Tried it in the past....not for me.
I moved at one point, had to get out of the city-life. Found a place to rent, which was adjacent to an old landfill. I had a YZ125 and a WR200, loved both of them but rode the WR FAR more than the 125, mainly because when I lived in town, there was no place to ride a dirt bike...but the WR would "pass" for a dual purpose. Anyway, someone pushed up a half hearted attempt at a MX track on one corner of the old dump. Wasn't too bad but it was a TOUGH course, everything was real tight, rarely ever got out of 2nd gear. One of the guys who was frequenting and taking care of it was a well-known (at least in this are) MX'er who I knew as "boner". Yes that was his nickname, and I was afraid to ask why. Anyway, he was pretty good and went on to run a factory bike out west. Many times we'd be out at the track, I on my little YZ and him on his RM250. Many times he'd comment after a moto that I outta try getting on a factory team. I didn't want to. I was into drag racing and the moto-x stuff was just for fun. 'Course I sure can't do much bike riding now with back problems but it was fun for a while!
What was interesting was that the little WR200 was nearly as quick around that tight track as the YZ125 was and the WR is more of a trail bike. It had the power but the suspension and transmission were where it was really hurting. 'Course after tens of thousands of miles trail riding it (literally...it had an odometer that read out to 9999 then rolled over to zero's, and I turned it over a bunch of times) it finally gave up the ghost, seized the crank, I didn't want to put any money into it and gave it to a buddy for free. He wanted a bike and I had one, and he had the ability and motivation to fix it.
In '99 I bought a used brand new (guy bought it new and seized the engine, I bought it a month and 6 days after he bought it brand new at the dealer) YZ400. Hard to start that beast. I got it going and liked the bike, trail rode it quite a bit. Some buddies and I were riding from the house to the dump to watch the fireworks which involved riding down a street for about 1/4 mile, then turning off onto a trail. I was last in line. I remember getting hit, then laying on a windshield of a car trying to grab hold of whatever I could to hold on, found the wipers and held on for dear life. As it came to a slowdown in a curve, I climbed off and rolled through the ditch a couple times. Never saw the car again but I still remember the license plate number. If I ever find out who it was...anyway Bike was destroyed, but thanks to a helmet, I was mostly fine, although my back has never fully recovered. That was mostly my last full time riding, other than some ATV trail riding which I miss but it's now only a memory.
In 2001 my neighbor gave me a Yamaha RD400, broken crankshaft. Crank not available from Yamaha so I had to send it off to have repaired in Florida. I got it going, and liked the bike. It was fun, but one day on the way to work it started vibrating and then lost all power. Zero compression on left cylinder, 130 on the right. Piston not moving on left. Gave the bike away because I wasn't about to put another $700 into the engine. Wish I'd have kept it.
