He’s tired, he could use a shave, but he’s oh-so-happy about his team’s win in the 4-rider team division of last year’s 3,000 mile Race Across America
The motorcycle racing fans among our racers next Saturday will recognize one particular racer on the starting line; three-time AMA Pro champion Micky Dymond is coming to race the 12 Hours of Weaverville on his new KHS bicycle as part of his training for October 3-4’s WEMBO World Solo 24 Hour Mountain Bike Championships to be held on the same course.
There’s a lot of crossover between motorcycle racing and mountain bike racing, with many amateur and pro level racers being passionate about bikes with pedals as well as bikes with motors. Dymond is on such racer;. He won the US 125cc Motocross Championship in 1996 and 1997. He was so in tune with his factory-backed Honda racer that when he decided on a whim to enter the 125cc GP of Brazil at Belo Horizonte where he handily beat a field of international stars, establishing himself as the fastest 125cc rider on the planet. Dymond remained one of the most popular US motocross racers for a number of years before retiring from the grueling sport.
Before being picked up by the powerhouse Team Honda, Micky Dymond paid his dues aboard a factory-backed Husqvarna. Here he is at the 1984 Saddleback, CA. AMA National where he rode his outdated Husky to 4th place against racers aboard superior Japanese equipment.
Years later he returned to the world of throttles as one of the pioneers of motocross freestyle, the sport whose participants perform amazing feats of aerobatics aboard motocross motorcycles. Dymond was also involved in the sport of SuperMoto, a racing form that combines aspects of motocross with road racing on courses comprised of sections of dirt (including jumps) and pavement, and amazingly won 2005 US pro championship in that sport, 18 years after his last motocross title. At age 51 he remains one of that sport’s most popular and successful stars and routinely beats riders half his age. And he’s still involved in producing Freestyle shows and each year he races a road motorcycle in the Pike’s Peak Hillclimb, an event that he’s won.
The Legends of the Road on the victory stage at last year’s Race Across America. The team finished the grueling 3,000 mile race in 5 days and 11 hours.
Through all of this Dymond also had a passion for bicycling, which he used to train for his grueling motorsports. “And I’d always had an interest in the Race Across America (RAAM),” he said in a recent interview. “I know how people can look at the things I’ve done on motorcycles and can’t get their head around how anyone could do these things—that’s how I looked at RAAM. I knew how hard I could ride and how far I could go and to go 3,000 miles—that’s just beyond reason.” In 2013 Dymond’s interest in RAAM developed into a plan for him to compete as a solo in 2014.
He began training in earnest and developed into a true UltraCyclist, winning the RAAM Challenge 200 mile race in Sacramento. In the end Dymond opted out of racing RAAM solo and put together “The Legends of the Road, a 4-rider team consisting of Dymond, Dave Mirra, the most decorated X Games athlete of all time; Ben Bostrom, an AMA Superbike, Supermoto, and Supersport Champion who after retiring from professional motorcycle racing became a professional mountain bike racer; and Dave Zabriskike, a 7-time US National Champion professional road bicyclist who has competed in the Tour de France and has won a stage of the Giro d’ Italia. The team won the 4-rider team division and came very close to breaking the 4-rider team record.
It is surprising that a racer with motocross in his blood has never raced mountain bikes. Yes, the 12 Hours of Weaverville will be his first ever mountain bike race. But there is no doubt that the guy has incredible skills for all thing 2-wheeled, is super-strong, super-fit and shouldn’t have any problem in being among the front runners in next week’s race.
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