Canadian motorcyclists hate winter, and with good reason. Nothing ends your riding season more quickly than three feet of snow and freezing temperatures. But in Europe – particularly Russia – it takes more than that to end the racing season. Ice racing isn’t particularly popular in Canada; we have the Numb Bum endurance race, and there is a CMA-led national series as well and a couple regional championships out west, but we’ve never really heard of any spectators attending these for fun, and the people who ride them are generally considered a bit mad by other motorcyclists. Not so in Russia! Once it gets too cold for things like speedway and invading Ukraine, the Russians turn around and run their speedway bikes on the ice, in front of a stadium full of fans. In fact, there’s even an FIM-sanctioned ice series with races across Scandinavia and northern Europe. Canadians in general would probably shy away from such a fantastically fun spectacle if it ever visited our shores, but thanks to the miracle of YouTube, you can still see what those events are like in the video below. Enjoy!
That was awesome. Cold, but totally, uh, cool. Yeah. That.