ajcjr

This summer i start mtb riding again, so happy i did as i really missed it. I also just sold my road racing car and was wondering if some pedal type racing will give me the fix i am looking for. I love being in a car but some of the long weekends at the track for short times in the car were getting to me, costs go up every year (not to say pedal bike racing would be cheap), i have a dirt bike i ride but i was interested in enduro downhill and cyclecross. Curious if anyone ever made the switch and fan a new love.

Happy New Year!

AC

YMCA

I have had a few teammates come from car and motorcycle racing. Their skills are pretty good right off the bat. Wrong forum tho. This place is for road racing elite purists.

ajcjr

thanks ill post it in the general section.

happybday29475

There are many of us/you.

I quit car racing for the reasons you state. It was really fun, but also, for me, rather than be a motor head who spent time around cars, I wanted to spend time becoming healthier.

If you'll allow latitude for sweeping generalizations, what I have seen is that, generally, most bike racers who come from car/moto racing backgrounds corner better than those who don't. Beware the racer that was a BMXer as a kid, though, they know cornering and they have mad bike skills to boot...

carpediemracing 

Two local riders I know came from a motox background. One of them posts here. Both are good racers and were never "bad".

Not that flying an F-16 or F-22 is the same as racing a car but there's a racer that told me that racing bikes is the closest he's gotten to his old job of flying those aforementioned planes. Seeing as either of those planes would be considered elite, and the F-22 to be sort of the Formula One of planes (only 5th gen fighter etc), I told him how unlikely that sounded. He said it was the case though. I still doubt him but, hey, I've never even seen an F-22 so I really can't say.

There are a few of us here who are car guys as well. I don't know if anyone actually tracks their cars or does SCCA/etc.

Personally I recently discovered indoor karting so that's where I stand. Entry level 4 wheel stuff.

Also take @YMCA with a grain of salt

furiousferret

A few years back one of the guys I raced with was a MotoGP Pro and according to him a lot of the guys race for fitness.

hack

A couple local guys that race road are former motocross and race quite well. Another local mountain bike racing superstar is a former motocross racer as well. Sounds like bike racing started as fitness and they were bitten by the racing bug.

jsutkeepspinnin

i used to **** around with gocarts and dirt bikes when i was like 8-13 but once i shattered my arm i stopped all that. Eventually i was dumb enough to pick up a road bike.

UmneyDurak

Yep. When they used to have MotoGP at Laguna on Wednesday twilight rides you could find a few motoGP racers pedaling. I think last year Kawasaki hosted a group ride after Superbikes racing at Laguna.

I had two team mates who raced AFM (local NorCal motorcycle racing).

I would imagine the two are different in their own way, but also provide plenty of kicks.
You need to be in good physical shape for both motorcycle racing and bike racing, and both require mental discipline and endurance. With motorcycles it's hitting those brake markers, turning points, exit points, choosing fast vs defensing lines, etc. With crit racing it's constantly battling for position, dealing with people inches away from you, choosing lines (when you can), calculating moves, etc.

carpediemracing 

Here's a tip. One of my teammates from motocross (I've had two) had a moderately bad fall in a crit where he ended up hitting his head. I was surprised at the extent of his (head) injuries - it appears that he almost didn't have a helmet on. He doesn't remember the crash so he couldn't tell me anything about it, and there were no cams in the area when he fell.

However he reluctantly admitted that he never tightened his helmet straps. He figured, 15 lbs bicycles vs 200 lbs motorcycles, 25 mph 5 feet off the ground vs 50 mph 20 feet off the ground (or whatever motox gets), not a big deal.

He now has his helmet straps properly snug.

He's also had some amazing saves on the bike. Once his front wheel washed out from under him (unclear of the circumstances other than it was a fast corner in a crit). He saved it but the picture someone took from the sidelines... you'd swear there was no way the rider didn't hit the deck. He was fine though, never crashed.

jdms mvp

i ride motorcycles and i previous raced cars, not the nascar or formula kind, but drifting (if that's racing...)

riding motorcycles actually revealed somethings that translated to bike racing which helped me.

as far as physical fitness it was a non factor going from the mentioned above to bicycles

spectastic

it is sooo much easier to handle a 16-22 lbs bicycle, compared to a 350-500 lbs motorcycle.

UmneyDurak

Cool, pics?

Ygduf

+1

carpediemracing 

Facebook picturea by Rene Jose Martinez:

I saw this and thought for sure he'd hit the deck.


He eventually recovered but this was the last lap on a short course so although he did okay he wasn't happy about his finish.

Wylde06

His back wheel is off the ground in both shots...did he really ride over that crack on his front wheel?!


Eff

UmneyDurak

How the hell did that happen?

Racer Ex 

I raced Moto GP professionally back in the day. Skill set never hurt my bike racing. Crits and mass start track racing checks off a lot of the same boxes, especially the high speed chess part.

FYI for a car racer, you can't really spin a bike out.

happybday29475

PS. LOL. Your assertion made me wonder, so I googled. I was thinking some yahoo on a fat bike prolly spun in the snow, but this is the first that popped up.

Racer Ex 

When I was a kid we used to wet down this polished concrete parking area under an apartment build and do stuff like that on our bicycles.

I burned up more than a few K81's in my day doing that on various motorcycles.

carpediemracing 

I realized just now I typed "front" and not "rear". Obviously his front wheel didn't wash out.

Pretty sure it was sand/salt dust on the road that let his rear tire slide like that.

To give the whole picture he had a really bad crash at one of my races just a short time later, March 15 I think. It was pretty bad. It's unclear how he fell. It took him most of the season to get back on the bike, in fact I don't remember if he raced that year at all.

ajcjr

Thanks for the posts guys!