mx775

There was a time when safety on a dirt bike rarely crossed my mind. In fact, before I had children, I'd say I gave safety about as much thought as I now do to training (that is to say: very little.)

But as I've aged, the subject has crept into my mind more, steadily embedding itself deeper and deeper into my consciousness with each time that I frantically pin the throttle on my 450 to lower the rear-end high above a hard-packed double.

Naturally, the 20-year-old me wouldn't find much interest in what the 27-year-old me has to say on the subject of safety. Truth be told, the 20-year-old me might even be ashamed of what the 27-year-old version of himself thinks when it comes to track construction and safety equipment. But screw you, 20-year-old me--I think this is an important topic, and, not to be patronizing, but I've been a few places you haven't. So sit tight and daydream about your airy, responsibility-free existence if that helps you through this.

Now then.

When I stepped to the top of the new Pro/Intermediate double at Mustang this Sunday, I frowned a weary frown. It's not that the jump wasn't doable--it was just that it was a perfect storm of dangerousness for anyone who miscalculated it. It was downhill and high-speed, and face of the second jump was steep enough to make a freestyle guy cringe. In my mind, I could already imagine the crash that awaited anyone who made a misstep.

"We're opening up the new section for 15 minutes," Shane Kisman, one-half of the team behind Mustang, said to me midway through the afternoon.

"I want no part of that new section," I said matter-of-factly. And it was true. While if the same jump had been sitting somewhere in the hills, I might have eyeballed it, I didn't think it had any business on a racetrack full of kids, many of whom are all too eager to earn the badge of burliness in front of their buddies. Not going to check it out was my small act of protest.

Still, the voyeur in me wandered down to the track to see what would happen. Sure enough, the second rider to try it--he was following the first--made precisely the kind of mistake that I had grimly envisioned when I had walked to the lip. I watched as he came up a few feet short, bounced a terrific swap, and disappeared behind a berm.

I didn't need to walk any closer. I could guess what shape he was in behind that berm.

But I did walk closer, cursing a little under my breath. When I got there, he was shouting in pain and holding his leg. I could only shake my head.

Let's not delude ourselves: you can be hurt anywhere on a motocross track at virtually anytime. But as I watched the scene, a question burned in my brain: in a sport where danger exists anyway, why do we need obstacles that punish the hell out of kids who make so much as a momentary lapse in judgment?

Some make the argument that we need obstacles of this sort to advance local riders, that we need to raise everyone's game by including weighty challenges on our tracks.

But as I stood and watched the kid scream, that argument seemed as lame and lifeless as his bike laying on the side of the track.

The truth is that there are plenty of ways to challenge riders without putting them in needless danger. Casing a jump should cost a rider a few tenths of a second--not six months in a cast (incidentally, ever try getting faster in a cast? Not the best way to go about it.) And the guys who are truly serious about getting fast--those who we imagine we are building these jumps for--would probably receive a higher dividend from practicing their turns anyway (that's where most Pro races are won and lost, after all.)

I fully realize that young riders will disagree with me on this. There's not much you can do to stop kids from pushing the envelope on their bikes, and they relish the opportunities to try big obstacles (at least until those big obstacles bite them.) But the promoters and officials of our tracks should resist going too far in trying to cater to them. If they don't, more kids are going to get hurt than need to. And for many of those kids, those obstacles will have the opposite effect of helping them progress. In all likelihood, some of them will never set wheel on a racetrack again.

As I was leaving for the day, I talked to Shane about the jump again. We went back and forth a bit, but he eventually said he'd take another look at the jump. I hope he does. I don't think they built the jump to hurt anyone, but I don't see any merit to leaving the jump in its current form. There are plenty of ways to build something challenging in that option section will separate the fast from the slow--without punishing those who get caught in between.

And get well soon, Zach Cochran. Two broken legs is surely no fun, but you'll be stronger and wiser when you have healed. 

Posted by beaupre716 at 12:38 AM | Permalink

Two months after the crash, I'm finally starting to feel like myself again. And I don't just mean in the way of my injuries; nearly every aspect of my life has been in flux since I nose-dove off that cliff in neutral.

First things first, I hear you ask: how do you nose-dive off a cliff in neutral? Call it carelessness. I'd be using this line (see photo right) for more than 10 years, and on this day, I rode up to the edge from a short approach and casually clicked for second gear as I lofted my front wheel over the edge (as was sometimes my habit.) Only I never found second, and soon found myself clinging to a 230-pound boat anchor--formerly my CRF450--falling in a forward rotation toward the ground 20 feet below...fast.

Sitting up from a crash to catch your breath and finding that you can't (which happened in the exact rocky spot that I am landing in the photo) is even less fun than it sounds like. Luckily, my dad arrived on the scene in just seconds. After asking me to stand--actually, I'm not sure he asked at all--he led me to the truck to sit down while he loaded my bike. And after he lamented over the badly bent handlebars on my 450 for a moment ("Can we go, dad?"), we were on our way to the emergency room.

The drive there was predictably terrifying. My breathing was shallow and painful, and my chest ached in a way that warned of impending bad news. As we dodged what seemed like slower-than-usual traffic, my mind considered the worst-case scenarios: Was there internal bleeding? Had I crushed something vital? Would I need emergency surgery? Surprisingly, contemplating these horrible fates did nothing to help my breathing.

The next few hours were a blur in which I searched for answers to a checklist in my mind. Yes, you are going to live (fear number one conquered.) No, you are not going home soon. Yes, you will make a full recovery. Yes, you are hurt: collapsed lung, broken ribs, compressed vertebrae, broken collarbone, separated shoulder. No, you should not try to sit up.  

Spending a week in the hospital was a record for me, and it came just seven months after a three-day stint I spent for a broken femur. Before then, I had never spent a night in a hospital because of injuries. Looking back, 2008 was a terrible anomaly in my riding history: after 21 years of nothing but outpatient-type injuries (and very few of them, to boot,) I was suddenly a regular in the antiseptic halls of Renown Medical Center.

After the seven days it took my lung to re-inflate itself, going home was a relief, and I won't lie: a drug called Fentanyl, which comes in an adhesive patch, made my first month at home a breeze. My pain was manageable and I felt pretty decent mentally. But at the one-month mark I missed a dose and was suddenly miserable...and not just because of the injuries. I suddenly understood why people get addicted to painkillers, and realized that I now had a new struggle to face.

I won't go into the details of how I felt during the week and a half after I stopped taking Fentanyl. But I will say that I've never felt so strangely weak and vulnerable in my life, and that stopping the drug was roughly as difficult as enduring the injuries in the first place. Today, after nearly a month off the medicine, I am just starting to feel like my pre-crash self.

Or at least in most ways. Throughout this process, I've had to come to terms with a new reality. It's one that I've contemplated before, but this injury has made it final: my days as a racer are over.

That is not to say that I'm going to stop riding dirt bikes, or that I've stopped loving motocross. It's only to say that, after putting my wife and family through a year of worry and hardship, and having two daughters that need me to be healthy, I don't want to take the chances it takes to race competitively anymore. 

Of course, at this point it's wise to note that both of my crashes this year happened at practice sessions, not races. But until my latest crash, I was still thinking of myself as a racer, and practicing in a way that pressed my limits (I actually muttered some gibberish about this--stupidly, I now think--just moments before the crash.) When I am free to ride again in a month (and yes, I will go riding,) I won't be doing that so much.

What will I be doing? Oh, I don't know...wheelies, figure eights, blip jumps--whatever feels good. I am actually looking forward to it. Not being a racer means not feeling obliged to practice starts or do long motos--though I will feel free to do both of those if the mood so strikes me.

Naturally, a part of me will miss racing deeply. It's been my habit for 22 years, and it's brought me a lot of great memories. But if I want to be able to ride a dirt bike in another 22 years--and I really do--it's time to find a new habit.  

Posted by beaupre716 at 09:52 PM | Permalink