On The Pegs November 2019 - Volume 4 - Issue 11 | Page 101

On The Pegs
Vol. 4 Issue 11 - November 2019
101
After success in supercross, motocross, and off-road racing, Ryan Sipes
decided to forgo any chance at a championship in 2019 (except the ISDE, but
more on that later) and teamed up with Red Bull to try to make claim to be-
ing best overall motorcycle rider today.
He’s chronicling the whole experiment with a Red Bull video series called
General Sipes. We got on the phone with Ryan to get some insight into how
his year is going, what he’s learned, and how being selected again to be on
the US World Trophy Team for the ISDE factors into the whole experiment.
When you retired from motocross and supercross racing full-time, what
were your goals and your options and your plans?
I could have kept doing it. Obviously 2013 wasn’t my best year. I didn’t have a
great supercross [season]; I had some okay success outdoors on the 450. At that
point to be honest I had just gotten married and my wife had a kid when we met.
I was not having as much fun as I used to have racing dirt bikes. I wanted to be
home and be a dad. So I just kind of decided I’m going to go home and hang out
in Kentucky. I had always had my eye on doing some off-road stuff down the road,
and went to the last GNCC that year and kind of met the KTM people and every-
thing. I went and did ISDE on the club team as kind of just an intro to off-road and
to see if I was any good at it. One thing led to another and I got a little bit of sup-
port and then jumped into the GNCC.
What or who helped you the most adapt from motocross to off-road?
I’d have to say Steve Hatch, for sure. I had worked with him from my supercross
days from ’08 or ’09, all the way through my supercross days. It seemed a little
crazy to me, but I would go to his house in Arizona and we would ride off-road to
prep for super-cross. The first couple times I’m like, ‘This guy is a kook. Why would I
ride this? I need to be pounding laps on the supercross track.’ But every single time
I would go there, ride off-road, and then come back to the supercross track and do
better. So doing some of that I learned a little bit about off-road, and also grow-
ing up we never got to go down south to Florida or wherever to ride during the
winter. We just rode in the woods in the wintertime. We didn’t race in the winter.
We just kind of rode, because that’s what you had to do to get away from the mud.
Long story short: Steve Hatch and grow-ing up in Kentucky were the two things
that kind of helped me to adapt to off-road.
During most of your career, you’ve had traditional contracts. This year