Stunt Out An XR50 - Fiddie Sense

It's not easy to attract attention on Hollywood Boulevard. Movie stars, iced-out hip-hop artists in $200,000 Italian supercars and whacked-out weirdness like a man on roller skates playing an electric guitar with the amp strapped to his back are everyday sights on Hollywood Boulevard. Even in this hyper-stimulated environment, though, the guys from TightFX managed to stop traffic as they rocked 12 o'clocks down the Walk of Fame and cut tight circle wheelies around the stars in front of the legendary Grauman's Chinese Theater during our photo shoot. At one point, a few of Hollywood's ubiquitous (and half-dressed) adult entertainers even hustled up and offered the TightFX guys a "starring role" in their next "reality film" -a trick-for-a-trick, so to speak. Only in Hollywood, where everyone's dreams (and nightmares) come true.

So, besides the unbridled adoration of porn stars everywhere, what would make a group of grown men park their 150-hp sportbikes for good in favor of a two-hp, 10-inch-wheeled playbike designed to be ridden by kids one fourth their size? In a word: fun. There's very little stress or pressure involved in stunting a 50cc bike. A torquey motor and tiny size make wheelies a breeze, and you can master the basics of fiddie stunting in a few hours with little risk of hurting yourself-speeds are low, and hey, there's not far to fall if things go wrong! Crowds, as we found out on Hollywood Boulevard, love fiddie stunts too-TightFX rider Sean Sargiotto says it reminds them of going to the circus and seeing fat clowns on minibikes. "No matter what they did, just seeing a fat man on a tiny bike made you laugh. It's just funny," Sargiotto says.

"Fat men on tiny bikes"-we hardly think this is the image that Aaron Clark and Kenny Cross, the founding members of TightFX, had in mind when they first got together to stunt fiddies two years ago. Clark had been riding a Suzuki GSX-R at the time, but an addiction to wheelies soon found him with no points left to spare on his license. Clark parked the Gixxer and purchased a XR50 for off-street kicks instead and hasn't looked back since. Cross, on the other hand, got turned onto 50cc bikes much earlier. His stunt ride of choice is an unconventional 1986 Honda Z50 that Cross has owned since it was brand-new, which gives you some idea of how long he's been into this scene.

Once Cross and Clark started riding together and pushing each other to perfect bigger and better tricks, things really started heating up. Soon TightFX was formed, which now numbers five riders, including Cross, Clark, Sargiotto, Brad Reynolds and Jay Luna. Just two years into this thing and already big things are happening for TightFX: The group has appeared in local music videos and national-release DVDs like "Attack of the Fiddies," and has been invited to appear in shows all around California and the greater Southwest. Clark says the group would love to do a big-time music video or a full-length motion picture (no, skin-flicks don't count), but until Spielberg calls, they'll stick to riding fiddies as a way to escape the stresses of day-to-day life.

Fiddie stunting is remarkably easy to get into, the guys tell us. Sargiotto says his XR is basically stock except for a few bolt-on performance parts; same with Clark, who just added an aftermarket BBR throttle, skid plate and Alien exhaust. And they are almost impossible to break, too, Reynolds says, with a bomb-proof, air-cooled engine and no radiator to split or wide engine cases to crack open when you fall over, unlike a big bike. Reynolds says that his '03 GSX-R1000 has basically become a 400-pound dust collector that holds down the garage floor ever since he purchased his XR50.