CB Jun 09

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Telegraph poles blur on a section of the old

Great North Road near Stamford, Lincolnshire

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JUNE 2009 Classic Bike 64

G u z z i to L e M a n s

Le Mans is a must-go destination for petrolheads, especially if you own one of the classic

Moto Guzzi V-twins that takes its name from the famous French race track. Three Guzzi

riders went to this year’s 24 Heures Moto to watch the action and soak up the atmosphere.

And the rain… Words & Photography Peter Norman

Visualise Glastonbury, 90,000 people. Now swap tree hugging and cosmic chants for inline engines held at redline until they backfire flames of fury. Day and night the staccato sound of mechanical punishment blasts from campsites. Riceburner engines in the merciless hands of French race enthusiasts perform their own miracle of survival – and make sleep an impossible dream.

The campsite mayhem and the incessant howl of the bikes on track are all part of the fantastic feel of attending a 24-hour endurance race. If Isle of Man TT riders are the bravest of the brave, endurance racers are up there as the toughest. These were the schoolboys who sat up the back of the bus. Rain starts, bikes slide, they get pushed back into the pits and fairings are patched with gaffer tape before the next rider is sent out to make up lost time. Day and night, it’s the teamwork between riders

and pit crew, slowly fatiguing as the race goes through the night, which can bring success over faster lappers.

The 24 Heures Moto is held at the legendary Le Mans Circuit Bugatti in France. Exactly 2.6 miles long with the main straight in a canyon between grandstands, watching a traditional Le Mans’ start – with riders running across the tarmac to their bikes – is a brilliant spectacle, a blokes’ ballet. Seemingly quaint spots such as Green Garage and Cows’ Alley, the last corner where the longer endurance car track connects back in to the circuit, are treacherous on slick tyres within seconds of rain.

Le Mans’ first car GP took place in 1906. It was organised by Automobile Club de l’Ouest, “based on the passion of men who saw the automobile as a major invention that would change the world.”

Geniuses. Soon they were running bike Grand Prix too. The first

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World Championship GP at Le Mans was held in 1969, when the big race was won by Ago on an MV.

The Bol d’Or, a 24 hour race for bikes, moved to Le Mans from Montlhery in 1971, but when the event moved again in 1978, to Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Mans began hosting their own 24 hour race. Usually held in April, it became the traditional start to the endurance race season.

This year’s race saw 46 entrants in two classes, including two UK entries, Phase One Endurance and Team Alf. By the time the race finished, at 3pm on Sunday, 19 teams had retired. Finishers included a KTM team with 555 laps. The winner, the Yamaha Austria Race Team managed 727 laps, averaging 78.73 mph, with a best lap of 95.63mph.

With pit stops to change riders, tyres and brake pads, the pace is painful. “The rain doesn’t get to them as much as wear on their hands,” says Team Alf boss Al Hubbard. “They have to bandage their hands to prevent calluses. It’s punishing.”

Roger Burnett was the first British rider to win in the modern era, in 1989. Carl Fogarty and Terry Rymer took honours in 1992, with Steve Hislop, Brian Morrison and Chris Walker waving the flag by 1999.

“There is something special about Le Mans. Being in the pits, a place with so much history, is incredible,” says endurance racer Mick Godfrey. “You can’t help but be aware of the bikes and cars that have raced there before you.”

Main: Le Mans. a fairground, campsite and racetrack inSET: (above left to right) Pete

norman’s blue Guzzi; racing; the glow of dawn through the trackside trees. (Below) The urge to

burn fossil fuels is overwhelming

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june 2009 Classic Bike 78

Shuichi, alias Crazy Pete, with an Indian dirt-tracker from his collection

When I turned fifty I gave myself an eight-week motorcycle trip round Japan. I took my recently rebuilt 1950 Nimbus bobber, touring-prepped with an H-D saddle, top box, highway pegs and a modern four-speed gearbox. The Nimbus is inherently reliable, ideal for a lousy mechanic like me. I air-freighted it to Tokyo from Denmark, in a home-made metal crate which I dismantled and strapped to the bike, ready for the return.

Motorcycles are everywhere in Tokyo, the climate is mild, and car ownership is fraught with difficulties. I saw a few older Harleys and a late-Sixties Triumph, but most bikes were modern 250 or 400cc machines. Many were in Seventies street scrambler style, or had been turned into classic cafe racers.

A local, Schuichi or ‘Crazy Pete’, gave me my first proper glimpse into the Japanese old-bike world. His shop contained a mix of Indian exotica, and old Jap scooters looking as worn as Keith Richards. A sign read ‘One man’s junk is another man’s treasure’.

Curiously, most motorcyclists ignored the Nimbus as I fought my way through Tokyo traffic – but the guys at the custom shops Crazy Pete took me to were in awe.

After two weeks in a cheap hotel the drunks and the homeless in the streets nearby

had started greeting me each morning; it seemed like time to move on.

I went first up Mt. Fuji, just west of Tokyo, and then down the congested southern coast of Honshu, the main island. I had planned to camp out, but after riding all day in heavy diesel traffic, which turned my white hair grey, I really wanted a bath. Also, I wanted to type up my impressions of each day on the secondhand laptop I’d bought in Tokyo, so in the end I used hotels most of the way.

Riding on the left and lane splitting proved easy – Japan may be the only country on the planet where motorcyclists think car drivers are okay. But it was slow, ugly going, on overpasses and through endless tunnels.

I turned north, in search of nicer surroundings, and was soon passing through green valleys (70 per cent of Japan is forest) and gorges. Most roads had a 35 mph speed limit and the constantly curving blacktops and steep mountain passes meant I rarely did more than 130 miles a day. But this suited the Nimbus, and did wonders for the fuel consumption. Engine braking in first gear going downhill was new to me, though.

Communication with the locals was pretty much out of the question, very few spoke English and my Japanese is non-existent.

Instead of being a participant, I was more an observer. It also dawned on me how big Japan was, and how little of her I was going to see. But at least navigation was easy, because road signs were in English too.

My interest in custom bikes made me look up Zero Engineering, who have recently put Japan on the map as a serious custom bike country. ZE founder Shinya Kimura greeted me outside the workshop, exclaiming: “Oh, a Nimbus! I used to work on those!” I knew I’d meet someone who knew about them. SK put me up for the night, at a junkyard with at least a couple of hundred bikes.

After a brief stay in Hiroshima, I rode on to the ‘Isle of Ikitsuki 2006’ rally, just west of Kyushu, the southernmost major island.

A nicely tweaked Z1 with all sorts of Seventies go-fast bits was a highlight of this tiny rally. As was a Fifties Rikuo, looking much like a 45in H-D WLC, but different in most details. There was a good boozy late-night party too.

The next day a dozen 650cc Kawasaki parallel twins rumbled in. This bike was a much-improved copy of the BSA A10, and all the models were here, including the final version with Z1 clocks and disc brakes.

My contribution to the festivities was to


Classic Bike june 2009 79

start up the Nimbus at intervals, so people could see its exposed rockers arms moving and record it on cameras and mobile phones.

After the rally, a Triumph rider, Keji, led me the 80 miles to Chicara Nagata, currently the world’s premier custom builder. CN’s two-wheeled sculpture ‘Chicara Art’ took him 7,500 hours, and one could see every minute of it. The ’39 H-D model U engine,

transmission and wheels were stock, but everything else was handcrafted, with myriad elaborate details. The final layer of chrome was fine enough to let the golden glow of the brazing at the joints show through it.

He showered me with gifts and then because it was also pouring with rain, this top custom builder dried off my Nimbus, loaded it into his van, and took me and Keji to dinner. A friend came along to translate.

My next destination was The Iwashita Collection in Yufuin, one of Japan’s major motorcycle museums. The bikes, including the monstrous Ducati Apollo V4 prototype,

were upstairs. Downstairs was given over to a surreal collection of stuff, ranging from an F86 fighter jet body to Princess Diana dolls. Next to the museum an old wooden train wagon had been converted into a ‘Rider House’, where motorcyclists could stay overnight for free. The concept was well established on Hokkaido, the northern island, and beginning to find its way south.

The incredibly friendly staff at the Iwashita museum also directed me to a nearby ‘onsen’ (bath house). I almost became addicted to these. After a European camping trip, one can smell like a Viking – but thanks to the ever-present onsens this vacation was my cleanest-ever.

Another of Yufuin’s museums had a good number of old Japanese three-wheeled trucks. Some were based on large-capacity Harleys and Indians, imported in the 1930s then modified with light truck rear ends. One version, a Mazda, even used an enlarged version of the H-D springer fork.

Next I was heading for the oddly-named Peace Museum for Kamikaze Pilots near Kagoshima. It was a fine exhibition, but it was disheartening to see those hundreds of photographs of young men, who were about to sacrifice their lives. Not all the pilots were volunteers, about half were simply ordered to do the one-way flight… Maybe the name isn’t so odd after all.

Riding down the coast, I had the Pacific on my left and dozens of falcons hovering above me in the updrafts. Occasionally, a monkey would run across the road.

Further on in my loop around Kyushu, I rode through the enormous crater of the Mt. Aso volcano, one of Japan’s most beautiful and motorcycle-friendly areas.

Then it was back up to the bike museum again, for a talk to the owner about his museum’s clapped-out Nimbus, and for an evening with him and the staff, at ‘The Hitparade Club’. The club, located in the red light district of nearby Beppu, was a bit like the place in Pulp Fiction, where John Travolta and Uma Thurman danced. Discipline and restraint may be virtues in Japan, but they do know how to party.

I was up early after another night in the Rider House – it was time for the customary

“My contribution to the festivities was to start up the Nimbus at intervals”

1. Kazuko, one of the friendly Iwashita museum staff, in the Rider House train wagon; 2. Nimbus at the gateway to a Shinto shrine; 3. 500cc Meguro-Kawasaki, a copy of the BSA twin; 4. Taro cafe – a £10 per night Kyoto hotel; 5. Aya with the Iwashita Museum’s Nimbus; 6. Motorcycle cops have a Star Trek uniform; 7. VW camper at 85 per cent scale; 8. The open face of Japan; 9. A Pachinko parlour – Japan’s penny arcade

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