Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125758
U'l N '" '" '" C. N .... '" ~ w Z W ...J U >- U "Does it cost more . , to get serIOUS ( ' . than it does to play?" By Ro n Sch neiders About this time of year bills start p iling up, m o ney becomes very scarce, and motorcycle enthusiasts start looking very critically at their favorite sport wh ich the wife refers to as a "money drain ". Depending upo n just h o w critical the sit uation is h e mi gh t consid er quitting, cha nging to ano ther less ex pensive aspect of the spor t or adopting a less serious attitude toward winning. Then there is the: other end of the spectrum: The rider who seems a new y ear and resolves to start racing, to ch ange to a more competitive branch of the sport, to increas e his comm itment o r make some other positive change. Cost inte rests both of these groups. D oes one form of co mp etit io n really cost mo re than ano ther? Does it cost much mo re to "Get Serious " than it docs to play? Well, below is a char t that migh t help a little. In the chart we have comp ar ed the ap proximate costs of different forms of motorcycle competition on two levels, th e play level and the serious level. Naturally to do so mething like this you have to ma ke a carload o f assu mptions and the chart is only h elp ful to the reader insomuc h as h e understa nds th e assump tions and relates them realist ically to his own situation. Our chart covers the costs th at occur over a one-year period. Is it assumed that the rider is going to remain interested and active for more than a y ear, A short term flirtation with competition can be extremely expensive in many respects. The physical risks are much higher (these can be transla ted into money as insurance an d d octor b ills.}, and th e short-termer will likely take a large financial beating on his equipme n t whe n h e attempts to sell it. For our purposes, the difference between a serious rider and a fun rider is that the serious rider intends to win, to advance in class and to put whatever is necessary into those goa ls ; the fun rider has much less in the way of co mmitmen t, rides less frequently, spends less o n eq uipment, skips faraway events , and won't take a chance on rui ning his bike to win. In practi cal te rms we decided that our "serious" rider would compete three times a month and would travel up to 800 miles one way for events if necessary. He buys the best equipment and spares little in the way of expense to make his bike co mpetitive an d to protect his b od y. Alt hough he is not sponsored, he does n' t pay list price for -an y th ing b ut h is entry fees . This ride r does most of his own work. majo r engine repairs and wel ding bein g the only exceptions. Our fun rider competes only once a month . In most cases, he uses a bike that he didn't originally intend for co mp etitio n. The thought might have existed in th e b ack of h is mi nd. b ut he bough t t he b ike for trailing or street riding. To ma ke it even reason abl y co mpetitive and to keep from killing himself he has had to spe nd a fair amount o n modifications. He hasn 't spent much on personal equipment b ut he intends to. This rider does his ow n maintenance but that's about all. Most everything else is done in the shop. When he tries to fix something himself, it generally costs him more. This rider won't break up his wheels and shocks pushing mercilessly across roc ks in fourth gear , or wind out an engi ne u ntil it exp lodes bet ween his legs trying to [Plrns r I"'" 10 page 3 1) As our graph above suggests, racing is expensive. n 1972, Cycle News will show you how to get the :most u t of your riding dollar.