Table of contents
- Report Sunday Ride Classic Naughty, free, French!
- Très chic, sporty and completely crazy
- CB 450 as a shiny silver sports tag
- Splendid “Jean-Luc special” JLSP 305
- It got off to a good start
- Kawasaki Z 1000 J from Team Bike Side
Thomas Schmieder
41 pictures
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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United in joy and sorrow: Team Bike Side with the over 140 hp Kawasaki Z 1000 J before the four-hour race.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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It has to be love: This Breton has extensively refined his Guzzi-Cafe Racer on the engine, chassis and brakes.
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A Harley can also be really fast: the TT 750 arrives in Gaul!
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Dialog of concepts. And decades. In front a Dunstall-Norton with a typical English twin, the Suzuki GSX-R 1100 represents Japan’s four-cylinder faction.
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Golden light: yellow headlights once marked French bikes.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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So and so: In the parades, the 27-time GP winner Freddie Spencer drives both the 250cc and the 500cc Honda.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Motorcycle personalities mean people and machines. They could be straight out of the Joe Bar Team comics.
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Do you drive one of the most beautiful racetracks on the planet yourself? Sure: again in mid-April 2016.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Like the fire brigade: Team “Capelli belli” (Bohmhauer, Struck and Sieg) won here and later became 750 European champions.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Full concentration: In the hustle and bustle just before the start, Giacomo Agostini is completely at ease. Even if this is not about anything.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Esprit de vitesse: Moraco-Yamaha TZ 250 with exciting monocoque construction – control head attached to the tank!
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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V4 parade at the Honda meeting: a whole armada of RC 30/45, VF 1000 R and VFR 750 F sounds, drives, bewitched.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
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Sunday Ride Classic in the south of France.
Sports & scene
Events
Report Sunday Ride Classic
Report Sunday Ride Classic
Naughty, free, French!
Content of
Esprit, passion and flair characterize what is probably the most colorful event for classic motorcycles in Europe. At the Sunday Ride Classic on and next to the Paul Ricard race track, motorcycle enthusiasm, daring modifications and a great sense of aesthetics meet.
Thomas Schmieder
03.03.2016
Motorcyclists long for spring every year, of course. But here in Provence, in the deep south of France, the longed-for warmth feels even better: the blue of the sky is stronger, the pine needles are greener, the sun shines brighter. Characteristic blue-white-red curbs and the posh paddock of the Paul Ricard racetrack provide the framework for the Sunday Ride Classic. Despite its name, it’s not just a Sunday, but a whole long weekend, similar to the well-established Belgian Bikers ‘Classics. Just French: cheekier, happier, more frivolous.
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Voilà, here is the basic recipe: Take one of the most beautiful racetracks on the planet, said course at Le Castellet, add a pinch of former GP stars to multi-world champions, taste with their former machines or replicas and leave everything with you 300 participants simmer for several days on a high flame while driving freely in various (racing) classes for classics. Everything served hot for around 15,000 enthusiastic but completely relaxed visitors. Bon Appetit! There are also many motorbikes in the visitor parking lot and in the paddock to add that extra bit of salt.
Très chic, sporty and completely crazy
Most of the drivers come from the south of France, but also from Brittany, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. They bring everything that roars and rattles, stomps and trembles, growls and rolls: Kawasaki Z1, Ducati 851 and 906 Paso, BMW R 90/6 “Walter Zeller Replika” as a rolling tribute, Honda CB 750 Four in all conversion and Preservation levels up to replicas of the CR 750 Daytona machine, and and and. Still young, but on the way to becoming a classic: Benelli Tornado tre, Honda VTR 1000 SP or Voxan Scrambler. There are exciting machines everywhere, and unique items on wheels are parked. One constantly stumbles upon spectacular things from the last 30, 40, 50 years.
Here a short stroll becomes a deep journey into motorcycle history. The French have a flair for shapes, for sophisticated aesthetics. In short: good taste! There are tons of rare types and daring conversions, especially cafe racers. Motorcycles here are casual, très chic, sporty or completely crazy. Motto: radically creative without TuV. The drivers are relaxed, the atmosphere is extremely relaxed. A beautiful Benelli six-cylinder is just roaring past, painted bright yellow, with a narrow half-shell. It caresses the soul, eyes and ears: the six-pack roars from two open pots to soften the heart. Liberte toujours.
A Suzuki racer in Gauloises paintwork blows blue clouds into the sky – made from two-stroke oil, not from tobacco. A Yamaha XS 1100 in Martini Racing livery, one of only 500 built, looks next to a pocket bike as if the mighty tourer with the long-nose fairing has just calved. A Bultaco dirt tracker slams across the visitor parking lot. His driver, typically dressed in jeans and a jet helmet, holds the single’s front wheel high. Really casual. Greetings from the cool comics from the “Joe Bar Team”. The French are simply extremely crazy about motorcycles, and that’s a good thing: They fascinate, provoke, polarize – and of course attract no less interesting visitors to the southern climes.
CB 450 as a shiny silver sports tag
Classic French headlights with yellow reflectors and historical Gallic license plates are a matter of honor: silver lettering on a black background. Like on the Yamelli: the engine of a Yamaha RD 250 in a lighter, sportier Benelli frame. The home game and boom have contemporary superbikes with French Martin or Dutch Nico Bakker frames. They are reminiscent of the 70s, the time when it was a matter of giving powerful Japanese engines such undercarriages. The Bimota KB 1 hits the same line. And at the MV Agusta special show in 2015 there was even a 750 S with a typical blue-white-red tank.
BSA, Matchless, Norton, Triumph and Rickman-Metisse bring the Roaring Sixties, “Made in England”, to life again. And then the Honda Festival: A CB 450 “Black Bomber” drives up as a shiny silver sports conversion, followed by a pretty FT 500 (well, almost). In addition, armadas of inline four-cylinder and VF (R) models of all stripes from 1983 and 400 cubic centimeters displacement. In addition CR-Racer, CB 1100 R by the dozen and rows of RC 30 as well as hot CBX. Some Kawasaki Z 1300s cannot be overlooked either. You can’t get more variety: two- and four-stroke, one-, two-, three-, four-, five- (!) And six-cylinders!
Splendid “Jean-Luc special” JLSP 305
You already know the crazy constructions of Monsieur Borgetto from the Classic edition 8/2014: The peak of his cheeky, daring self-made constructions is a 312 cm³ small five-cylinder, the “Jean-Luc Special” JLSP 305. It is a splendid, classic one inspired racing machine in the style of the 125cc Honda RC 149, on which Luigi Taveri won the 1966 world championship. Jean-Luc Borgetto added a fifth cylinder to the engine of a Honda CBR 250 RR from 1990! He built his three-cylinder JLSP 503 with a partially amputated R6 engine as a tribute to Giacomo Agostini’s successful MV Agusta GP racer.
Today Jean-Luc only has his machines piggyback on the trailer, he doesn’t drive himself. He drops by for a moment, then he has to go to the family – in 2015 the event rose just on the Easter weekend. “The motorcycles I build correspond to the spirit of the Grand Prix motorcycles of the 60s and 70s, because they are the years of my youth,” says the lanky, slim Jean-Luc. Well, his idols from yesteryear can be seen live in action here today. All hell breaks loose at the autograph session in the central entrance hall of the racetrack: ten world champions or vice world champions plus ex-GP drivers present themselves close to the people, to touch and admire.
Freddie Spencer, the super-fast American, won three world titles for Honda in 1983 and 1985. Not only the still smart and youthful-looking US boy is in a good mood. Local hero Christian Sarron knows the 5.81 kilometer route inside out. He even discusses it in German. Alberto “Johnny” Cecotto from Venezuela made it to Le Castellet as did Steve Baker (both on a Yamaha) and the South African Kawasaki rider Kork Ballington in a green and white leather dress.
It got off to a good start
The seven-time GP world champion Phil Read stands as the “Prince of Speed” alongside the living long-distance legend Alain Genoud. Everyone lets it rip again on the track. Ago “Nationale” gets a sliding start on the 500 cc three-cylinder MV. The initial lap is followed by the actual starting grid. Well, these are more demo laps than races, apparently you shouldn’t necessarily overtake Ago. Still a strong sight when the old fighters on TZ, RG, NSR or KR turn into the start-finish straight in a meter-long wheelie.
Rivals of the racetrack are waiting for the four-hour race as part of the European Classic Series ECS. It starts on Saturday evening at 7.30 p.m.: 69 men jump on their historically inspired to authentically old racing machines at the Le Mans start – the regulations make 18-inch wheels and two-piston brakes mandatory. Engines roar, the view becomes a tunnel, just as far forward as possible, away from the crowd. I’m in, get off to a good start and can make up a lot of places at the beginning. What a great feeling to pound this beautiful route yourself!
Kawasaki Z 1000 J from Team Bike Side
A chicane on the Mistral straight makes the course of the route trickier. At the end of this legendary straight, the 140 hp Kawasaki Z 1000 J from the Bike Side team from Durmersheim is just about to turn, almost 240 things. Not bad for an air-cooled two-valve engine! Soon the sky is shining in all pastel colors, at 8 p.m. it is still 13 degrees mild. At night everything looks like it did at the legendary Bol d‘Or: the legendary French 24-hour race took place on the Circuit Paul Ricard from 1978 to 1999 and 2015. The Belgian ex-endurance world champions Stephane Mertens and Richard Hubin compete. In the end, Hubin, the old fox, wins together with his co-pilot Gregory Fastre on a 1166 cc Suzuki GS 1000 R (XR 69 S), the first racing machine with a central spring strut. The only 750 cc, the Ducati TT1 of the German team Capelli belli (“beautiful hair”), also crosses the finish line. Without serious competition, they even became European champions after the race in September. Like Hubin / Fastre in the highly competitive open class over 1000 cubic meters.
The motorcycle festival really turns up on Sunday. With races and demo runs of two- and four-stroke engines, cafe racers, tuning machines, superbikes and former GP racing machines in runs for the International Classic Grand Prix ICGP. Full program of frivolous driving, in the spirit of Jean-Pierre Bonetto, organizer and initiator of the event: “A team of friends organized the Sunday Ride Classic. We are our own viewers. And very impressed with what we see. ”His goal? “After the weekend, every participant and spectator should have a smile on their face.” Bien sûr, Jean-Pierre. In the south of France, bliss means more than just the climate.
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