Freestyle motocross is one of the most dangerous, yet most spectacular sports in the world. FMX is all about… pushing the limits. Here are some of the ones that have been overcome.
Motorsports have never been safe. Not only do they require courage, technique and imagination, but above all a lot of luck. One of the greatest motocross riders, Travis Pastrana, talking about his beginnings in the sport, recalled that at the age of 12 he jumped over a pond with alligators on his motorcycle. Boys who decide to train in motocross as a teenager know what their future work will entail. The risk of losing health or life accompanies them at every step. It is this adrenaline that has made freestyle motocross gain worldwide popularity, and the tricks that the riders perform are on the edge of the laws of physics.
FMX originated from traditional American motocross. Riders who wanted to get into the corners well would make the right moves and distinctive turns, which eventually led to the creation of the new motocross sport. Like the original, FMX originated in the United States in the 1990s. Races are held on specially prepared tracks and ramps.
Motorcycles on which the competitors perform spectacular stunts are slightly different from classic ones. They have firmer suspensions allowing for high jumps, higher handlebars, slimmer seats and cut-outs in the side plastics which give more space for the legs. The design of the motorcycles is tailored to the stunts that the riders will be able to perform. The idea is to make the equipment as mobile as possible without losing speed.
The stunts are performed in the air, and everything depends on the technique of the rider. The equipment plays a secondary role. FMX is about performing increasingly spectacular, improbable and crazy tricks. Here are some of them!
One of the most popular tricks in the world. It involves sliding your feet under the handlebars, extending your body and raising your arms up. The rider is made to look like they are suspended under a rock.
A backflip. A deepening of this is the double backflip, or double backflip. There are many variations of the backflip on a motorcycle and new ones are being created all the time, but they are all based on the classic version of the evolution.
The rider places their feet under the handlebars and bends their body backwards to perform a sort of bridge.
Trick, which by many FMX fans is considered the most spectacular. It consists of standing on hands on the handlebars of a motorcycle. A more difficult variant of the tsunami assumes that the rider, standing on the handlebars, pushes his joined legs and body to the front of the motorcycle.
Like the backflip, there are many variations and combinations of this stunt. Its standard version is meant to resemble a flying superhero. The rider, holding the handlebars with his hands, launches his legs into the air and must place his body parallel to the motorcycle.
A trick similar to Superman, but to perform it, the rider must let go of the handlebars and stay in the same position as the bike for a few seconds.
It involves landing with the motorcycle without holding its handlebars. This trick is difficult because the moment of landing is one of the most dangerous when performing the ride.
FMX is a discipline focused on continuous development. One of the elements of this development are tricks based on body rotation while keeping the position of the motorcycle unchanged. An example is the Volt, which is a 350-degree turn of the rider next to the motorcycle.
Another trick in this group is the Special Flip, which involves a back flip over the motorcycle, or the California Roll, which involves the rider jumping over the bike.
The second category of tricks are evolutions taken from riders moving on bicycles. In this type of stunts the rider’s task is to rotate the motorcycle around its own axis in the horizontal plane. The most popular are 360, 540 and 720, which is a double turn.
