50 Fun Facts About Dirt Bikes

Which three crossed tools form the logo of Yamaha, a dirt bike maker that began with musical instruments?

Tuning forks have marked the brand since its piano and organ days; the motorcycle business only split off as its own company in 1955.

Which pop star married freestyle motocross rider Carey Hart after meeting him at the 2001 X Games?

Pink met him in Philadelphia, a year after he made the first backflip attempt on a full-size motocross bike in competition.

The Dakar Rally, a desert marathon for dirt bikes, is named after the capital of which African country?

Senegal was the finish line when the race began in 1978 as a run from Paris, and only 74 of the 182 vehicles that started made it there.

Which country music star's Tennessee ranch has hosted the AMA's national amateur motocross championship since 1982?

Loretta Lynn and her husband welcomed the race to their Hurricane Mills ranch, which also stages concerts on holiday weekends.

Which dirt bike brand began in 1689 as a Swedish musket maker and still uses a gun sight as a logo?

Husqvarna takes its name from the town of Huskvarna, where the weapons factory was founded more than two centuries before its first motorcycle.

Which 1984 Nintendo game, directed by Shigeru Miyamoto, puts the player in control of a motocross racer?

Excitebike ran on a smooth side-scrolling engine that Miyamoto's team reused a year later to build Super Mario Bros.

Disney's 2001 film Motocrossed, about a girl who races as her twin brother, adapts which Shakespeare play?

Twelfth Night supplies the twin swap: Andrea Carson secretly races in place of her injured brother Andrew, with her mother's help.

The name motocross blends motocyclette, the French word for motorcycle, with which other kind of racing?

Cross-country racing on motorcycles was first known as scrambling, and the French-flavoured name took over as the sport spread abroad.

Which freestyle motocross star landed the first double backflip in competition at the 2006 X Games in Los Angeles?

Travis Pastrana scored 98.60 for the jump, the top score in the X Games Best Trick competition.

Which NASCAR speedway has hosted an AMA Supercross round without a break since 1971?

Daytona builds its dirt course between pit road and the tri-oval each year during Bike Week.

On a dirt bike, which control does the rider work by twisting the right handlebar grip?

Throttle twist grips go back to the Roper steam velocipede of the 1860s, and they are spring-loaded to snap back to idle when released.

Which rear suspension part holds a dirt bike's back axle and lets the wheel move up and down?

Swingarm designs took many forms before today's layout won out; the early maker Indian even hung one from a leaf spring.

Which part, also called a yoke, joins a dirt bike's front suspension tubes to the steering stem?

Triple clamp sets come in pairs, an upper and a lower joined by the steering stem, and the handlebars usually mount on the top one.

Which toothed wheel, bolted to a dirt bike's rear hub, is turned by the drive chain?

Sprocket teeth mesh with the chain, the same way a bicycle carries power from its pedals to the back wheel.

Which fuel-mixing device, still used on many motorcycles, has largely been replaced by fuel injection in cars?

Carburetor engines hung on in small machines such as lawnmowers and generators long after cars and trucks switched in the 1990s.

Liquid-cooled dirt bikes shed engine heat through which part, similar to the one on a car?

Radiator cooling matters most for the cylinder head, the hottest part of an engine; other motorcycles rely on air or oil cooling instead.

Which nickname do riders give off-road tires with deep, blocky treads built to grip loose dirt and mud?

Knobbies dig their tread edges into soft ground like cleats on a shoe, but they feel less stable on pavement.

Which guard bolts under an off-road motorcycle to protect its frame and motor from rocks?

Skid plate armor is also fitted to lowered cars, whose underbodies can scrape on ordinary roads.

Which exhaust device must be fitted to dirt bikes ridden on Forest Service land, to prevent wildfires?

Spark arrester rules grew out of the 1950s, when foresters set out to cut the number of fires started by logging equipment.

Which bulging tuned exhaust pipe lets a two-stroke dirt bike make far more power than a plain silencer would?

Expansion chamber pipes end in a narrow tube called the stinger, which deliberately restricts the outlet to raise the pressure inside.

Which thin-petalled part controls the fuel-air mixture entering many high-performance two-stroke engines?

Reed valve petals in racing engines are often made of composite materials, because their stiffness is easy to tune and they are fairly safe when they fail.

Which quick-release piece lets a rider join or split a drive chain without a chain tool?

Master link clips stand in for one pair of the chain's outer side pieces, though shortening a new chain to length still takes the tool.

Which nickname do motorcyclists give a single-cylinder engine, a layout known for pulsing power and heavy vibration?

Thumper engines are simple and compact, which is why a lone cylinder also powers go-karts, chainsaws and lawn mowers.

Yamaha reshaped motocross in the early 1970s by racing which rear suspension design, now the norm on dirt bikes?

Monoshock bikes outperformed the older layout so clearly that vintage competition now keeps the two kinds in separate classes.

Which two letters begin the names of Yamaha's motocross race bikes, such as its 250 two-stroke?

YZ has been on Yamaha's motocross bikes since the first 250 launched in 1974 with an air-cooled engine; liquid cooling arrived in 1982.

The 'cc' in a 250cc dirt bike is short for which measure of engine size?

Cubic centimeters are the same size as millilitres, so a 250cc engine displaces a quarter of a litre.

Which Yamaha factory rider earned the nickname 'Hurricane' for a wild style, often with his feet off the pegs?

Bob Hannah backed up the name with 70 AMA race wins and seven championships between 1975 and 1989.

Yamaha's first motorcycle, the 1955 YA-1, was nicknamed after which slender insect by Japanese fans?

Dragonfly suited the bike's slim shape and chestnut paint, and it won its class at the Mount Fuji Ascent Race in its first summer.

In motocross, which term describes being the first rider through the first turn after the start?

Holeshot riders get to set the tempo, because passing on a tight track can break a challenger's rhythm.

Which supercross obstacle is a long row of bumps that riders try to skim across the tops of?

Whoops share a supercross track with rhythm sections, where each rider picks a different combination of jumps.

James 'Bubba' Stewart changed motocross with which jumping technique that keeps the bike low to cut airtime?

Scrub jumping became a basic skill for elite riders, and Stewart's fame earned him a reality show called Bubba's World.

Which motorcycle sport penalizes riders a point for each 'dab', a foot touching the ground?

Trials riders call a section ridden with no feet down 'cleaning' it, and racers from other disciplines use the sport to sharpen their balance.

Which racing style, born as a 1979 made-for-TV contest, mixes paved road, flat track and motocross jumps?

Supermoto grew out of Superbikers, an ABC Wide World of Sports event designed to find the best all-round motorcycle racer.

The Erzberg Rodeo hard enduro, a race few of its 500 starters ever finish, is held at which kind of site?

An iron ore mine, still worked as an open pit, hosts the race; rarely more than 30 riders reach the finish inside the four-hour limit.

The Leatt-Brace, devised by South African inventor Christopher Leatt, protects which part of a motocross rider's body?

Neck protection of this kind only works with a full-face helmet, and it spread from motocross to karting, BMX and snowmobiling.

Since 2012, the AMA Supercross points leader has raced with which background color behind the bike's numbers?

Red stays on a bike only while its rider holds first place in the standings, so it can change hands from one race to the next.

Which traditional racing color do Kawasaki's factory motocross teams and their bikes wear?

Green is so tied to the brand that many of its racing squads are simply called Team Green, including its amateur motocross support program.

Which Los Angeles stadium hosted the 1972 race that paved the way for stadium supercross, won by a 16-year-old?

The Coliseum crowd saw Marty Tripes win, and the venue went on hosting supercross for most of the next two decades.

Which rider, nicknamed the King of Supercross, won seven premier-class AMA titles between 1993 and 2000?

Jeremy McGrath also answered to 'Showtime', partly for his nac-nac jump trick, which helped to spawn freestyle motocross.

Which freestyle motocross rider co-founded the Metal Mulisha clothing line and debuted its monster truck in 2012?

Brian Deegan was the first to land a 360 in a freestyle motocross contest, and he later won X Games medals driving rally cars as well.

Which stunt rider rode a modified dirt bike on an ocean wave near Teahupoo, Tahiti, in 2015?

Robbie Maddison spent two years preparing for the ride, having already broken the world motorcycle jump record live on television in 2007.

Which rider, deaf since birth, won four AMA women's motocross national championships between 2008 and 2012?

Ashley Fiolek's family moved to St. Augustine so she could attend the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, and in 2009 a factory Honda team signed her.

Which country won the Motocross of Nations team event 13 years in a row, from 1981 to 1993?

United States teams turned an event billed as the Olympics of Motocross into a one-nation show as the sport boomed in North America.

The first known motorcycle scramble, the forerunner of motocross, was held in 1924 at Camberley in which country?

England already had motorcycle contests scored on delicate balance; the scramble arrived when organisers dropped the scoring for a flat-out race.

Stefan Everts, winner of ten motocross world championships, comes from which country?

Belgium also produced Roger De Coster, the five-time 500cc world champion whom the sport simply calls The Man.

Jett Lawrence, an AMA Supercross champion in the premier 450cc class, was born in which country?

Australia claims him through Queensland, and he became the first rider to win his 450cc supercross debut at the season's opening round.

KTM, the dirt bike maker known for its signature orange, was founded in Mattighofen in which country?

Austria was where Hans Trunkenpolz opened a repair shop in 1934, and the motocross bikes only turned orange in 1996.

Which maker claimed the first motocross world championship for a Japanese factory, with Joël Robert in 1970?

Suzuki took the 250cc crown just as Japanese makers began to challenge the European factories that had ruled the sport.

Bultaco, a maker of two-stroke dirt bikes from 1958 to 1983, was based in which country?

Spain supplied the name of Bultaco's first model too: the 1959 Tralla 101 was named after a local word for whip.

Which Oscar-nominated 1971 motorcycle documentary features Steve McQueen alongside racer Malcolm Smith?

On Any Sunday was partly financed by McQueen's own production company, and one of its scenes is thought to have spread BMX riding beyond California.