What exactly is a red sticker bike? What's the difference between a red sticker and a green sticker bike? These are questions I was blissfully unaware of until about 2015. My friend David invited me on a camping trip. At the time he had a quad runner. It was an old Yamaha 350 Warrior. While talking about it, he mentioned that it was a green sticker. Now me being a hick from the state of Illinois, I had never heard of red sticker or green sticker, so I asked what he meant by that. He said well, a green sticker can be ridden at the state parks all year round, but the red sticker can't. In my mind that sealed the deal for me right then and there. If I wasn't able to ride my bike for part of the year, I didn't want that kind of bike. Anyway, it turns out that the great state of California in 2003 decided to classify certain bikes as racing bikes. these bikes were deemed to be polluters. They were to be called red sticker and could not be operated on state park land from June 1 through September 30th. I'll tell you what. If you like riding as much as I do, that's a very long time! Bikes made before 2003 were all considered green sticker and can be ridden at the SVRA's year round. So, at the time, the choice seemed simple, green sticker was the way to go because it allowed you to ride the dirtbike all year round. But, like most things, it's not that cut and dried. See, I started out buying a 1996 Honda XR 400. A vey solid, dependable bike that I highly recommend as a starter bike. However, while riding this bike, you are likely to encounter other riders on other machines. These you may find intriguing. I know I did. I decided to move up to 2002 Honda CRF 450R. Now this bike was quite a step up. The last year of the 450R that was green sticker. I still have this bike and I still love it. If you are an enduro rider, you will love this bike. Plenty of power with great reliability. I call this "My green sticker bike." The one thing this bike does not have is electric start. This is really not a big deal most of the time. If you know your bike, you can usually start it on the first kick even if it's been sitting for a few months. However, there are times when you go down on a hillside and electric start comes in handy. So I start checking out some of the newer bikes with electric start. I settled on the 2015 KTM 450 SX-F. truly a badass machine! Mostly I say that because orange is my favorite color. This is a red sticker bike. I will tell you, I have a blast on whichever bike I happen to be on. Red sticker, green sticker, no sticker, it doesn't really matter. Which type is for you? Well, that depends, doesn't it? I think the main questions that you should ask yourself are where am I going to ride? How serious am I going to be? How much am I going to spend? These questions will all determine whether you want red or green sticker.
