Everything About Freestyle Motocross
Freestyle has its jargon. Riders for pilots run for the sequence of tricks, these figures whose variety makes up an inventory à la Prévert: the “superman,” the “tsunami,” the “solid rock,” the “kiss of death,” the “dead body” and other “cliffhanger” which combine with the famous “backflip,” a kind of backflip that revolutionized the genre. A Prévert with an American accent: if the birth of the discipline is difficult to date, its geographical origin is certain, the United States.
In search of freedom
The origin of freestyle dates back to the mid-1990s when motocross and supercross riders started ‘swinging’ during jumps. It was an escape for those who wanted to get out of the competition and ride a bike without constraint. And in the United States, the great outdoors were ideal playgrounds.” The story of Manu Troux merges with that of Freestyle. A former motocross rider, he is one of those who gave him his letters of nobility. “There weren’t many of us doing it. Today, there are the big events, the medals. But the satisfaction of a rider remains in the perfect accomplishment of a difficult figure.”
It is, first and foremost, a state of mind, like the one that drives other athletes in searches of freedom, such as snowboarding and freeriding skiing. Like the latter, FMX (Freestyle Motocross Xtreme) has spread worldwide thanks to videos. In France, it starts as a curiosity proposed at the end of motocross races. Those who try it train in their garden or in a quarry.
Today, Manu trains in a special park in the Southwest where he lives. Several ramps are installed in the middle of the pines, behind a foam tank, a kind of swimming pool 20 m long and 12 m wide, deep 2 to 3 meters, full of moss or, sometimes, butchered mattresses. Essential for learning increasingly complex figures. To attempt directly on the hard, with a reception on a mound of earth, would be sweet madness.
If you have always envied freestyle motocross riders, know that there is always time to start in this discipline. However, riding motocross takes a lot of work. Therefore, you need to develop your skill over several years of practice before you can do it.
The Basic Principles of Freestyle
Freestyle or FMX (Freestyle Motocross is a discipline in its own right. It performs different tricks with your motocross on a wave or roller. You go back and forth and draw tricks with your motorcycle and/or your body. Of course, there are predefined figures for the discipline. This does not prevent each player from creating derivatives. Each participant is assigned a specific time, and the juries evaluate them according to the number of tricks performed and their difficulty level. It is not for nothing that Freestyle has been classified as an extreme sport. The risks are high, and you have to have many years of experience before you can play in a tournament.
How to start Freestyle
Everything has a beginning. The same is true for freestyle motocross. You can start with a freestyle BMX. You must then know how to ride a bicycle. It is lighter and is, therefore, easier to handle. First, learn to ride on a roller or wave as if you were riding on flat ground. Learn how to go back and forth at both ends of the roller without stopping or falling. When you feel comfortable with your BMX and on the roller, you can try to ride a real motocross. The cancan is the simplest figure to achieve. Take your right or left leg off and bring it to the opposite side. You can also try the whip. A figure consists of putting your motocross upside down during flight and straightening it before landing. You can easily perform the other tricks when you know how to take off your motorcycle during a flight and/or train your bike to your liking.
Today, it is unthinkable not to have it in your repertoire, with its variants. But the danger remains. “When you’re at the foot of the ramp, you have to go, unplug the brain. That’s what makes the difference between drivers who drop the case and those who go far.” Manu Troux knows how to clear his head. At this level, there are only about thirty in the world. A Freestyle competition consists of performing, in a given time, a maximum of Different figures, codified, on a wave and/or a scroll. To do these tricks, you need a ramp to take off. In the beginning, before doing tricks with a motorcycle, we train with BMX (bicycle motocross).
For as long as extreme sports have existed, champions like Pastrana, Adams, and Deegan have appeared. There are several competitions, such as Waped Tour and Winter X-Games, which pass on snow, etc.
