Freestyle Motocross, or FMX as it’s more commonly known, is a variation of the more traditional motocross, which is off-road motorbike racing. The name motocross came from the combination of motorbike and cross-country that the sport consists of. The obvious difference between motocross and FMX is that FMX puts more focus on the daredevil tricks and stunts done while the bike is airborne as oppose to motocross, which is more, focused on the speed and race element.

The two main types of freestyle events are the Big Air and FMX. Big Air is also known as Best Trick and is usually performed on one or two ramps. The tricks are evaluated by a panel of judges who take into account style, difficulty, and course use. The score is then given out of 100. Only the rider’s best score of the three is compared and the top score brings home the bacon.

In FMX the riders are usually in an arena covering about two acres made up of multiple corners and ramps. Again, a panel of judges assesses each rider’s performance considering variation of jumps, technique, flair, and stunt difficulty and awards the rider a score out of 100. The time of the routines can range anywhere from 90 seconds to 14 minutes.

Freeriding is the original freestyle motocross and consists of similar tricks, but performed on public land using the earth’s natural features. This is not usually competitive.

Notable FMX games include: X-Games, Big-X, Moto-X Freestyle national Championship, Dew Action Sports Tour, Night of the Jumps, and Gravity Games.

Prolific international FMX Riders: Carey Hart, Travis Pastrana, Mike Metzger, Brian Deegan and Nate Adams.

If you love water, motorbike racing and the act of combining two good things to get one ultimate good thing, save time by putting the two passions together and get yourself into personal water craft racing. What’s the difference between a personal water craft and a Jet Ski? Not a lot really. A Jet Ski is a just a specific brand (Kawasaki) of personal water craft. Popular brands include Sea-Doo and Waverunner.
There are three main events in personal water craft racing.

Watercross
Watercross is pretty much motocross on water – a closed course race with water craft riders all pitted against one another. Riders start in a side-by-side gate like motocross. Speed and technique are crucial elements in the watercross races where ramp jumps and other obstacles are incorporated into the tightly buoyed circuit.

Freestyle
Freestyle is the most extreme of the events, designed to highlight the athletes’ acrobatic ability on their water craft. Competitors’ routines consist of a series of choreographed tricks usually performed to music and judged by a panel of judges.
Popular tricks include: aerial barrel roll, yellow submarine, kilowatt flop, and bull doggin’.

Endurance
Endurance events are the long distance races designed to test both the reliability of the water craft as well as the stamina of the athlete. Also known as offshore racing, racers compete head to head or in multiple laps through the designated course. Race lengths usually vary and can often allow for refuelling stops.

BMX is an acronym for bicycle motocross. That makes sense because motocross that was the source of inspiration for the young daredevil kids in Californian kids in the 70’s that started the phenomenon.

Coming a long way since then BMX is now a legitimate Olympic sport having debuted in 2008 Beijing Olympics. The inclusion into the Olympic realm has since swayed public attention of the sport with newcomers fast partaking in the sport.

BMX is both the bike and the sport and covers both racing and freestyle.

There are six domains of the freestyle BMX: dirt, flatland, park, vert, street and a newer discipline of big air. The latter is usually contested in a stadium using a large drop-in ramp. Apart from vert, these all imply the type of surface used for jumps and tricks. Vert BMX uses a ramp, such as a half pipe or quarter pipe to make large jumps called aerials.

BMX dirt racing is held on non-paved circuits of around 350 metres in length with man made obstacles like ramps, jumps and banked. Usually races are short and sweet but as each rider is obviously there competing against the other they’re geared up for a good amount of action.

Flatland BMX focuses on balance and smoothness of execution of complex tricks.

Park BMX is performed in a closed of area with multiple types of ramps and rails.

Street BMX sees the rider using readily available obstacles on the street, such as handrails, buildings, kerbs and banking, to pull stunts.

So, there’s a huge amount of scope for you to get into BMX, depending on your area of interest.

Never heard of it before? You’re not the only one.

While it may be familiar among the more adventurous of us, base BASE jumping is a phenomenon more commonly known to parachutists, skydivers and action movie addicts. However, it’s considerably more dangerous. In 2002, its death toll was estimated to be one in 60. Definitely a good one to sort the men from the boys, it’s considered by many in the extreme sport world as being on the fringe of a sport and more like a stunt.

The acronym ’BASE’ lists the objects that a jumper has to jump at least once from in each category to attain a revered BASE number. These categories consist of buildings, antennae (or uninhabited tower such as an aerial mast), span (an arch or more commonly a bridge), and earth (usually a cliff or other natural structure).

BASE numbers are assigned consecutively to each jumper who applies for and is awarded one. Each BASE jumper has their own individual number. Base-1 was awarded to Phil Smith of Houston, Texas in 1981. There are well over 1000 registered BASE jumpers worldwide. Not all of them are still alive!

The catalyst for modern day BASE jumping originates in the free loving days of the ‘70s. In 1978, filmmaker Carl Boenish filmed the first BASE jump as a stunt for his movie El Capital in Yosemite National Park. From this start, the majority of BASE jumps were done using standard skydiving equipment. By the time the ‘90s rolled around more specialised equipment and techniques had been developed specifically for BASE jumping as a stand alone sport – fringe or not.

If you’re thinking of giving it a try you’re going to need the right equipment. You’ll also need the know-how in getting permission to jump off your BASE as well as the area you’re going to need for landing. Unfortunately, most owners of  appropriately massive buildings are generally reluctant to have people jumping to their possible death off of them. These small details can generally pose a regular hassle for most daredevil jumpers. As you can imagine, a lot of jumps are covert. Getting caught jumping off a BASE that you haven’t received permission to do so off can lead to charges such as vandalism, breaking and entering, reckless endangerment, and trespassing to name a few. These charges are also likely to be given to those who accompany the jumper such as the ground crew.

If you’ve just had a read all this and you’re still keen to give BASE jumping a try, just don’t say you haven’t been warned…

Image credit: www.wikipedia.org