Joe “Vertical” Dryden and Tony Carbajal at their recent Victory Signing

Aaron Colton on his Factory KTM Duke

This past December was a big month in the world of Street Bike Freestyle. Victory Motorcycles, aka power sports giant Polaris has entered the Street Bike Freestyle circle with two of the bigger names in the sport. I couldn’t be happier for Joe “Vertical” Dryden and Tony Carbajal with their signing to Victory. Besides the jealousy that was brewing inside of me I knew that this was a great step for Street Bike Freestyle. This really got me thinking about a lot of things. Its no secret the motorcycle industry hasn’t been very accepting of Street Bike Freestyle aka Stunt Riding, BUT we do sure seem to have a lot of manufactures that are taking an interest in what we do.

Team No Limit, Factory Kawasaki. Bill Dixon, Factory Yamaha. Chris “Teach” McNeil, Factory BMW

Nick and Ernie, Empire Freestyle, Factory Triumph

Then the reality set in. With Victory supporting Dryden and Carbajal that brought the grand total to 6 factory teams in Street Freestyle. Victory, Yamaha, Kawasaki, KTM, BMW and Triumph have seen the value and worth in what we do. There are even rumors floating around that Harley Davidson is showing interest in a couple of V-Twin teams. Thats six, yes six factories that are on board with the degenerates of power sports. With the recent decline of American Road racing and Flat Track does that make Street Bike Freestyle the greatest and latest trend in American motorsports?! The last decade has seen a huge decline in road racing and manufacture support. Most riders are now having to pay to ride race bikes vs collecting checks for circling the track. Its no secret that Flat Track had its hay day and is seeing a small resurgence  Thankfully for Flat Track, Kawasaki and Yamaha are trying to breath some life back into a sport that has been dominated by Harleys with 1970s technology.

Are the good times just starting for Street Bike Freestyle? Well I would to say yes I don’t think the answer is yes. While we have Factory support, most of the media and press generated from Street Bike Freestyle is YouTube videos and Social Media content. We currently don’t have a major competition series in the U.S. and across the world the competition scene is pretty flaky. I feel that for a “sport” to be legit it needs to have some form of competition series. Imagine dirt bikes but no Supercross or Outdoor Nationals. Leaves a giant void for the fans and athletes.

Think Flat Track would trade us a couple of manufactures for a couple rounds of competition?

Thanks,

Tice