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Ripping the Links With Ronnie Renner
The freeride moto pioneer takes on 18 holes a bit differently than most people.
Part of being a dirt bike rider is perspective: seeing the world as one giant track, with potential booters as far as the eye can see. The world is his oyster. Highway embankments, construction sites, beaches and the ultimate dream — golf courses — are all ripe for a moto ride.
A lot of motocross riders enjoy a casual golf game. James Stewart even made national headlines becausemainstream media don't know a joke when they see one. Then there’s Rickie Fowler, the motocross kid who decided to swing some clubs and just like that he is winning the Players Championship. But every moto rider knows that from tee to green, on 18 holes, he is thinking about what he could do on a dirt bike.
Ronnie Renner is a trailblazer of freeride moto. This week he will be competing for Step Up glory in the X Games again, as well as a bid for the top spot of the inaugural Real Moto video competition, which aims to push freeride into the mainstream spotlight. Renner is no track rat nor a ramp tramp. He prefers to be getting weird on the motorcycle, riding where people don’t ride. Luckily for him, sometimes that means throwing the nine iron in the closet and breaking out the 450.
Renner hit the Riverwalk Golf Course in California with his Polaris RZR and his trusty KTM 450SX-F to live out a fantasy shared by anyone who has ever thrown a leg over a dirt bike. Slashing sand bunkers and eating up fairways may not be a typical way to spend a day at the links, but it is just the sort of thing one can expect out of a freeride icon like Renner.
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