{"id":5910,"date":"2020-10-08T19:33:44","date_gmt":"2020-10-08T19:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/?p=5910"},"modified":"2025-12-02T23:01:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T23:01:12","slug":"downtown-open-live-in-chicago-oct-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/?p=5910","title":{"rendered":"Colby Raha shatters the stock Harley-Davidson World Record with a jump of 205 feet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Dan Beaver \u00b7 Published August 6, 2025 03:28 PM<\/p>\n

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Rockstar Energy athlete Colby Raha added another chapter to the thrilling tales of derring-do on August 2, 2025, when he jumped a stock Harley-Davidson V12, weighing 550 pounds, 205 feet at the Thunderdome in Sturgis, South Carolina, shattering a record that stood for 15 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime anybody risks their life or does something that could be dangerous or life-threatening, their body tells them not to do it,\u201d Raha told NBC Sports before the jump. \u201cThere\u2019s no way of getting around the nerves. But some of the legends in the past, or myself, we know how to turn off the fear and go for it. … Putting the fear aside and being willing to risk it for the reward. The message is to anyone who wants to try and make a living or do something they\u2019re not comfortable doing, taking a risk in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daredevil feats on motorcycles predate motorcycle racing itself and could arguably date back to couriers in World War I, as brave men on both sides of the trenches risked their lives to deliver critical messages from one point to another. Soon after the conclusion of the war, Pro Motocross was born out of the Scrambles in England, contests designed to identify the best of these motorcycle riders, much like auto racing was created to determine which moonshiners or revenuers had the greatest skill and fastest cars.<\/p>\n

Jumping motorcycles is another matter altogether, involving math, geometry, and velocity. In the early days, this involved a lot of trial and error. For Raha, it hasn\u2019t changed all that much. He keeps notes, of course, but the truth of the equation is unknown until he is mid-air.<\/p>\n

What does it take to be the greatest motorcycle jumper of all time?<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of experience a lot of guts and a lot of fun \u2014 and a lot of broken bones\u201d Raha said.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>\"Coly<\/picture>\n
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Rockstar Energy – Colby Raha Record Breakers<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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For motorcycle jumping, the standard-bearer has long been Evel Knievel, and his spirit lived on in Sturgis. Sporting leathers tributing Knievel, Raha gathered a crowd of thousands to see if he could beat Seth Enslow\u2019s record of 183 feet, set in 2010 in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did that on a Harley-Davidson Sportster, but he used dirt bike suspension, so he chopped the frame, made custom modifications. I\u2019m opting out of using more travel and bigger suspension and making modifications. I\u2019m doing it on a stock bike, so although I already hold the record for (a stock bike) distance jump, I\u2019ll be attempting to break the furthest distance jump of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raha had some unforeseen complications, and until Saturday morning, there was an open question of how much speed he could generate in the run-up to the ramp.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re having a tough time here in Sturgis with the parking lot we\u2019re provided,\u201d Raha said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really short in-run, so it\u2019s really difficult to get up to speed, which makes it not only more risky but difficult \u2014 hard to get up to speed. We were up to 1 o\u2019clock last night jumping with the lights on, and we\u2019ll do the same tonight (the night before the jump), so a lot of hard work, but at the end of the day, you still have to set out to do and I gave my word I\u2019m going to go for the world record, so I\u2019m going to go for it whether I\u2019m feeling as ready as I can be or not. I\u2019m still going to hold it wide open and send the 550-pound bike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riding his bike back and forth in the parking lot was like pacing at more than 70 miles per hour. The parking lot was not long enough, so Raha had his team create a makeshift bridge across a drainage ditch, which allowed him to extend his run-in by a few feet plus the width of a dirt road. That also created three different acceleration surfaces that needed to be factored into his mental equations.<\/p>\n

To give him a visual confirmation of his jump, a line was painted on the landing ramp at 183 feet. Raha\u2019s first Jump attempt was a little short with his back wheel almost touching the line. His second and third jumps were slightly longer and would have broken Enslow\u2019s record, but Raha had the magic number 200 in mind.<\/p>\n

Across the dirt road, over the wooden bridge, and over the asphalt of the parking lot, Raha had a tricky speed target to hit. He also changed his form on the final jump. In the first three jumps, he landed flat, and the nose of his bike dipped down, given the shape of the ramp. On Jump 4, he kept the Harley\u2019s front wheel high \u2014 so high in fact, that it looked like he was pulling a wheelie on the landing.<\/p>\n

Raha may not have known his exact distance after the fourth jump, but he knew he had cleared the painted line \u2014 and more importantly, he knew he was done. Raha pulled to the side of the parking lot and picked up his wife for the ride to the top of the ramp for the celebration.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my God; I feel like I\u2019ve run a marathon,\u201d Raha said after the jump<\/a><\/span>. \u201cWhat the heck. What the hell was that, huh? Four jumps; I know we had our math right. There were a lot of sketchy jumps leading into getting this right. My crew said 77. I went 77. We landed perfectly; I executed it perfectly three times in a row, and the last one, I left the throttle on. And this landing is small, going that big, and I landed flat. That was a violent landing. I held on for dear life. I felt like Knievel on that one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a classic stamp in history: the furthest Harley-Davidson jump of all time. We just pulled it off. A lot of hard work goes into this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mid-speech, Raha turned to listen to another man on the landing ramp: \u201cWe just got confirmation. It\u2019s an official world record: 205 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a>\"Raha_Record_Breakers<\/picture>\n
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Chris Tedesco – Rockstar Energy – Colby Raha Record Breakers<\/p>\n

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It was fitting that Knievel was still on Raha\u2019s mind because, in some way, the daredevil from the 1970s was responsible for Raha\u2019s career choice.<\/p>\n

Raha began riding and racing dirt bikes at the age of three, which was one way of bonding with his father. They watched videos of Knievel\u2019s jumps, and Raha\u2019s thoughts took flight along with Knievel\u2019s bikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a ton of experience jumping a Harley or a V-12 motorcycle,\u201d Raha told NBC Sports. \u201cHowever, I built a replica setup to what Evel Knievel used at King City for the furthest jump of his career in 1974; he went 130 feet. I come from a construction background. I was a framer, so I was able to build an exact replica landing of what Evel Knievel used and then I build a takeoff ramp to match it. I hosted events on my property, open to the public to show up and watch, and I was able to get my feet wet in the industry, the daredevil world of jumping Harleys. It was just kind of a test for me and I was able to learn a lot from those jumps: that my landing ramp was too steep or my takeoff ramp was too mellow. On this one, I\u2019m taking what I learned \u2014 math, geometry, miles per hour, speed and things \u2014 and I\u2019m bringing it to Sturgis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what made Evel Knievel so entertaining to watch and such a courageous guy is that he jumped a bike that wasn\u2019t made for jumping. These Harleys don\u2019t have suspension, they have a three or four inches of travel for maybe a speed bump or a pothole. They\u2019re not made to jump hundreds of feet, so that\u2019s why the current record hasn\u2019t been broken in more than 15 years. That\u2019s why there aren\u2019t a ton of people lining up to go 200 feet. I think I\u2019m the only one that\u2019s willing to risk it and do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raha is willing to do it over and over.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it is easy to see where inspiration comes from and why Raha needed to make that fourth jump. In June 2025, Raha broke another record for the longest jump landing on a flat surface<\/a><\/span> at the Palm Springs Surf Club. That jump measured 200 feet, one inch.<\/p>\n

More records are planned. In fact, that is why his official Website page is named RecordBreakers.co<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dan Beaver \u00b7 Published August 6, 2025 03:28 PM \u00a0 Rockstar Energy athlete Colby Raha added another chapter to the thrilling tales of derring-do on August 2, 2025, when he jumped a stock Harley-Davidson V12, weighing 550 pounds, 205 feet at the Thunderdome in Sturgis, South Carolina, shattering a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5910"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6601,"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5910\/revisions\/6601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transitionproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}