Something new I thought we would do here on Pulpmx.com is take a look at the Tao of Ryno. Ryan Hughes, a great Instagram follow, often times will provide us with some enlightening words (usually while driving).
Here’s episode 1 about greed:
“Hola, everybody! How are you today? Just driving down the road, minding my own business. Haven’t talked to you in a while, so I’m going to rant a little bit. What I see in this sport is I see a lot of greed in this sport, so much greed. And greed not meaning, not even knowing where it’s coming from. So, let’s start with the parents and the sponsors. To me, the parents and the sponsors are so greedy for that kid, that athlete to be successful. One, the sponsor wants to get everything they can out of them, and as soon as they can’t get anything out of them, they’re just a dirty tear-off and we throw you in the trash. But we pushed you so hard that now you’re just a broken bucket of bolts. The parents are so greedy for the kid to be successful because they’re running out of money, the dangers of the sport, or they see what little Johnny’s getting also, so they’re pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing their kid without developing their kid, without teaching their kid, without educating their kid of the sport. Then we go to coaches. We go to coaches and I see so many coaches and I hear about so many coaches just lap times and motos, lap times and motos, lap times and motos.
Well, what do you think you’re doing to a kid that’s under-developed? What do you think you’re doing to a kid that doesn’t have a lot of riding age to him? Yeah, he’s 15 years old. Yeah, but he’s only been riding or racing for three years. You need to have a lot of racing age, riding age to be able to be pushed. A lot of these kids and 99% of these kids at this amateur level aren’t ready to be pushed. So, I see these kids come to me, and I’m like, were these coaches or were these trainers blind? Did they not see what I saw the first lap of all these imbalances? So, if you’re only working on lap times and motos, well then you’re just imprinting that imbalance. You’re imprinting that weakness in that rider even deeper, and then it’s going to take longer to get out. Because remember, 500 reps to teach you the one way. 5,000 reps to re-teach you. So again, if you’re always just working on speed, speed, speed and you have imbalances, well you’re just ingraining those imbalances even deeper. So, don’t be so greedy about putting your arm around some kid that you think is going to be fast, or making kids so fast. Let’s develop these kids. All right? Now, promoters.
Promoters, hey, you took the responsibility of putting on races. You take the responsibility of the riders’ careers. So, when you go back to 1990 and you look at Mammoth and you look at that track, you’re going to be blown away at how rough it was, how long it was, and how better prepared it is. Now so many tracks are just becoming like little BMX tracks. Little funny jumps in the middle, little funny jumps in the corner, little berms on the outside. Oh, yay! But they’re not developing riders. Yes, for the 50, 60, 80 rider, B, C rider, okay.
But what about the pro rider? See, this is the thing. I go to all these local tracks and I see all these amateur pros just hanging on by a string – hanging on by a string because there’s nothing there. And if they make one mistake, they have one injury, if they lose one sponsor they’re fucking done. There’s no development. There’s no progress to getting these kids to be to the top of the race. Because remember, 99% of all you racers will never make it to the amateur pros. 99% of you amateur pros will never make it to the pros. And 99% of you amateur pros that made it to the pros will never make it a career because a career in this sport is ten years at the top. Okay? So, we need to make sure that we have better progression. We need to make sure that we’re not so fucking greedy on trying to push these kids that aren’t ready. Then these kids get to a trainer and they put this huge workload on these kids that don’t have any training age. They haven’t been training for one, two years solid. You need to have three, four, five years’ solid training before you can put this workload that all these top riders can do that you’re trying to put onto an amateur. You understand? You can’t push riders too fast in this sport. There’s too much consequence to it. It’s too difficult. There’s too many things to work out. So, you need to have a little bit more patience. You need to educate the rider, so that when he gets to the top, that he has a better answer for it. Now, the road to it. You think that an amateur pro is going to come away and be ready for Red Bud coming from Pala qualifier, Loretta’s, or Mammoth? No. It’s not going to happen. These little five-lap motos aren’t going to get him prepared. These smooth tracks aren’t going to get these riders prepared. I’m looking at their future. I’m looking at the development of riders, not just right now. Okay?
So, I feel just like supercross, we need to have an east/west amateur nationals. What about four races on the east, four races on the west to get these kids ready for the tracks, the way that the race works, watching the top riders do it, so then now they have a better understanding of it just like Europe does. Europe to me has a farming where they develop the riders to get them into the MXGP, where they are solid, strong, confident riders, not just a dime a dozen where, oh, you didn’t make it? Sorry. You just spent your whole life and your mom and dad just spent all their money trying to get you this career and we only give you one shot and we didn’t prepare you, because the sport doesn’t really give a shit about you because we’re just caring about money and fame. All right?
So, hey. I’ve done this sport for 38 fucking years with an absolute obsession. I’ve done it wrong in many ways, and I have taught the sport how to do it right. So again, my way now is about being progressive, about educating and about being patient. Not being wild, not riding over your head, and not being greedy for speed. Okay? Just my little rant today, boys and girls. Hope everybody is having a good day. Peace.”
