Couple of pics from a trip I made earlier in the Summer and a
little bit of writing:
If you want to ride FMX in the UK it can be pretty tricky, there
are virtually no places to ride (especially if you live up North) if
you do not have your own ramps and land. Living in France has made
trying to get into FMX easier for sure. I took a trip a few hours
North to ride with some newly made friends from the FMX Charentaas
scene. Up there (near the city of Saints) the have a strong scene
and a good few number of compounds.
Being a newby to FMX and only comfortable on a gap of about 17m
(from the top of the ramp to the landing) I was a little nervous
heading up there. Riding Motocross for many years does help of
course but there is a lot more to riding ramps than meets the eye,
the ramp itself can be a bit of a mindfuck to ride towards and
requires a good deal of commitment and the run up also can mess with
your head until you work out the speed and power needed to make the
gap. And all that is before you can even think about tricks. It is
very different to MX track jumps...and super awesome.
Anyway, it was too windy to ride the big compound so we rode at
Nicolas's house, after a few hits we stopped for a drink and a cig
and that is when I noticed the entire linkage on my CR250 was split...
I have found an "as new" linkage on ebay and also got
hold of some FMX fork and shock springs and a cut down seat....just
got to save up to get the suspension rebuilt and then we are back in
action. It did make me think just how important being 100% confident
in your bike is and again added another aspect to FMX I didn't
really know about, sure for riding/racing MX you need your bike to
be right but somehow riding ramps is more spooky.
Check back for more instalments of an old dog trying to learn new tricks.