as sports!
I suppose its like someone slowly bringing the water to boil around you. Slowly, so that you don’t notice. For me, the college hiatus, turned into the new job hiatus, then the new kid hiatus, then the “Im getting too old anyway” termination. Im not sure what rattled me. It could have been the realization that money was no longer an excuse as well as the onset of middle age. Perhaps, a sudden awareness that time was getting short and that this may be my last chance to get back in the game.
It is difficult to nail down the thing that triggered the return to motocross and moto culture. I think I just wanted to reach out and claim my heritage. I was the kid who rode wheelies up and down the street on his BMX bike. I was the kid who knew who Roger DeCoster was before it was cool and before Wide World of Sports turned my cult heroes into household names. I was the kid who quit freshman football because I wanted to be under the lights at the speedway on Friday nights. Motocross was who I was. This was the heritage that I could not leave behind, the heritage that finally came back around like and old family member and beckoned me back into the fold.
The purchase of a vintage motocross bike gave me a new spring in my step. That old ratty 1974 Yamaha MX 125 sitting in the garage became a touchstone of vitality and a return to youth. While I worked on that bike, I also began exercising again and trying to loose weight. My rock music got played a little louder and my Chuck Taylors showed the character of oil stains and sweat rings. I even joined a rock band again. That part of me that was still 16 began to emerge from under the layers of lard and from under the burden of being a “business man”. My chronological clock was actually backing up instead of steaming forward. Motocross as a fountain of youth was a reality for me. That old Yamaha is making me younger!
If you have stumbled upon this story by chance or if you are a dyed in the wool veteran, I believe that the message is the same. Hold dear to the things that are dear to you. Be it an old skateboard or surfboard or scooter or Bultaco. It does not matter. Hold them close and fight for all its worth to stay connected to those things. If you have let them go, then go back and find them. They are your heritage. You are responsible for holding on and ultimately passing them on. It will pay dividends beyond calculation. It will make you life better and probably longer. For those of you who will, I say, “Welcome back and welcome home”.