Pit Bike Popularity Grows and Grows

As we have discussed on our blog before, the pit bike has an interesting history – from its early incarnation as a simple push bike with a small engine attached it has evolved in power, design and popularity to become a sport and a discipline in its own right.

Originally used in the pit areas of race tracks across America (hence ‘pit’ bike) as a quick and easy way of getting around, their popularity has taken off since the late 1990s as people realised that this type of bike had much more potential than just being used as a run around. Honda renamed their famous Z50 to XR50, modified it slightly to be more suitable for racing, and the pursuit of pit bike design perfection was on.

Since these early days, pit bike races and meets have popped up all over the UK and USA and their popularity has grown enormously. A quick internet search will show the level of interest in pit bikes and mini motos (along with increased interest in all things off road, including dirt bikes, buggies and quads), as clubs, organisations, race meetings and parts suppliers abound, along with discussion forums about everything from last night’s meet to new bike designs and developments. The fact that there are pit bike pros touring the US circuits now making a living purely out of race money and sponsorship shows the level of growth that has taken place in the industry over the past few years, with sponsors obviously feeling comfortable that they will get a decent return on in investing in the discipline’s most talented stars.

There are a variety of fully-fledged pit bike or mini moto racing series in the US, but the biggest event of the year is the Las Vegas Mini Supercross, where the pros pit their wits against each other (no pun intended!) in an effort to outshine their rivals. In the UK there are no big pit bike events as such to date (although there are hundreds of local tracks and events regularly across the country), but as the popularity of the sport continues to increase it is only a matter of time until the industry becomes big enough to support a full-on national race meeting.

So if this is a sport you like the look of, now is definitely the right time to get involved as the industry looks set to grow and grow.