ASK THE MXPERTS: THE 60-HORSEPOWER HAND WARMER

No one is forced to put their hand over the silencer end cap, but there are good reasons.

Dear MXperts,

The thing that bothers me most is when riders reach their right hand back and hold it over the end of the exhaust pipe and blip the throttle with their left hand. I see riders do this all the time, even in MXA bike test videos, and it drives me crazy. There is no fathomable reason to do this, so why do you guys do it?

Riders do this for a wide variety of reasons: (1) In layman’s terms, it is a quick way to test for engine warmth before committing to revving the engine. It takes a well-educated hand to do much more than discern the gross temperature, but that is a workmanlike guess. (2) On a cold day, a rider will put his gloved hand over the end of the exhaust pipe to warm his throttle hand before the race starts. (3) There are riders who use the heat of the exhaust to warm up the leather in the palm of their glove so it can be stretched to eliminate bunching up. (4) Many riders do it because they saw someone else do it on the starting line years ago and copied it. And, during the stress of waiting for the gate to drop, every rider falls back on familiar rituals. We don’t see why this should bother you. If you don’t like it, don’t do it.