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Hi, welcome to 2026. I hope you had a good time over the holidays. Saw some friends, loved ones, ate some good food. Listen, are you doing okay? That's alright. We're all having a hard time right now. Do you maybe want to watch some Gundam with us? There's this series I've been meaning to show you. It's called G Gundam and it's a little different from what we've been watching so far. Call it a breath of fresh air. I think you'll enjoy it. But before we get to that, there are a few other things we want to talk about. First, during season 10, Victory Gundam, all the bikes and bike battleships doing sick jumps and tricks got Nina thinking about the sport of motocross. Where did it come from? What was it like in the early 90s? And how might the bikes of the Middle Ages, the ancient tradition of biking, and Mr. Dukarik himself have been perceived in modern Japan? Once I finish these preliminaries, I'll let her take it away. With the first of two episodes covering the results of that research. You'll get the second one next week and the week after that. G Gundam begins. As always, patrons will get each episode early, plus a watch along track that we recorded when Nina watched G Gundam's first episode for the very first time. Speaking of the Patreon, we have a few announcements to make about it too. In the seven years since we launched the MSP Patreon, a lot of things have changed in the global and American economies. You may have heard about some of them. We've kept the Patreon benefits the same for as long as we could, but we've now reached the point where we need to make a few changes. The full details of what we're calling the Patreon Refresh are explained in a post on the Patreon, so I won't go into them in depth here, but the gist is that we are no longer going to be able to offer most of the physical gifts and merch that we have previously sent out to patrons. Instead, we're going to offer more bonus content and on a more regular schedule. These will primarily be bonus episodes, including more UN Gundam, more discussions of non Gundam anime and movies, as well as resuming our Witching Hours series about the witch from Mercury. But we're also exploring other ideas. We will honor our existing commitments to current patrons. Anyone who is currently signed up for a Patreon tier that includes physical rewards, or who signs up for one by the end of January 2026 and meets our other criteria will be eligible to receive one final gift box. We're planning to make it special. We will also continue making our annual patron Pin and sending those out to eligible patrons for as long as we can. Due to circumstances, last year's pin never got sent out, but it does exist. They're sitting on a shelf across the room right now, staring at me, judging me, saying mean things about my appearance. I want them out of my apartment. We've also ordered this year's pins, so A Rare Opportunity now presents a double pin event. We will be sending both the Year six and Year seven pins together to all eligible patrons. How do you become eligible to take advantage of this rare opportunity? Well, simply be a patron in one of the eligible tiers as of January 31, 2020 26. Some restrictions apply. The details and pictures of the year 6 pin are@gundumpodcast.com Patreon finally, what about the Yugoslavia Research series I started during season 10? It was meant to be background for our discussion of Victory Gundam, which was made during and explicitly inspired by the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Once Upon a time, my plan was to cover the first 70 or so years of Yugoslavia's existence at a breakneck pace, two, maybe three episodes maximum, before I focused my attention on the 90s. But I quickly realized the topic deserved and required more depth than that. So I decided to get a bit more detailed. Cover the major turning points, that kind of thing. Following that approach, I was able to bring the narrative up to May 1944 when, when the Nazi occupation armies failed in their last serious attempt to snuff out the partisan uprising before we ran out of victory to watch, I was left feeling sour about it. I had set out to cover the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and I hadn't even gotten to its formation. Once the hiatus started, I decided I was going to continue the project properly. I could feel myself morphing into some kind of history podcaster. But I'm not a history podcaster. I'm a Gundam podcaster. And while I would love to do a whole miniseries on Yugoslav history right now, I also want to watch G Gundam with Nina and talk about it with all of you. So once again, I'm going to make a compromise. We're going to start covering G Gundam, but for one weekend each month, I will slip it back into my history podcaster disguise. And instead of your regularly scheduled dose of high kicking robot on robot violence, I'll be dropping a new episode of the Yugoslavia Research when victory ended in March 1994, the Yugoslav wars were only just getting started. Alongside the Rwandan genocide and the wars in the Caucasus, they were the defining conflicts of the mid and late 90s, continuing essentially without interruption until 2001. G Gundam and its successors may not have been as explicitly inspired by them as Victory was, but the wars have not lost their relevance, and so neither has the region or its history. Plus, it's fascinating. I want to keep reading and writing about it, and I think you're going to enjoy hearing it. But that's the future. For now. Here's something else I think you'll Enjoy. Nina presents MSB's History of Motocross.

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Between Dukarik and the various motorcycle inspired mobile suits and battleship designs, biking, which in Japanese can refer to either bicycle or motorcycle riding, looms large in Victory Gundam. Fight scenes set in the desert among rocky canyons evoke images of motocross racing and trick riding demonstrations, while Dooker's ghostly departure from the world setting off into the sunset on a motorcycle, his love riding behind him feels like the quintessential motorcycle fantasy of the baby boomer generation, the freedom of the open road. During MSB season 10, we speculated about possible reasons for this. Perhaps motorcycles were popular at the time and and the prominent moto inspired designs were meant to appeal to youngsters already interested in biking and extreme sports. Or perhaps the formerly popular activity was becoming more niche and Duker is a stand in for someone or a group of someones on the production team who hoped to spark interest in biking by showing their audience how cool motorcycles and biking can be. But we only ever speculated and motocross languished on my research ideas list until now. First things first, there is a story to why motorcycle inspired designs were included in Victory Gundam, and it is much sillier than I anticipated. For his website Gundam Unofficial, Mark Simmons compiled the production history of Victory Gundam from numerous sources, which includes Excerpts from Sasakibara Go's 2004 book that's Wie Gundam. In it, Sasakibara interviewed Tomino about the production, and Tomino blames the inclusion of stupid things like motorbike battleships on a shadow producer at Bandai. But this producer hadn't demanded motorbike battleships, just battleships. They had a few ideas of what to them seemed popular with kids at the Battleships Sentai shows, and they had a track record that made them confident in their ideas and their ability to force the issue. It was Tomino, in a moment of sarcasm which he surely regretted later, who said, I'm paraphrasing somewhat. Then we'll put in battleships that run across the ground. How about that? We'll stick tires on them. If we're really going to have battleships float and fly around on the surface, we could even have motorbikes fly around, right? Tomino may have been trying to point out how ridiculous it was to shoehorn battleships into Victory, but the Bandai executive's response was more along the lines of wow, cool motorcycle battleship. And Tomino was told he would be forced off the production if he refused. Bandai even provided the Victory team with some preliminary bike battleship designs originally created during the planning stages of the 1986 anime Metal Dragonar. Dooker Eek, with his personal obsession with reviving the ancient art of biking, was added to the cast to create an in universe justification for the existence of these motorcycle inspired mobile suits and battleships. And yet, I can't help but feel this doesn't tell the whole story. After all, the designs themselves, the way the bike mobile suits move and the way the battles are choreographed are all products of a team of people and of their knowledge, impressions and attitudes about motorcycles. So prepare yourselves to get into the weeds on this one as I dig into the history of motocross and along the way learn a fair bit about the science, business and drama of motorcycles. Contemporary motorcycles can be sorted into different types meant for different cruising motorcycles which are built for comfort and reliability on long rides street racers which are all about speed, balance and maneuverability on paved roads and tracks off roading motorcycles which need special frames, tires, shock absorbers and so on in order to handle uneven terrain, jumps, dirt, rocks, mud. But it's important to remember that this is an example of divergent evolution. The earliest motorcycles were generalists with design and engineering developments pushed by the needs of specific market segments. For this research piece, I've chosen to focus on motocross rather than on motorcycle racing more generally. Not only because the terrain in many of the Victory Gundam battles combined with the motorcycle inspired designs feels like a nod to that specific style of racing, but also because in my recollection, the 90s felt like a real high point in terms of public interest in extreme sports, but in the earliest part of the timeline, both in Japan and internationally, the distinction isn't as important as it will become in the post war period. Motocross usually takes place on purpose built tracks, but rather than the paved tracks used for other types of racing. These tracks are dirt, mud, gravel and have hills, gullies, bumps and jumps. A kind of souped up natural terrain incidentally the term motocross is a combination of the French word for motorcycle, motociclette and cross country as in cross country race. Fun tidbit I learned while doing this research. Bmx, the sport of off road bicycle racing or bicycle tricks is named for motocross. It is bicycle motocross and emerged from kids racing their bicycles on unused motocross tracks. Motocross races are usually some number of minutes plus some number of laps, for example 30 minutes plus two laps. In most pro races, this duration plus laps is called a Moto and one event is generally two motos, with each driver scoring points based on how they place in each and the motos scored differently to prevent ties. A rider who places second and first in respective motos will score higher than one who scores first and then second. There are subtypes within motocross. Supercross events take place in stadiums and so have smaller, tighter courses. An uncle took me to a supercross event when I was little and I remember it being very fun. Freestyle events focus on performing tricks for points rather than on racing and there are even motocross races for motorcycles with side cars, sidecar cross. Apparently the passenger has to use their weight to counterbalance on tight turns and other maneuvers. It's described as quite physically demanding. Off road racing evolved from motorcycle trials held in the UK in the early 1900s, the oldest being the Scott Six Days trial first held in Yorkshire, England in 1909. Named for Alfred Angus Scott, engineer and designer of the Scott motorcycle and organizer and sponsor of the trial itself at the time, these events were stress tests meant to demonstrate the reliability, durability and handling of the motorcycle as much as the skill of the rider. A course was laid out over the rugged northern English terrain, including bogs, rocky sections and stream crossings. While top speed was not the objective of the event, a time limit was included requiring participants to move briskly from one observed section to the next where their ability to negotiate obstacles was judged and scored. The victor was the rider who completed the course with the fewest mistakes in the shortest possible time. Riders might cover as many as 100 miles per day on each day of the six day trial across a wide variety of terrain and in all kinds of weather. The Scott six day trial has its own website where they describe the sport of observed motorcycle trials as a test of riding skills where balance and concentration are paramount in one major difference from racing competitors feet cannot leave their foot rests for the duration of each section, even as they negotiate steep gullies, slippery rock slopes, streams or boulder strewn gorges. By the early 1920s, the Scott trial had become quite a prestigious event and had contributed to the notion that Yorkshiremen were the best and toughest riders in all of Britain. Unsurprisingly, this sparked a bit of regional rivalry, and in 1924 a club in Camberley, Surrey, organized an event of their own, intended to give them a chance to demonstrate their skills on home turf. However, despite the difficult terrain of the course itself, the event was planned as a race. No observed sections, no scoring, just finishing the course as fast as possible. This created a difficulty for the sport's governing body, the Auto Cycle Union, since it meant the event was not in fact a trial, they'd have to sanction it under some other name. Different sources give different origin stories. In one, a club member opined, whatever we call it, it will be a rare old scramble. In another, a racing commentator described the action as a bit of a scramble. But regardless of who came up with it, these kinds of races came to be called scrambles, with the Southern Scott Scramble On March 29, 1924, the first official example of the type. This was notably an era in which British motorcycle manufacturers were some of the best, for example, BSA or Birmingham, Small Arms, Norton and Triumph. And so conditions were ideal to foster new competitive sport. Potential competitors had access to the equipment and support personnel they needed, and motorcycle makers had an interest in sponsoring events that let them pit their motorcycles against their competitors. In Japan, the first machine which might be classified as a motorcycle, was imported in 1899 and was steam powered. The turn of the century saw some additional motorcycle imports by individuals and corporations, including The Ishikawa Trading Company of Tokyo, which in 1907 began to import Triumph motorcycles from England. Imports increased, and by 1909, several companies were assembling motorcycles locally from imported engines and and locally manufactured everything else. Bicycle racing was already hugely popular, and the first motorcycle races were held in conjunction with bicycle races, and many were on dirt tracks, though these tracks were flat and did not have the off roading terrain of later motocross races. The first independent motorcycle race was in 1913 at the Hanshin horse race course in Osaka. In this era, motorcycles were an interest for mobos, or modern boys, generally wealthy playboys with an interest in imported Western culture and goods, things like Western clothing, watches and photography. Mobos preferred imported motorcycles over anything produced locally, and when it came to racing, made in Japan models were just not competitive. Throughout the 1910s and 20s, imported motorcycles from the United States and Europe continued to be popular. An initial lack of demand drove local manufacturers to abandon motorcycle production. But this was a brief interlude. By the early 1920s, a new group of Japanese automobile manufacturers and parts makers were determined to develop motorcycles to rival those from abroad. It was in the mid-1920s that motorcycle racing really took off as a spectator sport. According to one source, it was not uncommon for a motorcycle race to attract 30,000 paying spectators, a tremendous crowd for any event in Japan. In those days, participants were mostly motorcycle dealers, although some enthusiasts had also organized racing clubs. The biggest sponsors were national newspapers, but wealthy sportsmen, cities and even villages also put on races throughout Japan. Although these races took place on dirt tracks or dirt roads, they still lacked the obstacles and variety of terrain that characterized motorcycle trials and scrambles. In 1927, Tada Kenzo became the first Japanese racer to participate in in the Isle of Man TT or Tourist trophy, and in 1934, a team of American racers were invited to Japan for the Yokohama Port Festival Exhibition where they raced for at capacity crowds and became local celebrities, mobbed by fans everywhere they went. Then the outbreak of World War II hit pause on Japanese motorcycle racing and manufacture of racing bikes. Unfortunately, few sources I found discuss off road racing in any other part of the world until after World War II. It's possible that we simply do not have records of any sanctioned official races held elsewhere in the 20s and 30s. Or more likely, I'm hitting the limitations of searching primarily in English. Either way, it was in the post war period that motocross became more standardized as a racing format and off road racing became an international phenomenon. Time for a sidebar because this next era of the sport, both in terms of the technology and engineering involved in and in terms of how the competitions were regulated and organized, involves some terminology that warrants explanation. And while not strictly necessary, I'd like to get into some detail about how motorcycle engines work because writing about it helped me finally understand certain things I hadn't before. Motorcycle races are often subdivided into groups based on the bike's ccs or cubic centimeters. Think of this as being like weight class in combat sports. In biking, ccs, also called displacement, refers to the displacement volume of the engine's cylinders. CCS roughly correlate to overall engine size and horsepower. The cylinders in question typically number one or two for off roading or trials bikes, or four for street racing bikes like those used in MotoGP. With many possible arrangements and configurations that I won't get into and plenty of examples of motorcycles with more cylinders than that, though most of those are one off concept bikes or custom builds, the fewer the cylinders, the Simpler the engine Obvious, right? But the simplicity or complexity of an engine has a ton of knock on effects on a motorcycle. Simpler, smaller engines tend to be lighter, less expensive to buy, and cheaper and easier to repair. However, engines with fewer cylinders also produce less power and torque, can have uneven power and acceleration, and vibrate a lot, making them less comfortable to ride. Internal combustion engines burn air and fuel to push a piston. The piston is connected to a rod and crankshaft, which converts the up down motion of the piston into rotational motion, which then powers the rear wheel of the motorcycle. Here, stroke refers to the piston traveling up or down in the cylinder. The number of strokes in a two stroke or four stroke engine refers to how many strokes make up one power cycle or one revolution of the crankshaft. In a four stroke engine, the first stroke is intake, the second compression, the third is combustion, and the fourth is exhaust. As one source put it, high school shop teachers trying to hold the attention of hormone addled teens will sometimes use the more memorable terms suck, squeeze, bang and blow. In the first or intake stroke, the intake valve opens above the piston. As the piston travels down, drawing in a fuel charge, you can think of it as the engine inhaling. In the second or compression stroke, the intake and exhaust valves close while the piston moves up, compressing the fuel and air above the piston. In the third or combustion stroke, the intake and exhaust valves remain closed while the ignition system fires the spark plug, which ignites the compressed fuel and air mixture, causing what is basically a small explosion and pushing the piston back down. This is the step that delivers power. And in the fourth or exhaust stroke, the exhaust valve opens while the piston is traveling back up, expelling burnt fuel and air through the motorcycle's exhaust system. You can think of this as the engine exhaling. Four stroke engines require a larger cylinder head because the cylinder head has to house the intake and exhaust valves. Connect to the intake and exhaust tracts contain the spark plug. There's a lot going on in there. And although most contemporary bikes have separate oil systems for lubrication and cooling, in a four stroke engine the crankshaft is contained by what is called, helpfully, the crank case. There it sits in an oil bath and when it spins, that action slings oil into the other parts, such as the cylinder walls, the crank and the rod bearings, which helps keep them lubricated. A two stroke engine combines intake and compression in a single stroke and combustion and exhaust in a single stroke, generating power every time the piston moves downward, rather than every other time. Instead of intake and exhaust valves in the cylinder Head, there are ports in the cylinder itself which are covered and uncovered as the piston rises and falls, and these control intake and exhaust. This makes the cylinder head much smaller since it's basically just a cover that holds the spark plug. Another significant difference is that in a two stroke engine, the crankcase is part of the intake tract, so the crankshaft cannot sit in an oil bath. Instead, two stroke engines burn mixed fuel and oil, and residual oil from the fuel mixture is what lubricates the cylinder walls, crankshaft, etc. As the piston travels up, it creates a vacuum below, drawing in a fuel charge through the intake tract, specifically the crankcase. A vacuum operated one way valve allows fuel and air in, but prevents them from being pushed back out away from the combustion chamber simultaneously. This compresses the fuel charge above the piston. The spark plug ignites the compressed air fuel mix above the piston, forcing it down, which generates power and forcing the fuel charge below the piston. The one which was drawn through the crankcase when the piston was traveling up through a transfer port and into the space above. The exhaust is expelled before a new fuel charge takes its place. Amazingly, this is all managed through very precise placement of various ports. Each type has its own pros and cons. Four stroke engines have a longer power stroke which generates more torque and their weight. They have a heavier flywheel, which is necessary to maintain crank inertia between combustion strokes. Gives them better power and traction at lower rotations per minute, as well as better engine braking. They also have more linear and predictable thrust throughout the rev range, which is to say, if I've understood correctly, smoother acceleration and they have cleaner exhaust since they don't burn oil. On the con side, more parts and a heavier flywheel make the whole engine heavier, though the weight difference has been decreasing and this negatively affects acceleration and handling. Four stroke bikes tend to be more expensive up front and to be more difficult and expensive to service, although one source said they require service less often. On the other hand, two strokes deliver more power than four strokes of similar displacement. What one article described as mind melting power delivery. Dangerously so in some people's opinions, since it can be difficult to maintain control over the bike under that kind of acceleration. A lighter bike tends to be easier to maneuver. Two strokes tend to be cheaper up front, and their simplicity, in that they have fewer moving parts, makes them faster, easier and cheaper to repair. At the same time, in older bikes, the rider would have to premix the oil and gas themselves. Newer designs eliminate the need with automated oil systems and the minimal lubrication leads to greater wear and tear so certain parts need more frequent replacement. The exhaust pipes for two stroke engines are generally large and thin walled, making them easily dented and damaged. The engines are less fuel efficient and the exhaust, which is described as smoky and contains a fair amount of unburned gas, is worse for the environment. Technical Sidebar Complete in part two of this research piece we will look at off road racing Post World War II, a period of expansion, innovation and formalization.

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Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded and produced by us, Tom and Nina in scenic New York City within the ancestral and unceded land of the Lenape people and made possible by listeners like you. The opening track is WASP by Misha Dayakson. The closing music is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio. You can find links to the sources for our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the Lenape people, and more in the show notes on our website gundampodcast.com if you'd like to get in touch with us, you can email hostsundompodcast.com or look for links to our social media accounts on our website. And if you would like to support the show, please share us with your friends. Leave a nice review wherever you listen to podcasts or support us financially@gundumpodcast.com Patreon you can find links and more ways to help out@gundumpodcast.com support thank you for listening. Sam sa.