KTM’s Ryan DungeyWhen ESPY Awards (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award) began in 1993, motorcycle competitors were way off the radar.This changed in 2007, when Travis Pastrana earned the ESPY Award in Action Sports, bringing motocross to the forefront of popular media through ESPY Awards host, ESPN. Pastrana’s double backflip at the 2006 X Games (height of the Nitro Circus DVD era) helped him win the award over two other nominees – Ricky Carmichael and James Stewart.
But Pastrana was the last motocross start to receive an ESPY award – until this year. At ESPY Awards 2015, two-time Monster Energy Supercross Champion Ryan Dungey received the top honors in the Best Male Action Sports Athlete, overtaking popular riders in disciplines such as skateboarding, BMW, snowboarding and surfing.The 25-year-old Minnesota native topped the Sport Athlete in the ESPY Awards 2015 as he is chasing his second Lucas Oil Pro Motocross title. After seven of 12 rounds, Dungey has a 44-point lead over the reigning MX Champion Ken Roczen.Dungey will also always be tied to KTM, accomplishing much history for the Austrian brand. Dungey, who joined KTM in 2012 following his first AMA Supercross title in 2010 with Suzuki, is now contracted to ride the Red Bull Factory KTM SX-F450 through 2017. Dungey gave KTM its first 450 Supercross win (Phoenix, 2012), its first 450 Motocross title (2012), and its first 450 Supercross title (2015).Following his top honors at ESPY Awards 2015, Dungey has once again showed that motocross is as mainstream as the other popular sport games.
Hello everyone and welcome once again to Ultimate Motorcycling’s weekly Podcast—Motos and Friends.
My name is Arthur Coldwells.
This week’s Podcast is brought to you by Yamaha motorcycles. Discover how the YZF-R7 provides the perfect balance of rider comfort and true supersport performance by checking it out at YamahaMotorsports.com, or see it for yourself at your local dealer.
This week’s episode features Senior Editor Nic de Sena’s impressions of the beautiful new Harley-Davidson Low Rider ST that is loosely based around the original FXRT Sport Glide from the 1980s. Hailing from The Golden State, these cult-status performance machines became known as West Coast style, with sportier suspension, increased horsepower, and niceties including creature comforts such as a tidy fairing and sporty luggage.
In past episodes you might have heard us mention my best friend, Daniel Schoenewald, and in the second segment I chat with him about some of the really special machines in his 170 or so—and growing—motorcycle collection. He’s always said to me that he doesn’t consider himself the owner, merely the curator of the motorcycles for the next generation.
Yet Daniel is not just a collector, but I can attest a really skilled rider. His bikes are not trailer queens, they’re ridden, and they’re ridden pretty hard. Actually, we have had many, many memorable rides on pretty much all of the machines in the collection at one time or another.
From all of us here at Ultimate Motorcycling, we hope you enjoy this episode!
