Then I wrote a blog post about the motorcycle stage in Mega Man X7

Yeah but you know what does have great hover bikes? Mega Man X7. It doesn't, but I'm glad to see they at least tried for a 3D version of the then-established variety stage. And the fact that the bike accelerates rather than blandly auto-scrolling almost inherently makes it the best iteration of the always weak gimmick. Unfortunately, there's something terribly wrong with the steering mechanics that I can't quite put my finger on - it might actually be what's been described to me re:Outrun, that X-velocity and Z-velocity are totally independent, combined with a 3D Sonic camera that doesn't stay behind the vehicle (e.g. a left turn will have the camera placed so the road snakes from the right edge of the screen to the left).

Whether or not the controls are something I could get used to, the design of the stage is especially trashy, just a narrow corridor littered with boxes, hostages, and the now-iconic Runnerbombs. (It's pretty amazing that "Runnerbomb" isn't a name that I made up, although maybe not as amazing as the fact that a Runnerbomb's modus operandi is to stand in place and throw bombs). Each of the obstacles/enemies spawns on-screen with a bright teleporting-in effect that saves the game from needing a draw distance - it's good for drawing attention visually and shows that the developers at least understood that you can't just have enemy pop-in (I really am describing an Outrun remake, huh?). The downside is that Runnerbombs, which need to be avoided, and hostage reploids, which need to be collected, have near identical silhouettes that make every decision whether to dodge or collide a last-second one. That gives the already cluttered layout an extremely haphazard mouthfeel, and, since this is X7, the heroes have enough reserve HP to just plow through everything. Which is important, because all of this is operating on a time limit.

Yup, continuing on from the brilliant structural mix-up of the intro level's cyclops-walker arena-showdown, the bike stage deviates from standard traversal/survival gameplay towards an actual racing format. Not entirely racing, thankfully, but the objective is to grab (all) 20 time-bombs planted across the course loop before the countdown timer reaches Zero. The player can drive as fast or slow as they want, but can't turn around, so missing a bomb means needing to speed through another lap to come back to it. The mission ends instantly as soon as the 20th bomb is collected. Given this collection objective structure, you might call this the long lost final level of Sonic R.

Indeed, I should probably mention that the Maverick ruling over this high-speed terroristic attack is branded Ride Boarski. I'm going to go out on a limb and hypothesize the name is a reference to Polish sausage, you fill in the details.

Ultimately the whole experience is like the opposite of the PSX/Battletoads-era cycle rides where any minor deviation from the exactly plotted course is instant death. Since the layout requires constant last-minute course correction, the slippery mechanics make that especially difficult, and there's plenty of time for multiple laps, the most productive strategy seems to be starting off barreling forward as fast as possible, grabbing all the low-hanging fruit, then on later laps slamming on the brakes whenever a bomb is known to be coming up. Like other points of comparison with X5 and X6, X7 isn't really better, but it's at least more interesting.