Steve Mahre: I Ride - Dirt Rider Magazine

www.mahretrainingcenter.com

"I was so close to the gold in 1984, but I lost to my twin brother (Phil) by .021 of a second. I was four minutes behind him at birth and .021 behind at age 26, yet now I'm faster than he is.""I started riding motocross at age 18. Before that, my dad wouldn't let us ride, but when I turned 18 he said go out and buy one. Two years later I had two bad knees. It's something I love doing and I got away from it for about 10 years, but then my son wanted to play with it some. I said that if he is going to ride, I'm going to ride again. Been back at it for about the last 15 to 20 years."

"Phil and I raced in the summer months to stay sharp and stay in the competitive mind-set of 'I gotta go, gotta go, gotta go.' And the physical aspect of it, it is so much more demanding than skiing--you have to be in shape to ride motocross.""The most crazy or memorable time on a motorcycle had to be the year my brother and I were still racing the World Cup and we had a break for about two weeks. We came home, grabbed our bikes and went and raced a double weekend race in Seattle (Washington). We drove home that night, took a quick shower, jumped on a plane that same night, flew back to Seattle to catch a flight to Europe for the next World Cup. I liked motocross that much that I put my ski racing career at risk in the middle of the winter to race two races on my dirt bike.""When it comes to downhills, I guess I'm more comfortable than most. I remember going to Glen Helen for a crossover event and people kept telling me I was crazy on the downhills, and I said that was the easy part. Uphills and jumps, that's another story. We tried to stay low off the jumps skiing; it is never a distance thing racing in the snow.""To this day I have gone way faster on skis than I have ever gone on my dirt bike. I would say at 85 to 90 mph at a downhill event. I have never gone that fast on a dirt bike.""During our ski racing career, our team pretty much frowned upon us with regard to our dirt bike riding in the summer months. I was on the U.S. Ski Team for 10 years and had six knee injuries, and those originated from dirt bike riding. They didn't like it, but they knew that if they tried to tell us we couldn't ride a dirt bike, Phil and I would have said we were done with ski racing. Skiing was not my entire life and dirt bike riding was part of my life as well."