The Bike Was Better Than Me
What a small circuit and a BeOn 250 taught me about speed, humility, and choosing skill over ego.
I went back to a small circuit at 51, wearing a second-hand leather suit and with no illusions about my level.
That was probably the smartest part of the day.
The test came through Raúl Cívico, CEO of BeOn Automotive, and an old friend from my Derbi years. He invited me to try one of their bikes on a karting circuit.
I had been thinking for months about returning to track riding.
But not in the usual way.
Not with a superbike.
Not with a Supersport road bike converted into a track toy.
Not with the fantasy of going fast on a big circuit and pretending I am younger, braver, or better than I really am.
I wanted something smaller.
A karting circuit.
A lighter bike.
Lower speeds.
More corners.
More technique.
More repetition.
Less ego.
That was the theory.
Then I rode the BeOn 250.
And the first clear lesson was brutal and useful:
The bike was better than me.
Not slightly better. Much better.
The chassis, the suspension, the brakes, the gearbox, the engine, the precision of the whole thing. Everything was operating at a level far above my current ability.
It did not feel like a toy.
It did not feel like a beginner bike.
It felt like a real race bike made smaller, sharper, and more concentrated.
That is both the beauty and the problem.
The BeOn 250 does not need more power.
I need more skill.
There is an old saying in motorsport: "it is not the arrow, it is the Indian"
That day, the arrow was clearly better than the Indian.
And I do not say that as false modesty.
I say it because it was the most valuable information of the day.
A good tool tells you the truth.
A bad tool flatters you, hides your mistakes, and lets you believe you are better than you are.
A serious tool does the opposite.
It gives immediate feedback. It punishes lazy inputs. It makes you aware of every bad habit. It shows you where your body is late, where your eyes are wrong, where your braking is messy, and where your posture collapses.
That is uncomfortable.
It is also exactly the point.
At my age, going back to circuit riding should not be about proving anything.
I have no interest in chasing the biggest bike, the fastest straight, or the most dramatic story.
I am much more interested in creating a practice I can repeat.
That distinction matters.
An experience is easy to buy.
A practice is harder to design.
The motorcycle world often sells intensity.
Noise. Speed. Photos. Adrenaline. Heroic language.
But intensity is not the same as progress.
In fact, intensity often gets in the way of progress because it makes you confuse fear with learning.
A small circuit removes part of that illusion.
There is less speed, but more information. A lot. And very fast.
Less drama, but more repetition.
Less room to hide.
A small circuit gives you more corners per minute, more braking points, more body position mistakes, more exits to fix, and more laps to compare.
It is less glamorous than a big circuit.
That is why it is more useful.
After the test, Raúl and I kept talking.
I told him I was not sure the BeOn format was for me.
Too narrow.
Too Moto3.
Too racing.
Too much engine, too much brake, too much suspension for what I need right now.
My instinct was to look for a middle ground.
A classic cheap pit bike does not attract me. A Honda CRF150 minimotard looks beautiful and honest. A 250 with serious power feels like too much for a karting track, at least for me.
Somewhere in the middle, I imagined a small, serious, adult track bike.
Low.
Reliable.
Not ridiculous.
Not intimidating.
Not pretending to be Moto3.
Raúl pushed back.
He reminded me that BeOn was born from exactly the opposite fight: taking away the high handlebars and tall suspension of motocross-derived bikes to create a real circuit motorcycle.
He also made a safety point I could not ignore.
In karting circuits, tall supermoto-style bikes can create ugly, stupid injuries. More height means more leverage. More leverage means clavicles, wrists and shoulders can pay the price.
He was probably right.
And I was probably also right.
That is where the useful tension lives.
The solution may not be a pit bike.
It may not be a BeOn GPschool either.
It may not be a supermotard.
It may be something in the middle.
Or, more likely, the real solution is not yet choosing a bike at all.
The real solution is to keep showing up.
That is the uncomfortable answer because buying is easier than practicing.
Buying a motorcycle gives you the immediate sensation of progress.
You can research, compare, negotiate, collect gear, talk about specs, and imagine the future.
It feels productive.
But the track does not care what you bought.
The track only cares what you can do.
Can you brake properly?
Can you release the brake without disturbing the bike?
Can you turn with your body instead of your arms?
Can you stay loose?
Can you use your legs?
Can you repeat the same line ten times?
Can you learn without rushing?
Can you accept being slow long enough to become less slow?
That is the real test.
The BeOn 250 made this obvious.
It gave me a clean answer to a question I had not asked properly.
I do not need more motorcycle.
I need more laps.
And that is why I liked the BeOn experience so much.
Not because it made me feel fast.
It did not.
Not because it made me feel like a rider again.
Not yet.
I liked it because it was honest.
BeOn has built something serious. The bike felt engineered, precise, and purposeful. It was clearly made by people who understand racing, not by people trying to sell a lifestyle object.
It did not try to comfort me.
It did not try to entertain me cheaply.
It showed me the gap.
At 51, that is exactly the kind of hobby I am interested in.
Not something that flatters me.
Something that keeps me honest.
Something that exposes the distance between what I think I know and what I can actually do.
The question after the test is not whether I should buy a BeOn.
It is not whether I should buy a CRF150 minimotard.
It is not whether I should build some perfect middle-ground machine that exists mainly in my head.
The question is simpler and more demanding:
Am I willing to go back?
Because if I go back enough times, the right bike will become obvious.
And if I do not go back, then the bike never mattered.
June 2026