Every sport has a tier of participant that the media mostly ignores and the industry mostly takes for granted. In motocross, it's the local racer. The guy (or increasingly, girl) who races 30 weekends a year, buys their own tires, does their own suspension, and treats the whole thing with a seriousness that would be impressive in any context but is particularly impressive given that nobody's paying them to do it.
Photo by Martin Pettitt / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
Photo by Martin Pettitt / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
FLY Racing built their brand on this rider. Not exclusively — they had sponsored athletes, they showed up at the nationals, they did the industry thing. But their core customer was always the privateer. The person who needed gear that worked, that lasted, and that didn't require a second mortgage.
FLY's approach to colorways reflected this pragmatism. While other brands were going bigger and louder every season, FLY consistently offered clean, understated options. Their black and grey combinations were particularly popular — gear that looked professional without trying to look professional, that got dirty without looking ruined, that matched everything because it basically was everything.
The brand's construction philosophy was similarly sensible. Use good materials where they matter most — knees, seat area, inner leg panels. Keep the weight reasonable. Make the sizing consistent so people can reorder without trying things on. It's not glamorous product development, but it's the kind of thing that builds a customer base that sticks around for decades.
Vintage FLY gear has a different kind of collectibility than the bigger names. It's not about flash — it's about finding a piece that represents what the sport actually looked like for most of the people who did it. A pair of FLY pants from this era is a piece of real motocross culture, not the magazine version of it.
We've got a pair of vintage FLY Racing pants in black and grey. Real deal, clean condition. Check them out.
Related Reading
- Honda Motorcycles: The Company That Made Everyone Else Nervous Since 1949
- FLY Racing Pants Were the Budget Option. They Outlasted the Expensive Ones.
- AXO Made the Prettiest Jerseys in Motocross. Then They Made Pants to Match.
Header image: Photo: Haroon Yousaf Bhatti, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons