If you've ever flipped through a motocross magazine from any decade, you've noticed something: blue and red are everywhere. Not as a planned thing, not as a league mandate, just as this persistent gravitational pull that the sport has toward primary colors on dirt.
Photo by Martin Pettitt / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
Photo by Kev / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0
Part of it is practical. Motocross happens outdoors, in natural light, against brown dirt and green trees. Primary colors — especially blue and red — read clearly in those conditions. A rider in earth tones disappears into the landscape. A rider in blue and red is visible from the grandstands, visible in photos, visible on the starting gate when there are forty other riders in the frame.
Part of it is cultural. American motocross has always had a patriotic undercurrent — the sport grew up in California in the 70s, drew heavily from the military-adjacent culture of desert riding, and the red-white-blue palette just felt natural. Honda's red, Yamaha's blue, and suddenly the two most popular bike brands in the country had claimed the two most visible primary colors.
Part of it is design math. Blue and red are complementary in the way that design schools teach about — they create maximum contrast without clashing, they each make the other more vivid, and they work on every skin tone and in every lighting condition. Gear designers figured this out early and never stopped using it.
FLY Racing's blue and red pants from this era are a perfect example of the colorway done right. Not ironic, not referential, just clean primary color blocking that does exactly what it's supposed to do: look fast and be visible. The design hasn't aged because it was never trendy in the first place — it was just correct.
We have a pair of vintage FLY Racing pants in this exact blue and red colorway. One pair, original condition. See them here.
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Header image: Photo: Haroon Yousaf Bhatti, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons