Transworld Motocross January 2019

“THERE ARE DIFFERENT PATHS TO YOUR DESTINATION. CHOOSE YOUR OWN PATH.”—LAILAH GIFTY AKITA Just as we are shipping this issue to the printing press, Casey Davis, our video editor, and I are also uploading this year’s feature film to be sold on iTunes. Fast. is a documentary that tells the story of AMSOIL Honda’s Carson Mumford and Jo Shimoda—two riders who have experienced radically different journeys to the top of amateur motocross racing in America. For me, the Fast. movie was a labor of love, as I’m lucky to have personal connections with both families, and telling their stories was something I really wanted to do. I grew up racing in Southern California, and Carson’s dad, Scott, was one of the guys I lined up with on a weekly basis.…

At just 12 years of age, Kiana Clay’s life was changed forever. To this day, she remembers the moment she suffered her injury vividly. As Clay crossed the finish line aboard her YZ85, the front wheel of another rider came crashing down on her neck. The impact resulted in a broken neck and severed nerves. It would be seven minutes before she awoke to realize that she could not feel or move her right arm. “The first thing that I saw was a paramedic standing over me. I started moving all of my fingers and toes and everything, and I noticed that I couldn’t feel my arm,” said Clay, now 24. “I just started screaming, ‘I can’t feel my arm, I can’t feel my arm!’ That’s when the paramedic’s eyes…

Motocross racers using mountain bikes for cross training is nothing new, but did you know that mountain bike racers have lots to gain from motocross bikes, too? Three-time World Champion Anneke Beerten started riding motocross when she moved from the Netherlands to Southern California a few years ago, and we were stoked that she chose the second round of the TWMX Fall Classic Series to make her motocross racing debut. “I’ve done a few off-road GPs before, but this is my first official motocross start behind a gate,” Beerten said. “There is plenty to learn on a motorcycle that carries over to what I do, but for me, the big part of riding motocross is fun, with all of the little other things thrown in. It’s good for riding ruts…

The first job I got out of high school was at my local Honda dealership, and one of the first products I bought myself at an employee discount was a set of Prostyle Levers. Distributed by O’Neal, the forged aluminum levers featured a distinctive notch in each of them that was designed to accommodate the rider’s actuation fingers. The patented bend in the Prostyle levers allowed complete actuation—all the way to the handlebar grips—without coming into the rest of the rider’s fingers. The levers looked odd, no doubt, but they did exactly what they were designed for and I loved them. Though the first set I bought were black, O’Neal soon began to offer a ton of wild colors, including the oh-so-trendy splatter paint. When I showed up at Ascot…

THE BIKE A few days before the Monster Energy/Yamalube/Star/Yamaha team packed the team semi and headed to RedBud for the Motocross of Nations, we asked Assistant Team Manager Wil Hahn if we could swing by and take some photos of Aaron Plessinger’s YZ250F race bike. “Only if you bring a girl” was his reply, so we recruited a model in record time and showed up the next afternoon to have a look at the machine and take care of this month’s pinup poster. Plessinger’s Billy Hartle-tuned YZ250F featured some slightly different ignition map settings for the MXoN due to the FIM’s stringent fuel and sound regulations, but other than that it was the same bike that carried him to the 2018 Western Regional 250 Supercross and 250 National Championships. For…

Last month we got to bomb the trails around our SoCal locale aboard the all-new Intense Tazer pedal-assist MTB, and we were understandably bummed when we had to return it to the crew at Intense Cycles. Seeing the disappointment on our faces, they softened the blow and sent us home with a brand-new Tracer in the $4,999 Pro build. With a rich history in the downhill and enduro categories, Intense is no stranger when it comes to building mountain bikes that beg to get rowdy on the trails. The Tracer isn’t all-new for 2018 (it was revamped in ’17), but it is a serious trail weapon that inspires confidence in otherwise frightening trail conditions. Equipped with 160mm front and 165mm rear wheel travel, the Tracer boasts slack frame geometry and…