You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Im retired now so fairly time rich. Id really like to go and see a 24hr motorcycle endurance race and the Bol d'Or looks good. Its mid Sept in Provence.
Has anyone been? If so, how did you do it? My initial thoughts are to take a 3 week stint and drive down slowly. We have a van and can tent camp. Me and Mrs B would take a bike each and do some famous climbs or routes and then continue driving south. Thus breaking up driving with riding.
Mrs B has no interest in the race so would stay outside for a 48hr period whilst i nap in a bivvy bag at the circuit.
Any thoughts on the pitfalls? Or anyone done something similar?
Twice.
1979 and 1981.
Probably not the answer you were looking for 🙂
First time was with a girlfriend. We just rode there on the bike (GS750) with the camping gear. Spend basically a long weekend in France, taking advantage of the free tolls in place for the Bol d'Or visitors. We camped at the circuit, surrounded by thousands of other bikers. Had an absolute ball.
We'd stopped on the way down and camped at one of the aires on the autoroute. Got rudely awoken in the morning by some radio chatter. There was a military convoy parked next to us!
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/brmRFFrR/img093.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/brmRFFrR/img093.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/GtvCFGpr/img094.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/GtvCFGpr/img094.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/RVjSnCVv/img109.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/RVjSnCVv/img109.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
1981 was with a mate. We both had Ducati Darmahs. Had an "iffy" night on the outskirts of Paris when the only camping area we could find was a travellers site.
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/ZqmJVfdg/img173.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/ZqmJVfdg/img173.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
Again, we camped at the circuit, drinking all the free Ricard and Guinness that was being handed out (not mixed!).
After the race we headed to Bologna for a few days. We visited the Morini factory and got to see the prototype 500 turbo. We also went to Borgo Panigale where we were treated like kings. Got a tour, whisked off for lunch and then came back to find both bikes had been fully serviced, including new chains and sprockets.
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/76YwyfXn/img220.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/76YwyfXn/img220.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
We rode back from Bologna to Calais in one go, passing through Switzerland en route.
Yes. Probably 1991?
No, but it was a perennial favourite in ‘Bike’ magazine (of Ogri and Bloodrunners(?) fame) in the 80’s.
It sounded like it was truly awesome back then! I do remember that bike theft was rampart, to such an extent that even if your bike was locked up, brake calipers and silencers would get nicked.
Sounds like an awesome trip.
It was after the first write up in Bike that I decided to go, so that would have been 78/79. I don't recall bike theft being an issue.
Not the Bol, but been to Le Mans for the 24hr bikes a couple of times.
First time in 1986 on a feet-forward modified Yamaha 350 YPVS, camping and it snowed overnight, during the race...
Second time was in 1997 and I was working in Germany, so drove there in a car and slept in it.
If I was doing it again, I'd be booked into a hotel 🙂
I went 2018 and loved it. I did it on my 1998 ZX9r, tent on the back and on my own. Left the North east Wednesday morning, in France by mid day and hammered down to Troyes for a hotel with a card machine at the door. I was battling round Nice sweating to death in all m gear, whilst flip flop wearing scooter riders flew past! Put the tent up and had a lovely cold beer or 2 watching practice. Pit walk Friday night is great and all the classic pits are open all the time. Tons of great views and fab atmosphere. Did nnot like the bikes bouncing of the rev limiter half an inch from my head in my tent. Noise cancelling headphones would be top. Campper vans seemed to be along the back of the mistral straight, seemed a bit calmer over there. I just blatted back to Troyes after the race Sunday, ferry mid morning and home Monday tea. 2000+ miles. I am intending to go to 24 hours of Spa long bank holiday weekend June, bit closer but colder.
Oops. I meant to comment on that link I posted.
The article referred to is the one that sparked my interest. It is amongst the most inspiring pieces of journalism I've ever read.
The "romance" of the trip was as much about the blast through France as about the race. Leaving a cold/damp Calais and heading South until it got dark, taking your helmet off in some dusty motorway services to feel the blast of hot, Mediterranean air, the smell of the arid air and the sound of the insects. It was like being transported to another world.
It was also the reception all the bikers got; free use of the Peage with a lane set aside at the tolls, service stations handing out free oil and chain lube, other special offers from various shops, the waves, smiles and shouts of encouragement from drivers, bikers and pedestrians everywhere.
Riding down the N58 to the Supermarche to stock up with food and beer, racing back up to the circuit on those bends with the fatal drop off to the side, I saw a guy riding a CBX towing a supermarket trolley.
Sharing beers with two Geordies who saw our bikes, parked up beside us and one said "do you live at Roseburn?" ( I did,!)
Getting up at 1am to watch a few laps, top up with fluids and hit the sack again. Eating great, cheap pizza, waffles, hot dogs and whatever other carbs were on offer.
Blasting back through the Alps from Bologna, using the indicator to show my mate it was clear to follow me after overtaking, we "picked up" two English guys in an Aston who had cottoned on to what we were doing and tailed us for 100 miles or so. When we pulled in somewhere to fill up the tanks they stopped too and said thanks.
Fantastic memories that I don't revisit often enough. Thanks to the OP for starting this thread.
Thanks everyone, well it sounds just what i want to go and see, so im now planning the best way to get down with Mrs B and the van.
@scotroutes, Colin thanks for your input and enthusiasm!
Ian
Gosh. I’ve just time travelled. Thanks.
My stw forum name comes from many, many, many years ago from my days as a gopher in the Team Superbike (as in magazine) pit crew, went to the Bol, Spa, Le Mans.
Long boring journeys in a converted bus (seats, bunks, garage), watching the pre race stuntman practising and crashing, endless fuelling and wheel/and pads change practises, going up in a stunt plane, inverted flying over the circuit, stall turns, inner loop, then an outer loop prior to quick landing as my breakfast was trying to escape, being amazed at the loos - mixed, clean, all working and always loo paper as there were some little old ladies on duty sorting it out, having a shower and realising that some women were cunningly avoiding the ladies shower queue, us eating lukewarm hotdogs and beer whist the French team next to us had white tablecloths, full table settings and full 5 coursers next to us, the silence when in the heat of the race the Ducati next to us broke their 10ft height gravity quick filler and the rider was left sitting in 5 gallons or so of petrol and petrol vapour, sitting in a chair timing the riders, getting expectant and then relieved as they came round or the mass panic when they didn’t turn up on their lap time, getting hyped up for fuel and tyre changes and the relief when they went well, the relief on getting to the end, sleeping once it was all over, all getting dragged out of the bus at customs on our return (they had to walk along the crates of beer covering the floor), being told they were going to search the bus, having my passport thrown at me with a “do you think that’s funny” comment and realising my passport photo had a moustache added, then being impolitely told to go away.
@towzer. Wow thanks for sharing! Much as i would love to spend a weekend in the manner you describe, i doubt i have enough time to sell my mechanicing talents to prospective teams. However everyone has cemented it as a must do!
So now i just need ideas for rides on the way down!
Went twice, in my teens, ‘84 and ‘86, fantastic road trip adventure, blasted down autoroutes in a couple of days and a slower return taking in Côte d’Azur and verdun gorge. Fantastic trips, lovely memories.
You’ll love it (not just the Bol, the whole experience).
Yeah, a few times, maybe five or six, in the 80s when I was a journo on SuperBike Magazine. At the time we supported Phase One, who were running first RC30s and then ZXR750s. So many slightly deranged, semi-dreamlike memories ranging from watching the Negresse Vertes playing live to an audience of drunken, foot-stomping bikers on the Saturday night though to watching headlights carving arcs through the dark from the other side of the armco. And the weird mix of frantic action and long hours of boredom in the pits. Oh, and once, sat right on the entry to the chicane watching a first stint rider's front brake pads literally fly out of the caliper and bounce off down the track, that didn't end well.
It was hilarious. Utter anarchy. I used to love watching the French factory teams in the pits for their oiled, slick professionalism. And the privateers for their not quite so slick amateurism. The journey down was ace too, I still remember the year we took race rep 750s down and at three figure speeds for hours and the one with my mate on the back of a ZZR1100, which was rather more comfortable.
But yeah, no idea what it's like these days, but it's a brilliant place to ride and party and just be. There's something amazing about starting off in our bleak, cold, damp, windswept island and the sun gradually soaking through your leathers till you're way too hot. The French are very,very good at having a big party in the sunshine.
Wow, a super bike journo? I’m impressed, I’m sure there’s still loads of old issues in my old bedroom cupboard at my parents house, I’ll dig them out next time I’m there!
Was it the dream job i always imagined it to be, or was the reality less glamorous?
Was it the dream job i always imagined it to be, or was the reality less glamorous?
It was amazing for the five or six years I did it. Not unfailingly, consistently amazing, but as someone who lived, ate and breathed motorcycles and liked writing, it was a pretty good way to earn a living. Some of the press launches and the road trips were awesome, it felt more like being on a very good holiday than working. Then again repeatedly hooning round the same bloody corner endlessly with your knee on the deck in the middle of Dartmoor, between snow flurries, while you're desperately pretending that it's summer - remember magazine lead-in times - kind of loses its charm. And then there was the time I binned a KR-1S at Mallory and lost around eight of hours of my life. One minute I was going hard into the esses, the next I was at A&E with a tyre mark running from the chinguard of my Arai, over the visor and off the top.
I had some great times and rode a lot of very, very fast, very cool bikes, but ultimately it sort of ruined motorcycling for me. I ended up mentally 'reviewing' every bike I rode, including my own, which is probably a reflection of the way my brain works as much as the nature of the job. And the money was crap. And SuperBike at the time was comically dysfunctional and perched on a ragged edge between manual type writers and desktop publishing. And we all hated each other. But yeah, it was great while it lasted, but I sort of reached a point where I didn't have anything original left to say about bikes.
The 24-hour races were all ace though. I still have very happy memories of Phase One miraculously winning at Spa much to their own incredulity and my first Bol d'Or in particular where I was mostly left to just absorb the whole thing and write about it.
Edit: google suggests I was actually there late 80s, eary 90s seeing as Phase One's Spa victory was 1994. Hmmmm...
I had some great times and rode a lot of very, very fast, very cool bikes, but ultimately it sort of ruined motorcycling for me.
I always imagined that could be the case, I was motorbike obsessed from being about 7, right up until when I was working as a courier in early ‘90s in London. I still love them, and would have several if I won the lottery, but the passion went when I was lying underneath a Volvo outside Harrods!!
Sorry for the slight hijack OP - if you do go, we want photos!!
@BadlyWiredDog thanks very much for this great insight!
Ive been motorbike obsessed for about 40 yrs now. I currently cant get enough of Harris F1, Moto Martin and Egli racebikes. There is a P&M id love on ebay too!
Im really excited to go now and have to plan a route with great places to stop and ride our pedal bikes on the way down.
Thanks everyone
Ian
It would be fair to say it is a much more enjoyable trip that going to the TT or the ManxGP. And it will probably cost a lot less , the food will be cheaper and the accommodation will be better.
On my way back ( and it was shortly after I had passed my test - and bought Triumph 900) I cam back via the Alps and Switzerland, as I had a friend based there.
I doubt it still has the hedonism of the late '80s or '90s
Great stories and @scotroutes that Desmo photo is class,especially with the 80s tash 😉 🙂
Great fun, utter carnage.