TMX Says: Remembering the good things in life
By TMX Archives on 24th May 17
Its been a pretty depressing week so far what with WSB star Nicky Hayden succumbing to his injuries and the Manchester terror attacks filling our feeds with even more sad news.
My thoughts are with everyone involved...
Both incidents make what I had been planning to moan about this week seem rather insignificant and totally unimportant in the grand scheme of things so I'll park that for now.
Life is precious and I think it's imperative that we all remember that and let our loved ones know they're loved at all times.
It was nice to see the MX community give Thomas Brown such a spectacular send off at his funeral on Monday.
The 27-year-old farmer's cortege brought Barnard Castle to a standstill as a tractor pulled his coffin on a trailer and a procession of MX riders revved their engines as they made their way to the church.
I've heard nothing but good things said about the life Thomas lived and that was backed up by the amazing turnout and respect shown at his send-off.
It reiterates the importance of living a good life and generally being a nice person.
With competition being such a huge part of the sports we're involved in it's way too easy to get carried away and act in a negative way – whether that be complaining at an observer about that five you thought was a clean, or disagreeing with a checkpoint marshal over your arrival time or even worse, coming to fisticuffs over someone squeezing you out in the first turn.
At the end of the day we do this – whether this be motocross, trials, enduro, supermoto, sidecarcross or whatever – for fun and in case you'd forgotten fun is the one that involves having a smile on your face.
If your fun involves frowning then have a quick word with yourself and adjust your attitude – and chops – accordingly.
Heck, it wouldn't even be too much if you proactively go out of your way to ensure everyone else is having a nice day too.
Enquire after that observers well-being, stop and tell a flagger that they've got mud in their hair or turn around to the guy who just passed you on the last lap of a 25-minute moto, smile and say ‘nice ride, mate'.
Okay, maybe that last one is going a little too far but you get the idea...
On the subject of positivity I've heard nothing but praise about KTM's groundbreaking fuel-injected two-stroke enduro models.
The journos who've been lucky enough to ride them so far have raved about their performance, the lack of fuel they use and the bizarre lack of smoke.
With the fuel-injector delivering the optimum amount of gas and the oil-injector delivering lube at a fuel/oil ratio of around 80:1 that ain't too surprising as in theory it's using around half the oil of a regular two-smoker.
But apparently that's ‘nowt' as when I told my old man about it he wasn't impressed at all and proceeded to head into his garage and dig out an ancient sachet of two-stroke oil that he got for free with one of his Maicos back in the late seventies that clearly stated it should only be used at 100:1.
Even so those things used to smoke like old bangers when they were brand-new although I expect that was more down to sloppy jetting and a lack of reed valves more than anything else.
Ahhhh, progress...
