Here at Dirt Bike Planet, we are all passionate about the outdoors and the feeling of freedom that comes with tearing up the trails on motorized vehicles of all types, but mainly, dirt bikes! This is one of those sports that draws you in with the promise of adrenaline, adventure, spectacular sights, and a whole lot of thrills along the way! That’s what makes us love dirt biking so much!
Below you can read a little more about the authors here at Dirt Bike Planet!
Jim Harmer
Hi fellow rider, I’m Jim. The first bike I shared with my brother, was basically a 40cc Briggs & Stratton lawnmower with handlebars. That little toy opened up a world of fascination and excitement! After we abused and destroyed that we were given an old Vespa by Uncle Les… not exactly a dirt bike I know, but that’s how we treated it. A year later the ‘red rocket’ was cremated after many good times thrashing it through the deer paddocks. A green-tanked Suzuki road-bike was kindly gifted to us by a friend not long after that, only to be put to rest in its grave prematurely also.
With the thirst for a proper dirt bike ever so strong, my brother bought an ’89 RM 125. I’ll never forget the exhilarating feeling of the powerband kicking in for the first time while riding through our neighbor’s vineyard. After working all of my school holidays for the next 2 years, I bought my very own 1991 RM 80 at the age of 14.
I have been riding on and off between travel for the last 21 years, and currently ride most weekends, mainly free riding in sand dunes and hitting MX practice tracks. I love the feeling of being let loose on a track or farm and hitting new jumps I haven’t jumped before. I still dream about owning my own property with a motocross track out the back, sitting on the back deck after a ride with a cold one in my hands, watching my mates coat each other in dust… ahhh perfect!
My aim is to pass on some tips and advice that I have picked up over the years of riding and offer it to you in the form of a helpful, informative, and entertaining dirt bike website.
Keep riding,
– Jim
John “Wild Man” Hayes
My name is John Hayes, or as my friends call me, “The Wild Man”. I’m not sure why exactly that name stuck, but I’ve done a few stunts in the past that have had a few of them shaking their heads. I guess at times I like to take risks, but always well-calculated ones (I’m a bit on the nerd side of things, despite my nickname). I first starting riding on a blue motorized scooter my old man got when I was a kid. I have no idea who built it or where it came from but it looked like an old homemade mini bike.
I remember burning my legs on the exhaust, getting shocked on the poorly placed spark plug, and slipping off the seat as a kid, just to grab the throttle and have that thing do a wheelie before slamming into the retaining wall in our backyard. It was good fun. As I grew up, I always loved motorcycles of all types but didn’t get serious about riding again until about the age of 21. That’s when I got my motorcycle license, a street bike, and tons of gear.
I loved street bikes but there was another passion of mine deep down… the outdoors. Who wants to ride through traffic when you can ride through trees, right? That’s why I inevitably got interested in the dirt bike world! Now I write for Dirt Bike Planet and although I was once “The Wild Man”, I’m now a bit of a book worm. I really do enjoy researching and writing on all the technical aspects of this amazing sport and relaying to the other riders here what I learn.
So I’m doing what I can to give fellow riders out there the knowledge they need to tear it up on the trails with their bikes so they can earn their own crazy nicknames!
Welcome to our world… our planet, this is the “Dirt Bike Planet”!
– John