We all know that the California Air Resources Board has made life unnecessarily difficult for the purveyors of dirt biking in The Golden State. While no one here denies that clean air is a high priority, we think it should be approached realistically. It is tough to put a number on how many dirt bikes operate as OHVs in California, but it is probably a lot less than cars (17.8 million). Also, they drive a whole lot less in terms of miles per year, with the average annual mileage on a car (12,500). Shoot, many motorcycles don’t see that kind of mileage in a lifetime. So what is the best solution to get around the whole red-sticker-green-sticker fiasco? We suggest our dirt bike street legal service to cover all bases.
Why Should You Title & Register Your OHV Dirt Bike?
This is a pretty simple equation, really: you can always ride your registered and tagged vehicle off-road, but you cannot drive an OHV dirt bike on roads (or even trails now). Once your dirt bike is legally registered and tagged, it is no longer subject to the whims of the CARB cartel. This is particularly true when you register your dirt bike with our out-of-state program. Since your dirt bike will now be registered and tagged out of state, you will no longer have to worry about the myriad rules and regulations surrounding OHVs in the Golden State. I’d say that is a win.
Background: Green Vs. Red
To understand what is going with the off-road community in California, namely the dirt bike community, we have to dig into what California is doing.
What is the California Green Sticker?
Courtesy of CARB.
Think of the green sticker as your ticket to ride. It is the certification that CARB issues a bike stating that it is not limited to particular peak seasons.
The California green sticker is nothing more than a compliance flag: if it’s green, it’s good to go; red is bad.
Of course, if your dirt bike or other OHRV is not tagged, it is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, according to the California Health and Safety Code.
What is the California Red Sticker?
As the name implies, the red sticker is a badge of non-compliance. This is also the category that CARB is doing away with. Now, this is not going to be immediate; you will be able to continue riding them through 2024
Your red sticker bike is grandfathered in as a de facto green sticker bike so that you will have no further seasonal riding restrictions. But, of course, all new bikes must meet green sticker standards, so it could be worse. But in years to come, this will severely restrict the bikes you can buy in California. So, it stands to reason that red sticker bikes will become more sought after and harder to come by.
This is why the prices will spike: red sticker bikes are high-performance machines. What “omissions compliant” really means is that your bike is laden with recirculation devices that will make it run like hot garbage, and it will be a dog on the trail.
Who or What is CARB?
To understand why green sticker versus red sticker matters, and the above ruling, we need to figure out who is driving the train.
The “CARB is charged with protecting the public from the harmful effects of air pollution and developing programs and actions to fight climate change.” In the meantime, CARB makes sure to make it impossible for you to power your home with a backup generator during historic snowstorms. Thanks, guys. They also make sure it is hard for you to get out and enjoy the enormous amounts of public lands in a state that is over half rural.
CARB is, by definition, the agency charged with coming up with all legislative initiatives involving air quality in the state. Twelve of the sixteen seats on the board are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state senate. In other words, there is no way that CARB will not align with the residing political ideology of the state.
CARB is not the enforcement branch of air resources issues; they are just the ones coming up with the policies. In other words, they don’t need to see the consequences of their decisions; they just make policy.
What is an OHV in California?
This may seem intuitive, but any motor vehicle operated off-highway is an OHV. However, they also include highway-licensed vehicles as OHVs when operating in an off-highway environment. In California, you still have to meet minimum equipment requirements to operate on public trails and lands. Since these are pretty muchly the exact equipment requirements as operating on public roads, it stands to reason that you should just go ahead and make your dirt bike street legal and do so out of state to avoid the emissions testing requirements.
Courtesy of California State Park-OHV Motor Vehicle Recreation
Dirt Bikes in California
By their admission, the red sticker program nets the state about $5 million by itself in administrative fees. According to the American Motorcycle Association, the overall economic impact annually is in the ballpark of $20 billion. So why do away with the red sticker bikes? As far as I can see, it is to punish riders and manufacturers. When the sticker program came about back in the 1990s, the idea was that riders would use red sticker bikes strictly for competition riding. Competition riding would be a tiny percentage of the overall OHV market, almost imperceptibly small.
Instead, manufacturers took the opportunity to send it, making competition-caliber bikes but marketed to the general public. And yes, these bikes are filthy; we know this. But this feels more like a government bureaucracy exacting vengeance for being ignored rather than legitimately trying to seek environmentally significant contributions.
What About Registering Your Bike In California?
Why not just tag the bike in-state and be done with it? The answer is simple: you can’t.
You can have an on-road and on-highway bike, or you can have an OHV, but it can’t be both. This makes trail riding a bit tricky because you are much more strictly limited to what you may do with your bike.
First and foremost is smog. You will not be able to pass a smog check with your red sticker bike, period. If they don’t let you ride it on the trails, they dang sure won’t let you drive it on the roads.
In California, you do not have to have a passing smog check to buy or sell the bike or before registration, but it is required for road use.
The Out-of-State Solution
It should come as no surprise that the solution to driving your dirt bike legally on the roadway and the trails and public areas in California is to register it out-of-state. It might just be the best-kept secret out there.
See, when you tag your vehicle out-of-state, you are doing a couple of things:
You are giving a clear signal to any members of the enforcing class that your vehicle has been issued a street-legal registration from a state DMV making it legal for road use
You don’t have to deal with the regulatory nonsense that depletes your wallet and is impossible to navigate. For example, why on earth must you register any bike as an OHV just because you take it off-road? That is straight from their rulebook.
How To Register Your 2022 Or Newer Dirt Bike
So we will focus on 2022 and newer bikes for this exercise. Why? Because the whole point is that you should still be able to operate your ‘red sticker’ dirt bike in California, and this is the only way to do it short of using it strictly for competition (a process that, as of now, still is not fully defined).
The ‘red sticker’ bikes themselves will not go out of production. Red sticker bikes will be available just about everywhere except for California. It’s just that you will not be able to buy them in California; you will have to cross the border into a sensible state. There is, of course, nothing unlawful about buying a bike that isn’t green sticker compliant. Unless, of course, you operate it on public lands without a sticker.
What Kinds of Bikes Can Dirt Legal Register?
This is the best part of the whole thing: we gladly register pretty much any dirt bike you have in your stable.
2-Strokes
These are the red-sticker bikes that are essentially causing this stir? No problem, we can get those titled, tagged, and registered.
4-Strokes
The blueprint of the classic dual sport. 4-strokes are already quiet and smooth and a natural choice for tagging and driving on public roads. You don’t necessarily want to sacrifice performance and add weight to factory dual sports, so tagging and registering a 4-stroke trail bike is a great option.
Pit Bikes
Who are we to judge? When I was growing up, I had a minibike, and it was a blast. Do you want to roll around on a 50cc Pit Bike? Go for it. We will get it tagged for you, and you can take it out on the town, down the main drag, or on your favorite trail.
Motocross
You want to tag and register a competition Motocross bike, you say? Ok, no problem, we can do that. As long as all of the required items (lights, mirrors, etc.) are on there, the rest is on us.
Imports
Maybe you acquired a foreign dirt bike along through life that you have always wanted to trail ride. It might just be easier to use our service than to legally operate it as an OHV in California because, as we have seen, the CARB sticker program is unforgiving.
How Dirt Legal Works
Our service is straightforward for the end-user: as long as you have valid proof of ownership, you send that to us, we review it, and we send back paperwork for you to fill out and return to us. We then do our part, and a few short weeks later, you will get a plate and registration for your vehicle.
One caveat to this is that if your dirt bike is financed, it will more likely take a little longer before you will have the plate and registration in hand and a street-legal dirt bike in your stable, but rest assured, you will be on the road soon.
The types of proof of ownership that are acceptable for our service are:
Manufacturer’s Certificate of Origin
Certificate of Title
Bill of Sale
Proof of financing (but not from Synchrony Bank)
We’ll take care of the legal stuff, but installing all of the necessary lighting, mirrors and other equipment is entirely up to you. See, Dirt Legal registers in a state with no inspection requirement, so nobody will look over your bike to ensure that it meets roadworthiness standards. So our best suggestion is to go over California’s required items for motorcycles to make sure it is equipped to their standards, thus avoiding confrontations with Officer Friendly.
Here at Dirt Legal, we love the trails, the mud in our hair, and the thrill of going fast. We also know that California motorcycle registration is a pain, especially if you want to register and tag a dirt bike; this is tantamount to impossible. But we have the solution: you want to drive your bike on trails without being hassled, and we can offer more than that. We will help you register and tag your dirt bike, regardless of class, category, or size. Reach out to us, and we will set you up with the rest!
John McCoy is a lifelong car and truck enthusiast and has a strong mechanical background off the road. He spent over 13 years in the U.S. Air Force as a crew chief, assigned to the B-1B Lancer, affectionately known as the Bone to those in the community, and the KC-135R Stratotanker. He resides on a small farm in Eastern Kansas where he (sometimes) enjoys fixing ancient farm equipment.