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| 8446 E. 37th Place Crawl before you walk... It's the spring of 2005 and even though I saw this coming for over two years now, somehow I missed the press release. In case you did too, I assume it went something like this; Everyone is a stuntrider. How I possibly could have overlooked something so important to our sport I don't know. I mean it followed right on the heels of the everyone is a custom chopper builder announcement. Maybe I was too busy, I mean I did spend the last 17 or so years of my life knee deep in motorcycles. I guess I didn't hear these important announcements because I was too busy riding motocross in the winter to keep sharp on a bike, or maybe it was when I spent a year or so developing the fundamental skills and balance on the street to be able to ride miles long highway wheelies. I know for a fact that I missed the Master Builder press release because I was at work customizing bikes and trying to build a real business. I take real issue with the stuntriding thing, I myself am one of thousands of kids who grew up on dirtbikes riding every chance we got. In my late teens I took alot of those skills to street riding on a bmx, and began riding sportbikes. Once again, so did thousands of other kids. When the stunt scene started to blow up, it was easy for most of us to adapt quickly, we'd been riding this way for most of our lives on the dirt and had already spent time developing on the street. We'd learned how to corner fast, we'd run from the cops, done 150+ on the highway, riding wheelies and rolling burnouts was just a natural progression and extension. Now the scene is full of a bunch of new kids, that think they can be a starboy in three weeks, they are 17 or 24 or whatever, have no experience riding, buy a sportbike, and immediately start trying to learn to wheelie and be gangsta. That shit is weak. Bottom line. They can 12 in two weeks, good for them, but when the bike gets a little outta shape there done, they never got bike fit, never learned the basic skills you need to be smooth. These are the kids that run from the police and get killed. I spent years learning to ride corners, dense traffic, wet conditions, whatever fairly fast, so did alot of other people. Were the ones who get away, the new kids are the ones that die. I'm not trying to discourage people from getting into sportbikes, by all means do it, the more the better. What I'm trying to say is that even if being a stuntrider is what you want to do, you'll never be good, or smooth, without learning to ride first. Spending a summer in a cast because of stuntriding/inexperienced riders sucks. Not being able to hit smooth fast backroads on perfect summer days sucks. Being able to impress the 14 year olds at the mall but not being able to keep up with a 50 year old an a Ducati sport tourer sucks. Having a bashed up bike for no apparent reason because you rushed the learning process sucks. Get out there, get on your bike and learn a little bit of everything, everyday, you'll enjoy riding alot more and alot longer doing it that way, and be able to put the smack down on anybody, anytime...eventually. |