Debate- Linkage; Is it really vintage??

[Maico31]

You're unreal H-Buddy. So what if i ride a kawasaki, suzuki, honda and maico... Does that make me special? I'm not racist.

[DJRacing]

Linkage; Pre85, Is it really vintage??

Yes, of course it is.

Its a natural progression of eras' (errors ) to the world of VMX.  

The cut off as we know it, 1985, now if my memory is right I was wearing flared jeans or was it stove pipes ?? Oh bugger I can't remember now. But I know I wouldnt wear either now. But if I was alot older would I look at a 1974.5 Maico with layed down rear shocks and say "thats to modern for vintage"? No definately not.
 Lets go back in time, the year is 1975 and a father and a son are at a motocross, and the son says to his dad, "holy shit look at that modern bike, its' rear shock goes up under the tank and seat".  The father replies with, "That bike shouldnt be allowed to race boy, its' just not right, bikes should have 2 rear shocks".  The son walks away thinking stupid ol' man.... Hail the YZ-B
 Weather we like it or not linkage is here and it shows how modern bikes got to where they are today. It also shows where the old bike went over the course of time. And I believe this is more to the point of the vintage motocross scene than what we would believe at times.
  1985;Yes the cut off date is spot on for Vintage Motocross. 1985 and its linkage bikes have a big part to play in the history of motocross and without them the whole story of motocross would be lacking the modern side of vintage motocross.
 
 

[vandy010]

love the father and son bit DJ,
that scenario has crossed my mind in several forms over the years
BUT,
to my way of thinking, if vintage has all these different years of classification to it,
then so do the tracks upon which the bikes will be most enjoyed!
the evo bikes in my opinion would be the winners as they're the most likely to be able to handle both a modern and true vintage track.
the linkage brigade being more closely related to the modern stuff would get bored more quickly on a downpipe friendly track.
vintage bike=vintage track
let the linkages run as a novelty race on modern race days.
oops! i meant support class.

[holeshot buddy]

its ok john i am only tooling around  to get a reaction, i like all bikes i think

[Nathan S]

This thread is insane. What was supposed to be good natured discussion has become a bandwagon for the evangelicals warning us of the pure evil that is pre-90 racing. This is doubly bizarre as (AFAIK) every state has either adopted it, or rejected it, so the debate isn't even on the table anywhere in the country.

Here's a question that I know won't get answered:
Look at the bikes and riders who were racing VMX in '88, and tell me whether the equivilant bikes are riders are being catered for in 2008?

If we were to call pre-90 racing "Classic" or "Clunker" or "Satan" racing, with no use of the word "vintage" would that be OK or not?
It really seems to me that some of the guys who were around at the start of the Aussie VMX movement, think that they own it outright. Dont get me wrong, I'm happy to go with majority rule, but "Because I said so" doesn't cut it with me.

There's a market for pre-90 racing. Maybe it's too soon to be a part of the VMX scene, but maybe the VMX scene also needs to be wary of remaining stagnant while the world moves around it?

Has anyone here got any experience with historic car racing or road bike racing?
What do they do?

[Nathan S]

I'm passionbate about this and know I'm right.

Anyone familiar with the fable of the 5 blind men and the elephant? It seems quite appropriate here.

(It is on wiki, if you are interested)

[cyclegod]

I'm passionbate about this and know I'm right. Any more divisions introduced to the sport will, within a few short years, kill everything I believe the vintage movement stands for. Just think of Old Schools CR500 example and it all comes home. These bikes will kill the sport, full stop.

Copy VMX W.A, which has a strict pre '75 only policy  (Pre'78,EVO,Pre'85 are all lumped together as a sideshow class in the B.S.A clubs modern MX series)
My advice to retiring riders is sell your machines on to younger riders conditional on them joining VMX club racing.

It's like Holden HQ racing, in twenty years time an HQ will still be an HQ but probably driven by a younger person brought to the sport by an older person,
maybe including a junior class will get your young ones into it ?

[Graeme M]

Passionate bunch aren't we? Going back to the original question, I'll say again that linkage is not vintage.

But I think that vintage in this sense is not the concept of a rolling date (ie 25 years ago or whatever). Of course eventually bikes like the first YZ400 4-stroke become 'vintage' to someone but that's only in the sense it's an old bike. To me, the original vintage motocross as pushed by guys like Firko celebrates a specific era in the evolution of the dirtbike scene. It's about what happened in the 60s and 70s which is a very distinct era. It's like say the Hippy phenomenon. Sure there are hippies now, but the flower power generation was a particular period in time.

So, true vintage MX is about twin shock bikes from Pre 78 (speaking of which, how's that register going, Mark?). It's about celebrating a very specific time, and that should never change. Vintage in that sense must be kept pure and venerated for what it is. Maybe in the years to come younger guys join in as the older ones stop riding or take up lawn bowls and veging in the sun. And maybe not.

As the years pass, of course new guys will want to celebrate their youth and join the fold, and YZF400s will become the tool of choice. But that doesn't mean that suddenly the spirit of true vintage has been lost.

And note I am not arguing about what classes to have now or next week. I am arguing that true vintage is twin shocked, drum braked, air cooled bikes and a celebration of a time in history. And linkage is not vintage.

However, there must be some way to preserve that concept AND still embrace and encourage the introduction of new classes. Given the notion of a rolling timeframe, we have to accept that 1988 is 20 years ago, and that means that riders of those bikes are near or into their 40s, an age when all of a sudden the old rosy glasses thing leads them to want to go out and buy the old bike they used to ride and go flog it round a paddock with a few other old farts instead of ageing gracefully and putting some more garden gnomes in the front yard.

Why should these guys be forced to have to ride what older blokes think is OK? It's OK for Firko and me, VMX does embrace the bikes we rode as yoofs. But what about Johnny X who used to race a 1989 CR250 and who now at the age of 39 wants to go get one and race it with a few mates? Is he forced to wait until eventually all of us cark it and then he can do something? Bollocks.

It's my argument, once we start talking classes, that we need to preserve true vintage, but also allow for the effect of the 20 or 25 year rule. That is, every so often, we should open up to include later models. And I personally think that Pre 90 is coming. Even if that means supporting it as a separate concept, like my earlier thread about 80s MX. Or just call it, as Nathan suggested, Satan's MX...

[Maicojames]

You put it in persective, for sure. I think it is just too soon-and a point that was missed was that there really aren't that many 36-42 year olds compared to the older crowd, and the younger crowd.  I raced an RM250 in 89, but even that is really really close.

I like the idea of an obsolete series, etc for anything two stroke at least say 15 yrs old, but again-think the McGrath era will be the next celebrated. To really split hairs, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with up to 87 bikes. That does ,though leave the 87Cr250-with cartridge forks(though how many of these are machined and on bikes now anyway?), but gen 1 powervalve etc. The 88-89 CR250 was another leap.

[090]

What about up to and including pre'78 is true vintage,i dont think there is an argument there. Then lets call the later classes something else, same as cars sort of like Bahnsys scale in this thread. Either put evo into the vintage mold or if thats too hard put it the next 'class' being maybe 'classic'? And pre '85 and pre '90 when it eventually comes in maybe 'retro'.All under the envelope of VMX. No doubt vintage has to be preserved, and no doubt pre '90 will eventually be here.Lets use our collective heads to make sure its done right. I still think if there is pre '90 catered for then it should be a persons second bike, not the only bike. I would like some feedback(constructive not ,thats a shit idea!) on this please

[firko]

Reading back over this thread it would seem that many may think that  I'm a frothing at the mouth pre 75 Nazi with not the slightest respect for Evo or pre 85 class bikes or their owners. In reality I have no objection to the linkage classes whatsoever. It's a natural progression and a positive addition to the VMX movement. In fact I have a genuine soft spot for those 80s bikes, especially the big bores who were fighting a serious horspower war at the time.

My rant is purely a plea to slow down the introduction of newer cut off dates (pre 90 for instance) until the current class structure is being managed properly and the grids full. Any good businessman will tell you that a business must be running at full potential and the books in the black before any thought of expansion is entered into. I believe the vintage "business" isn't running at anything near its full potential so until it is, we should all work towards getting the "company" working properly.
 
Of course pre 90 is inevitable but let's leave it for five years. During that time we can devise methods of preventing the "modernising" of late 80's era bikes that will definitely happen, using Old Schools CR500 test case. If those issues aren't addressed Vintages premier division will indeed clone into a class for old blokes rather than old bikes.

As Jeff Fenech once said ....."I love youse all".

[DJRacing]

I like what you are saying 090(brad) about the whole concept of naming the era. As we have Vintage MotoCross (VMX), why not call or talk about the next era of bikes as "EMX" (Evolution MotoCross). I do not mean anything like a break away from VMX, but more as a sub-group under the same heading.

 For an example, the VMX magazine could have a chapter/section in it called EMX which would cater for the evolution bikes and riders. Once again I strongly say that I am not suggesting any from of a split, in fact the complete opposite.

If someone asked me what sport or passions I liked, I could say, 'I restore VMX bikes" but "I race EMX", or something along those lines.

Yes I know this sound a bit strange, but it does give the distinction between the two eras. And I do believe that maybe its time to look at that. As some of the members here have suggested that Vintage is a place in time, and the newer bikes have their own place in time, so maybe they should have their own grouping.

When vmx first started it was fine to call the bikes 'vintage' but now as time moves on and LTR bikes have come on-board they are grouped under the same banner, but what will we in another 20yrs be calling the bikes that get raced....'Vintage'? or would we feel comfitable calling the older bikes vintage and the next set of bikes EMX? It's just a state of mind at the start of anything new to think that is stupid or dumb, but think back 40 odd years ago when a Japanese man called a motorbike a "HONDA".... what a stupid and dumb name that is?? 40yrs latter and you think nothing of it.

Will anyway its all just food for thought

[Nathan S]

I don't like the idea of VMX mag being segregated into eras - I love the fact that it covers all old dirt bikes without prejudice.
I assume that I am not alone in this view, given it's indisputable status as 'The Bible' among us old dirt bike lovers.

So why are old dirt bike race meets so different?

[DJRacing]

Nathan I'm not trying to to divide or change anything. I used the VMX mag as an example of how an era could be discribed and delivered to the masses, that is all. The VMX mag already caters for these (evolution) bikes. As I said, it was only an example.
   All I am suggesting is that maybe that era of bike could be known as (for want of a better title) EMX. They (EMX Bikes) would still come under the great name of VMX but just as a sub-category. I am not trying to detract anything from them or glorify them in anyway but merely title their era.
   The bikes before 1975 should be known as 'Vintage' as that is where it all started and the bikes from 1975 to 1985 could be known as the 'Evolution' era, hence EMX. I dont really percieve my own bikes (1975 through to 1985) as vintage, but I look at BSA's, Cheney's and bikes like those to be 'vintage'. The decade ('75 through '85) doesnt look vintage to me but that is just my personal thoughts.
   I state decades in here because is seems a natural cut off point to distinquish the changes of the look of the bikes and what people perceive as vintage verses evolution.