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/127698
Do you ever get ou t your b icycl e and try to do tricks? All the time. I have tw o BMX bik es in my ga rage righ t now. I go ridi ng every chan ce I get. . Wha t is the week of a pro fe ss io n a l supercross rider like? A lot of people think you just wait for Saturday night to go over to the stadium to race, b ut it's a lot mo re than th at, isn' t it? It' s a lot of work, th a t' s for su re. You race Satu rday night, get to bed late, then yo u take Sunday o ff to res t. You fly home - some guys drive but factory rid ers don't - and on Monday you go practice, you go to the gym, you do your bicycle riding or whatever you need to do to s tay in s hape . Tuesday and Wednesday are p re tty m uch the same thing. but sometimes you have to leave Wednesday for press day in whichever city the next race is in . Either .way, yo u do thr ee days of hard train ing and riding. the n you fly ou t. You have to be at the stadi u m Thursday for press and yo u rid e the track on Friday, The re's usu ally a personal appearance tha t you have to d o at a bik e shop or so me thi ng Frid ay night and then yo u 're at the stad ium all day Saturd ay d oin g practice and then ~acing Saturday night. Then it jus t starts all over again. You do that 15 times, all over the country, righ t? Yeah, 15 times . And that doesn 't include the outdoor Nati on als, which is another 12 rac es, and a ll the te sting a nd th e internati onal races we d o in the off-seaso n. Actuallv, the int ernational races are kind of like -the fun thing we do jus t to make a littl e e xtr a m on e y h ere a n d the re. Which count ries d id you ra ce in la st falI? Japan, France, Spai n, Italy. Act ually, I did Japan and Italy twice . What other sports do yo u like to d o besides BMX? I've bungee -jumped seven tim es. The high est I eve r jum ped was 380 feet ou t of a hot air balloo n. I dove out. It was pretty gna rly becau se it was over di rt. Did you ever throw it away tryin g it in practice or anythin g? No. One time at my p ractice track I did a na c-nac and my foot slipped off, so I had both feet in the air on one side, but I saved it. I didn't even almost crash, so I did a pretty goo d job of saving it. Tha t ju m p is actu all y a little bit easier now than it was in the beginning, when I wa s still leaming it. Easier for you, but that' s still a jump yo u wouldn't suggest for a minibiker, right? Oh, no, I don't think that's a ju m p that anyone wants to try unless they know for sure what they're doing. Wh at about some of your new maneuvers? Well , I have that new ju m p call ed "Superman Air" where I just hold on to the bars and let my body fly back behind me, but you have to jump the jump like 15 times to get it right. It takes il lot of practice and yo u have to have the perfect jump, so I don't know how many limes I'll be doing that one. It's a little dangerous. What's the craziest mo ve you ever saw aJ;lyone else do ? -T h e res this vet ride r in California named Gordon Ward, who puts his feet up over the bars. It's pretty crazy because he wraps his leg s all the way around his hand s and grabs his heels. You 're not go ing to try tha t one in a supercross, are yo u? No, I'm no t doing tha t one! Wh at do your old bicycle friends think a bout y o ur s ucc ess on mo torcycles now? They really li ke it and they are really proud of me. They think su percross is a cool sport. 27