Wheels and Waves 2017 / MotoGeo Adventures
The Wheels and Waves event is full of moto-madness, MotoGeo heads over to this fun motorcycle festival held in the south of France and gets involved in all shenanigans over the three days.
The Wheels and Waves event is full of moto-madness, MotoGeo heads over to this fun motorcycle festival held in the south of France and gets involved in all shenanigans over the three days.
Moto + Adventure = MotoGeo
Bikes:
Ducati Scrambler Flat Track Pro
Gear used:
El Rollo Race:
► Jersey: Alpinestars Techstar Venom Jersey
► Pants: Alpinestars Techstars Venom Pants
► Boots: Alpinestars Supervictory Boots
► Gloves: Alpinestars Racefend Gloves
► Goggles: 100% Racecraft Goggles
► Helmet: Arai Signet X
Punks Peak Race:
► Jacket: Alpinestars Oscar Charlie Tech-Air Jacket
► Gloves: Alpinestars Racefend Gloves
► Pants: Alpinestars Oscar Charlie Riding Jeans
► Boots: Alpinestars Oscar Twin Drystar Boots
► Helmet: Arai Signet X
At the village:
► Jacket: Alpinestars Oscar Brass Leather Jacket
► Pants: Alpinestars Oscar Charlie Riding Jeans
► Boots: Alpinestars Oscar Twin Drystar Boots
► Helmet: Arai Corsair Isle of Man
► Gloves: Alpinestars Oscar Robinson Gloves
► Communication: Scala Rider Packtalk
► Phone/Camera Mount: RAM Mount Tough Claw X-Grip
► Cap: Alpinestars
► GoPro: Hero 4
Please visit the MotoGeo store for all of our apparel
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Transcription of this video:
So we’re here at Wheels and Waves 2017 let’s go and check it out!
I’m here with legend skate man Steve Caballero
The El Rollo flat track today
Punks Peak hill climb
Randy Mamola!
The annual Wheels and Waves event just gets bigger every year. What started out as a small group of like-minded motorcycle enthusiasts getting together for a weekend back in 2009, has now turned into a huge motorcycle festival that provides non-stop motorcycling activities over three days. In the town of Biarritz in the South of France and San Sebastian in northern Spain
To kick things off the right way the event launched straight into moto-madness with the El Rollo flat track race in San Sebastian, where you can definitely find loads of interesting bikes teams and riders. So before we get stuck into the action let’s go and take a look at some of these machines that will be racing here today.
Here we have an ex-Kenny Roberts senior motorcycle. This has come all the way over from America. It was designed to have a rotax engine in it, but the guy who bought it took it out and put in a Honda XR engine and here he goes racing. This guy is in the novice class because he’s new to flat track but, wow what a great motorcycle.
My goodness, this is a beautiful bike look at this British BSA an old vintage motorcycle. They used to race these back in America at the flat track. This was the bike to be on back in the 70s and late 60s, great to see it back today.
It’s always great to see unusual and different motorcycles like this Ducati with a homemade frame and gas tank, or this rather furry looking Harley.
If riding a vintage bike and racing flat track isn’t difficult enough just add suicide shift, which is changing gear with your hands and your clutch is on the foot, definitely interesting.
Oh what a beautiful machine here, an old Indian, this is also the same suicide shift and clutch on your foot and the suspension on the back is just the springs on the seat.
Here we have the Ducati Scrambler, what changes have been made? Well we’ve got no front brake for a start the headstock has just have a little bit cut out here so we can just get a little bit extra lock stop when we going sideways and the tires have been changed some rain tires and really great for flat track and that’s it here’s the Ducati Scrambler.
Let’s go racing!
Now it’s time to get out on track and as usual it was hectic and loads of fun.
I entered the modern class which put me up against mainly motocross bikes and other flat trackers but the Ducati Scrambler was competitive and went well around this short track.
The El Rollo race has once again provided loads of smiles as the non-stop action went on throughout the day. There you have it another great event, I got third in the modern class and fifth in the Superfinal. I don’t care where we finished we just had a lot of fun.
Oh what a fun day, but after the sideways dusty fun on track it was then time to get cleaned up
and head into town.
So we’re here at the Artride in downtown San Sebastian, inside here we’re going to find loads of cool motorcycles, artwork and everything creative, let’s go check it out.
There’s so much to see on each of these three floors motorcycles and artwork are displayed everywhere, if you like bikes you’re gonna love this place, as it’s packed with creativity and unique
machines that keep you entertained all evening.
Look at this bike, absolutely beautiful, it’s actually taken one year to design
and three years to build it. It was well worth it, absolutely gorgeous.
Well I did make the Photowall, but for crashing!
Good shot though.
And even more awesome bikes can be found outside in the parking lot.
So there you have it, that’s the end of the Artride, some amazing things inside and even
pretty awesome bikes outside definitely recommended.
For the next day we would this time head up into the misty hills above San Sebastian, to compete in the Punks Peak sprint race. It’s another fun event which attracts many crazy bikes and outfits as we all try and sprint up the hill as fast as we can.
So here we are at the Punk’s Peak Hill Climb. Today it’s time to go flat out for a mile up this hill. There’s a bunch of classes some really interesting bikes here, so let’s go check some of them out.
This light-hearted event is again separated into classes Scooters, Vintage, Modern and Superbike, so you get a wide range of machines competing. As you can see there are all kinds of
machines here some taking the waves part of this event more seriously than others.
For me it was an absolute honor and pleasure to ride with ex-racer and MotoGP legend Randy Mamola, who came over to support Alpinestars and was racing a custom Honda in the Vintage class, while I jumped on the same Ducati scrambler that took part in the Modern.
Another ex-pro GP racer was Katja Poensgen on a powerful custom nitrous-oxide Indian Scout.
And as the mist starts to lift and the barbeque fires into action let’s go check out more of these custom machines before the action gets underway.
In the Scooter class it was definitely costume before horsepower and even some of these low powered machines needed a helping hand just to get away.
The races are just fun and nothing too serious, the only rule is to start with your left hand on your head in the bike neutral when the gun pops… it’s on!
Get it into gear and go flat out as fast as you can.
The sprint races work on a knock out system, get over that line first and you head back down to race again come second and you get to cheer from the sidelines or take a break from the action. But riders and spectators had a blast watching the action and it was a great way to spend the day, just hanging out on a hillside while you chatted about motorbikes with friends.
That was amazing, we did the drag race. We actually won it on the stock Scrambler so lots of fun I didn’t manage to win Pikes Peak, but we won Punk’s Peak, yeah good do!
Right let’s get out of here, back to the village.
After the sprint we then headed back into San Sebastian to celebrate the Modern class win.
For super special guest this year Steve Caballero.
I’d like to thank Alpinestars for inviting me, everybody’s here because they all love motorcycles.
And first place in that class, is one crazy Mo Fo on a stock Ducati Jamie Robinson
In our last class is the Superbikes and I do believe this is the first time a woman has won this category in our race Katja Poensgen.
While racing an art event go on in San Sebastian the actual village of this Wheels and Waves event is held in the beautiful picturesque seaside town of Biarritz in the South of France. This is where you can find all the vendors and manufacturers showing off their stuff. But it’s not like a usual vendor space here everyone does it in a creative way customizing bikes or products, and if you’re lucky you can see some of those skilled hands at work.
A great collection of beautiful classic BMWs here.
The village also has a mini skate ramp, so I headed down with skate legend Steve Caballero to have a chat about his love for motorbikes.
I’m here with legend skate man Steve Caballero and now Steve you’re at Wheels and Waves usually you’ve got a board and four wheels, you’ve been ripping around on two wheels, how is it?
Oh man I’ve been a motorcycle fan for years you know and I’ve been riding since 1982. You know to me it kind of has that same feeling, that same gnarly rawness and also you can have like an individuality as far as just… Its freedom. Yeah
So what do you think of this event, fun huh?
Man this is an amazing event, I’ve heard about it for years. I’ve had friends tell me like you should come to this, it’s everything that you’re into; art, music, with motorcycles, they have skateboarding and surfing and it’s just a beautiful backdrop.
I love living life you know and I love experiencing everything, so if I can if I can get my hand in
something and experience it and then share it with other people and then make friendships and relationships on the way, I’m going to go for it Steve Caballero top man amazing! Thank you.
This custom bike from El Solitario in Spain. Now these guys are amazing they make some really great creations this was built specially for the flat track, loads of carbon fiber, a special chassis, incredible front-end. Really, really good.
Yamaha ran a competition involving eight builders from eight different countries all doing custom builds on their XSR machines.
No frame or engine mods allowed but everything else was on. Some really different and creative builds actually came out of this competition, but which one is your favorite?
For me, I think this Yamaha flat tracker looks the business.
Look at this Yamaha it’s even fitted with nitrous, superfast and super cool.
It’s so great to see a Royal Enfield here, I mean this is an iconic brand and is absolutely fantastic to see the resurgence of Royal Enfield or what they’ve created. This custom is very special, imagine riding that!
More great looking customs here, this time from Honda. Believe it or not, this used to be a Honda Rebel brilliant, I absolutely love the creativity here, really rare.
Oh look at this, an ice racing Ducati Scrambler. Amazing!
It’s always great to hang out with Randy, this time on the Scrambler radio.
I’m very, very happy to be here. I’m very surprised, but not surprised on how well organised everything is and how lubricated everything is, I mean people are just so much fun, I promise you it’s something very, very special here, very unique, Wheels and Waves. What a great place Biarritz is.
After our chat on the radio Randy and I then grabbed a couple of cool custom bikes and headed away from the village and down to the coast it was so awesome to ride with the wheelie King himself and of course, Randy didn’t disappoint.
So then Randy Mamola, what are you up to these the buddy?
Well I go to pretty much all the grand prix’s, 15 out of the 18 this year and I enjoy that.
How many GP’s did you win?
I won 13 GP’s and I finished second in the World Championship four different times on three different makes of motorcycle. I started dirt tracking when I was 12 years old and my first time riding a road racer was a T125, it was in 1974.
You know I rode shredded tires not even slicks at that time yeah.
Road racing took me to Europe and the big part of that was probably Kenny Roberts, Stevie Baker, Pat Hennen those American riders were there before me and it was really Kenny who I was trying to follow, but coming Wheels and Waves brought me back down to the reason why I ride motorcycles, yeah, because motorcycles are fun.
Yeah.
If you have a fun sport you’re gonna find fun people and immediately that glues this all together. You know Spain and France are in love with with the sport and Italy so much of Europe. Yeah much different to the country that I come from and it really is great just to be able to see and be able to be a part of that and to be accepted by a town.
How many people have been recognizing you, I mean you thought that you could only be recognized in a racing paddock and we’re so far away from racing here on so many levels, but you’re a bit of a legend so…
Don’t embarrass me I kind of, I kind of look at myself as just an enthusiastic and so therefore I’m in a facility full of enthusiastic people, so I don’t mind talking about in so on and a lot of people like to put famous riders and things like that maybe on a pedestal but you know soon find out that I’m well grounded on the floor and I well in touch with the people and I guess that’s probably why I’ve been able to sustain something well over 20 years after my last Grand Prix.
It’s something I want to carry on, you know I’m instilling that in my son who loves racing as well
and it’s something special to be able to do with the family.
A true legend, an absolute motorcycling hero Randy, it’s been awesome hanging out with you buddy.
Jamie, thank you very much.
My chat with Randy will bring it close to the 2017 Wheels and Waves event but back on the bike and it was all smiles as Randy continued his antics and that really just sums up this event of motorbikes in general great people, good fun, happy times!
