Red Bull X-Fighters Jams: motorcyclists up in the air
Hair-raising aerial acrobatics will be the order of the day when motocross comes to Central for the Red Bull X-Fighter Jams
Have you everwondered how it might feel to be suspended mid-air hanging from a soaring 100kg motorbike - apart from very frightening?
"It's one of the closest feelings to flying without a plane," says professional daredevil Nick Franklin, who will be performing at Hong Kong's first ever freestyling motocross event in April alongside three other "FMX Fighter" legends Gilles Dejong (Belgium), Marcin Lukaszczyk (Poland) and Marcus Dubois (Sweden).
"You're floating in the air, you're weightless and everything feels so light," he says, adding that, although it is an amazing experience, living with and working through fear and threat of injury is all part and parcel of a sport in which a spectacle is made of performing crazy-looking tricks to a incredulous audience and panel of judges.
The 33-year-old, who was brought up on a New Zealand farm, first found himself behind handlebars at the tender age of 10, taking part in motocross races alongside other fresh-faced dirt bike enthusiasts. Most FMXers start off this way, according to Franklin. "It's important to learn to crawl before you can run," he says.
"I feel like I started later than loads of other kids. Some started at six - some as young as four - I begged my parents for years before I got a motorbike."
It was only after a number of years racing on solid ground that Franklin found himself drawn to the more airborne side of motocross. Watching footage of madcap motorcyclists Crusty Demons in the '90s, whose pioneering efforts to take jumps and flips across mountain terrain, sand dunes and over houses inspired a generation of young adrenaline junkies drawn to a "X-treme" lifestyle.
"When you see the tricks you think - these people must be clinically mad. And of course there's risk involved ... and it can be scary… it's not really another day at the office," he says, adding that pushing past your limits and overcoming your fears is something you should be doing every day because it helps you sleep better at night knowing you've stared down your demons.
Not all tricks and flips are created equal, however - some are more dangerous than others, with revolutionary methods of training being brought in to make feats which once seemed impossible now far easier and safer to achieve than before.
One such trick, the backflip, was once considered the stuff of video games and fantasy - not something to be achieved in real life. Franklin, however, was one of the few to manage it back in the day, in 2003 when training didn't involve flipping into foam sheets.
"I learned the backflip straight to dirt and I think I crashed about 25 times before I made it round," he says. "It was really gnarly, but I was young and when there's something you really want to do - well, you've got to do what you've got to do."
Franklin is excited to be coming to Hong Kong to throw down some flips alongside his freestyling friends in this concrete jungle of a city where space is far too short in supply for the scene to flourish as it has elsewhere.
Despite these limitations, interest in the sport is growing, with glitzy Macau show House of Dancing Water featuring a FMX segment put together by Franklin's freestyling team. And local motocross freestylers who train at the city's only registered site in Sheung Shui, MX, will show their skills alongside Franklin and friends in the April 4 event.
One of them, Carina Lai, is particularly enthusiastic as it will give the Yunnan-native who moved to Hong Kong seven years ago a chance to meet Franklin, one of her idols. The 28-year-old became enthralled by the sport eight years ago after being taken to watch a competition with a friend. "I love this sport so much," she says. "If anyone took my xiao bai [little white] motorbike away I would go crazy."
The daughter of a nurse and teacher - who had to convince her parents her motorbike obsession wouldn't put her in too much danger - is the only female performer at the event. "Some guys tell me it's too dangerous for girls," she says. "But I tell them motocross is for everyone."
Franklin agrees, adding that though female riders are few and far between, when he comes across them, he does think they're pretty "gnarly".
"Girls can do anything a guy can do," he says. "Anyone with a dream should just follow it. As long as you're riding a motocross bike and not, say, a pizza scooter, these tricks are safer than they look."
