MotoOnline.com.au recently caught up with Western Australian and emerging MX2 talent Jayden Rykers to see what he’s been up to since making an early exit from the Australian Supercross Championship. The 20-year-old has some big changes on the horizon, which he shares in this edition of Catching Up.

Image: Jeremy Hammer (Foremost Media).

Obviously you had that crash Jimboomba’s season-opener of supercross, although you kind of disappeared after that. What happened?

Yeah, so after Jimboomba I kind went off the radar. I aggravated an old injury in my shoulder really – it was just like a dull pain in the back of my shoulder that I’ve had for a while. After that, I had a few weeks off the bike, then I started riding again and my goal was to come back after Toowoomba and obviously compete in Adelaide. I soon found out before Adelaide that it wasn’t going to happen, every time I tried to hit the whoops it would just flare up again. I made the best the decision, I spoke to my sponsors and team, and I ended up coming back home to Perth to see my specialist. I had surgery on my shoulder which had some soft tissue floating around, so that was cleaned up and I’m now five weeks in [to recovery] – I’m back on the bike in a week. So I just decided to focus on next year, the big picture is to come back strong for motocross and at least get a good pre-season in.

Do you feel the decision to opt out of the supercross series will have any affect on the level of support you receive for next year?

I honestly don’t think it will affect anything at all. At the end of the day, if you’re a good rider, you’re a good rider – you can adapt to motocross or supercross, you just need a little bit of time. That’s probably one of the hardest things that I found – trying to adapt. Everyone knows that coming from Western Australia, we don’t really too much supercross here. I had 12 days on the bike before round one, and realistically that wasn’t enough time for me. I went to round one and had a fair idea of what it’s all about. But no, I don’t think it will affect anything for next year.

You had a good Motul MX Nationals campaign this year in what was your MX2 rookie season, what’s the plan for 2017?

My plans are changing a fair bit – rather than living down in Melbourne, I’m going to be basing myself in Sydney next year. It’s a lot more central to Queensland and Victoria, and that way I can ride a lot more tracks. The weather in Melbourne wasn’t too great over the last year, at stages I was missing a week or two of riding just because of the rain. So I’ll move up there, and my main goal is the get the championship – like you said, I had a pretty good rookie season and I ticked most of my goals off that I set out for the year. 2017 is definitely going to be a big year and I’ll be surrounded by some good people.

Image: Jeremy Hammer (Foremost Media).

So is it still going to be a privateer effort with KTM backing, or do you have something else in mind?

It’s hard to say at the moment, I haven’t completely finalised all the little things going on. It’s tough to say, but obviously I’m going to have a little more support than last year. But yeah, I’m just sorting out the final details on what my actual structure is going to be. It should be all finalised in the next week or two, so I can let you know then. At the moment, I’m still kind of in the dark and don’t 100 percent know what’s happening.

This year in motocross you were one of the only guys to race a two-stroke, however you made the switch to a four-stroke for your brief supercross appearance. Will you be making a fulltime switch to the four-stroke in the new year?

Yeah, I was one of the only guys on a two-stroke this year. That’s something I’ll change up for 2017 – I’ll 100 percent be on a four-stroke. That’s good news for myself, a lot of people have seen me on the two-stroke, but ideally, I want to be on the four-stroke – it’s kind of what the whole industry is around. I think it will be more suitable too, this year a lot of the tracks became quite slippery in the second motos, so it should make things easier.

Well thanks for your time mate, I appreciate it.

Yeah, no dramas man.