If only I’d remembered to get up early on Thursday morning I could have ridden to the Bol D’or and relived my youth this weekend. The smell of wood smoke, merguez sausages cooking, hot bikes being thrashed for 24 hrs. The run down the hillside to the supermarket for more beer supplies, the general madness and companionship of good friends (one of whom is sadly no longer with us).
In the last picture you can see me on the far left with my camera. We used to be able to blag press passes in those days, we could get into the pits and watch the rider changes and frantic repairs. We would leave on Thursday ride down in two days and ride back via the alps on Monday and Tuesday. We also managed to get the bikes on the track on Sunday night and got a few laps in before we were chucked off.
I’m here now , we’re heading up to the circuit shortly , this is my 8th time but my friends have been for years and tell me similar tales over a beer , press passes , riding the track etc . It’s changed in the time I’ve been coming and sadly getting worse , very expensive and lots of restrictions now , as the crowds drop the tickets go up , €79 for the weekend now , €11 for a beer and the foods gone up , the food was always worth the money as it was great quality but not anymore . This may be my last one .
Great pictures of great days. We all have the memories of halcyon days don't we. I enjoyed looking at your pics. We've had the best times, on the best bikes.... Before it were all sanitized. I'm glad i lived the times I did, it's nowhere near as good and free at it used to be. Biking in the 80's was nothing like nowadays... We had it all... Fast bikes, quiet roads and no plod. I look back fondly at TT 's of old, British gp's weekends etc etc... Barmy nights and barmier days hahaha We're the lucky ones
The ride downhill to Le Bausset is no longer that much fun with a speed camera and a lot of gendarmes, especially on a Bol d’Or week-end… To many Huns and too many casualties along the years led to this, unfortunately. And as far as ticket food pricing/quality go, well, we desperately need to stop trying to increase profits every year. That logic/mentality is literally killing us…
sign of the times, last year the supermarkets in Le Beausset were limiting how much beer you could buy, not the end of the world I know, jusy sayin. (OP) nice to see a brace of 750 F1's Thanks.
That was part of the fun riding up and down the the supermarket. The police had a very chilled attitude then. I remember there were always mountains of beers up to the ceiling, pretty publicity girls handing out token and bikes wobbling back up with three crates of beer and 6 baguettes bungeed to the pillion seat. Are the autoroutes still free for bikes over the weekend? We once rode down overnight after major repairs to a mates CB900. I was so tired I fell asleep on the bike and woke up riding along the hard shoulder! I also remember the ‘bull’ fighting, tattoo stalls and I bought a GPA crash helmet there one year. It didn’t have a strap but the base hinged out and clipped on under your head once you put it on. It was too tight and I never really wore it! I’d mentioned if before https://www.ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/gpa-sj-strapless-helmet.77133/ Just found one on eBay for £500! (Although it says that’s an F1 helmet)
Thursday we did autoroute with toll tags to Grenoble then cross country next day, apparently the toll operators were not all observing/honouring the arrangement and according to some French biker forums the ones that were gratis seemingly favoured bikers travelling from s/w France and Spain and not those from the North, I heard from another Brit there was a large gathering North of Lyon where you could get free water, snacks etc. even have your bike serviced too. Mate who raced in Touring car had the same GPA lid, he wore it when I ran him home from Silverstone GP meeting on an GPZ900, that dates me!
Aww mate.... so true and your post got me into a bit of a blue funk all evening reminiscing & lamenting of such lost times.
Watched a bit of it this morning, I think there was more time spent watching people dick about in the pit lanes (even @andyb favourite mr Haines asking inane questions to riders who’d retired) than there was racing. Have to feel for Josh Hook 19 hours in and they get an engine blow up lol. The pain.
That’s endurance racing! I remember a guy crashing on the first couple of laps just after the pits and he had to push the bike the whole way round the lap. The crowd cheered him all the way! Another other favourite memory was a race report in Bike magazine about a Ducati that was racing. ‘In the morning it sounded like a skeleton abusing itself in a dustbin’.
Good but the real action i would say would be in the supernaked class....if they had one of course....i do think the yanks do it though... I did catch a bit of it sunday...personally i like when they crash (not actually crashing) well, maybe a little...then pushing the bike back and watching the pit crew descend on it and get it running again in minutes... i was watching them prepping an engine to go into a fireblade with the engine on a trailer and a scrutineer watching over them...great stuff...
