Until you have witnessed an Open Ride day a Briarcliff you really don’t grasp an understanding on just how far apart skill sets are in this sport.
On one hand there are folks that can hardly negotiating the pits and crash their brains out on the C-track while you have Rife, Gibson, Willard, Hand and a host of others completely tearing-up the A/B Track…. Scrubbing, whipping and doubling through the rollers with rev-limiters pegged. I can see where that is ultra intimidating for a person still learning the basics of motorcycle riding.
Good case in point: I took my brother-in-law to BC last year.
He’s heard me speak of it many times (no-s**t) and was curious what all the fuss was about.
He’s been around bikes his entire life having mini bikes as a child and then some small two-strokes before he had to grow up and make his way in life.
So, He’s your typical guy, late 30’s early 40’s He’s fit and muscular, Loves to bar hop on his Custom Harley with all his bad-ass buddies, Plays a good game of golf, watches ball sports and has a YZ 250 dirt-bike to screw around on. He rides off-road (in back yards or farm fields) with his Harley buddies and may get out to Smith Rd. or Outlaw twice or three times a year.
…anyway… I take him for a lap or two around the C track toget him acclimated and then turn him loose while I head over to the A/B track. We come back in and he says he’s having a fun but others are flying past and he wants to clear one of the table-top jumps in the center of the track. I explain that he needs to “seat-bounce” it. He’sall about that (seat-bouncing) having seen it a million times during SX on TV and having read all about the technique in Racer-X.
We talk about is some more and then head back out to the C track where I demonstrate it a few times for him. All fired up (with new found enthusiasm) he’s ready to go and attack this track like Barcia.
Well, I come back in from the A/B track to find him slumped over in the chair, shirt off and face bloody.
He smashed himself in to the ground (face first) while attempting his very first seat-bounce. Oh, he got the bike to lift off the ground better….sure. But he didn’t take the counter force of the shock rebound into consideration and did a 180 front flip over the table instead.
Nose broken, face cut-up and bleeding and shoulder screwed-up enough that he had to bow-out of his next two weeks of golf league.…he was not happy.
If you can make your way around a Motocross Track smoothly, consider yourself an Advanced rider, whether you jump all the triples of not.
Many-Many folks are still learning the basics of riding andto throw them on the track at the same time with Advanced riders is very intimidating!
…..He still rides in fields and stuff but has shown no desire to head back to a “real race track” (I think momma has helped put the kibosh on that)