Motocross Performance Magazine Canadian Motocross news leader
1987 meets 2014. Two decades came together on Friday in Shelburne, Ontario.
Hello and Happy Monday to everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend and a very spooky Friday night. Thank you to everyone who posted photos on social media. It was awesome to see what all the kids (and adults) in this sport were wearing on Halloween. I’m not sure if it was just me but it seemed like so many more people were into Halloween this year. Whether it was Friday night or even Saturday night, the photos of everyone dressed up kept rolling in and each costume was very entertaining. In honour of his parents’ rich history in the best decade of all time, our son decided to dress up as a 1980s rock star on Friday. Seeing him with his hair gelled up, tight jeans and wearing a bandana almost brought a tear to my eye as I think I used to dress like that every day in grade 9. All he needed was a ghetto blaster pumping out Motley Crue and I would’ve broken down with pride.
Unfortunately, I was only able to see Ayrton’s costume in photos as I was in California on Friday for the press launch of Husqvarna’s all-new 2015 FE350S and FE501S. These two motorcycles represent Husqvarna’s entrance into the popular dual sport market. As they’ve done with all of their products so far, the big H is spot on. We spent all day Friday riding the 350S and the 501S on pavement, back roads, two track trails and even single track trails. When all was said, we rode 111 miles on every surface you could think of, and at one point I saw a sign that read “Elevation 7000 feet”. It was a great day of riding, even for a moto guy like me.
These days when we take trips, we all take two sets of photos; the good ones with our real cameras and of course the photos we take with our phones. Most of the time these phone photos are pretty decent, but they either just end up on our social media or they stay on our phones. So with the Arenacross Series taking a week off in BC, and a few other moto rumours that I’m not able to talk about until next week, I thought I’d use this week’s Gate drop to share with you some of the photos I took on my iPhone in California.
With the nice weather all but gone for 2014, taking off out of Toronto early Thursday morning gave the passengers who were seated next to a window a very cool view of the low cloud layer that was sitting about 5000 feet above Ontario. Since I have my pilot’s license and come from an aviation family, I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff.
I took this one as we were descending into San Diego. With so much built up population on the California coast line, it’s a very cool contrast to see miles and miles of uninhabited land not too far east of the Pacific Ocean.
This is a photo of a photo that is hanging in the brand new offices of Husqvarna USA in Murrieta, Ca. I’m not sure who this is but it definitely shows the rich history that surrounds this company. I’m not sure how the riders of this era were even able to ride these bikes? Especially with the position of their elbows!
This was one of my favourite photos hanging up in the Husqvarna offices. Although it was taken in the 1960s, it doesn’t look much different than a start photo from today. It’s just a pack of aggressive riders all going for the holeshot.
This post-World War 2 Husqvarna was equipped with skies so a rider could navigate their way through the snow. As cool as this design looks, it must have been a handful to corner on this army green machine.
Wearing glasses that would be in style today, Brad Lackey represents everything that was cool in 1970s USA motocross.
Under the guidance of Canada’s own Dave Gowland, the Rockstar Energy Drink Husqvarna Team is all ready to take Supercross on in 2015. The team’s truck was on display for all of us media guys and we were able to walk through it and see how the other half lives at the races.
After three hours and 60 miles, we stopped for lunch in the small mountain town of Idyllwild, Ca. When we arrived, we were met by a few of the fine people who make up Husqvarna in the USA. In this photo, on the far left and far right are the famous 1980 Husqvarna riders Andy Jefferson and Mark Blackwell. Andy is in charge of media relations and actually led us on our 111 miles ride
This small pond of mountain spring water was one of our photo stops. At this point we were on our way back to the Husqvarna offices and were just passing through 5000 feet elevation.
After a day of incredible riding, this is what my trip odometer read as I hit the kill switch on my 2015 Husqvarna FE501S. All of the journalists had a great 111 mile ride on Friday.
As I prepared to fly home, approaching Canadian winter on Saturday morning, I paused and took in the view from my San Diego hotel.
So that was my trip to California last week, as you can see I had fun riding something other than motocross. The Future West Canadian AX Series gets back at it this Friday night in Cloverdale, BC. All the riders have had two weeks to think about their round one performances, and all of them (other than points leader Ross Johnson) will be looking to improve. Hopefully all of the drama we saw at round’s one and two is gone and everyone can just go out and race each other hard but fair. If you missed Ryan Lockhart and Ryan Gauld promoting the series and just motocross in general on Global Television in BC, here is the link to their segment. It’s always great to see motocross being talked about in the mainstream media.
http://globalnews.ca/video/1649851/canada-arenacross-championship
I hope everyone has a great week and hopefully you’re able to squeeze in a few more rides. Be safe. Here is what I think are the winners of the Halloween costumes of the 2014. Congratulations to Brett Lee and his lovely wife Melody on just plain looking good!! Finally, I want to wish Team Canada good luck this week at the ISDE in Argentina. I’m sure all of our riders will do this country proud.
I vote for Brett to wear this outfit to rider’s meeting at the 2015 Parts Canada TransCan.
