Bike Racing v. Motocross

Welcome to round two of the important and influential series "bicycle racing v. another thing." This week I'll compare bike racing with a sport that likely came from the same evolutionary monkey - motocross! In fact, the greatest MX racer of all time Roger DeCoaster just happens to be from Belgium. Coincidence? I think not.

v.

Okay, first off lets get a couple things clear, Motocross and Bicycle Racing are basically exactly the same thing.

Think about it - two wheels, funny head gear, drugs make you go fast, you're wearing tight pants. Which one am I talking about here? I don't even know.

For any of you who aren't familiar with motocross racing, let me explain it. Imagine having a bicycle race, but instead of pedaling, you have a bike that's powered by a lawnmower engine. Since you don't have to pedal, endurance is less important than your ability to do superman seat grabs. The course is all muddy, and there are big jumps in the way. Launching off of these jumps is encouraged.

This is where doping comes in. Not blood doping silly, but actual dope, like, the stuff you smoke. Apparently, being high as hell is the main way to go fast on a dirt bike, since fearing death is the number one limiting factor in a motorcrosser's speed. If you don't know where you are, or who you are for that matter, you're more likely to win. To bad you won't be able to tell the promoter who to make that giant novelty check out to after you crush your less stoned competition.

Assuming you've got a lot of weed and some gas oil mix, you'll also need a motocross bike before you go to the race. I know what you're thinking - "jeez, if my Felt F1 carbon wunderbike cost 5gs, so these bikes with motors must be like $200,000." that's where you're wrong in fact, the F1, and the motocross race bike cost about the same.

Now, what do you get with the Felt - 14. 5 pounds of carbon and glue combined and 20 gears. The motocross bike on the other hand only has four gears. To make up for that clear deficiency the mx bike has like 30 horsepower. Imagine hooking 30 horses up to the front of your road bike and yelling "ya!" I bet you'd be the new protour leader before you could say "whoa big fella."

So, throw on some body armor, (or make some out of duct tape), get some rolling papers (or make some out of duct tape) and head to the track.

How can bike racing even stack up to having a motor stuck between your legs going 70 mph, 70 feet in the air, with your hair on fire? Well, I'm not sure it can. Lets see:

Has a motor: MX
Your the motor: Bike Racing
Mix gas with oil, pour in tank: MX
Mix Accellerade and Vitamin Water, pour in you: Gross
Big knobby tires: MX
Nerdy skinny tires: Bike Racing
Ride your bike to work: Bike racing
Ride your bike to work with the front wheel in the air - MX
Get arrested for riding to work with the front wheel in the air: MX
Eddy Mercx: Roger DeCoster
doping is really complicated, takes a lot of science and might cause you to park your Porsche in a bike rack: Jan Ulrich
Smoke some weed, smoke some rubber: MX

Course is all muddy, and there's obstacles in the way to make it tough: tie (thank you cross.)
Big burly shocks - MX
Your bike looks like a downhill bike with a motor: MX
Ends with X: MX
Is extreme: Bike Racing. Haven't you seen that IMAX movie?

Final score:
MX: 9
Bike racing: 4
Jan: 1

Its a rout folks - looks like its time to fire up the 2 stroke, head down to the dirt jumps and work on the triple front flip. 3o horses can't be wrong!