::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Article & photos : Laurent Scavone :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Every year, the Wheels and Waves crew (The Southsiders) organises the Grizzly, a motorcycle ride with their friends and family over a three-day weekend, entirely covered by the Southsiders.
These three days of relaxation among friends aim to ritualize the essence of what Wheels and Waves used to be before becoming this dream machine that gathers 20,000 motorcycle, surf, and skate enthusiasts every June in Biarritz.
20 participants at this "get-together" with friends, including team members Jérôme, Julien, Christophe, Valérie, and lifelong pals, at a location kept secret until the last minute. A support truck handles luggage and any breakdowns, with a logistics team ensuring everyone is well-fed and never short on drinks. They are responsible for the essential campfire because without grilled Grizzly meat, it's just not the same... it's rootsy, but let's not get carried away :)
On Friday, at an old military barracks in Toulouse, the Southsiders' base camp, a bright sun gave the place an industrial Californian vibe; the spot is no coincidence. An El Camino, motorcycles from the 60s to late 70s, stock or custom-built in the Freaky style that the Southsiders have mastered, giving their bikes a certain rock'n'roll je ne sais quoi.
Our throats and tanks satisfied, we head towards Cahors and follow Jérôme on a mid-70s Sportster—I love his white seat! The motorcycles snake in a sustained line, surfing beautiful, antiquated roads bordered by moss-covered dry stone walls. It’s Canada if I dared to close my eyes. Then we roll through the gorges of the Tarn and Aveyron like a poem… Can you hear the music, the one that beats to the rhythm of a BSA cylinder?
And then the first troubles, a BSA laid down in the tall grass to hastily replace a fuel tap. W&W promises "Back to the Roots"—and we're there! A couple from Moscow, friends of the crew, are doing the Petrouchka dance on this bike, pushing and patching it up!
We arrive at the base camp, "a castle," escorted by a 1965 Ford F250 long bed... Definitely at the Southsiders'. The guys are pumped, vintage enduro bikes await us, and we can enjoy the 400 hectares of generous nature this lodge offers!..."Lord of the wild ones roam your lands...there's a popping sound in the woods!".
Ride cool, ride well... Not all the time!
We never criticize Goodwood, nor do we spit on Trog "The Race Of Gentlemen"!
What's the W&W recipe, Jérôme? There's no recipe; we created an event that reflected us, and one day we filmed a ride with friends and shared the video on Facebook. Since our friends are spread all over the world, we posted it in English, and the video was a hit. You know the rest: 20, then 100, then 1000, then 10000, and finally 20000. We haven't changed our original trip; we've just tried to follow and organize.
The Southsiders have definitively transformed motorcycle rallies into a cool gathering, a lifestyle mixing the planet's most fun disciplines—motorcycling, surfing, skateboarding, music, and art—with an aesthetic that appeals to those for whom beauty and quality are the norm. Wheels and Waves has made other gatherings seem outdated. In fact, how many of you were willing to ride hundreds of kilometers to a motorcycle event before this one?
The Wheels members drive American cars like their shoes, their bikes are English, their helmets Japanese, their clothes made in France, Australia, or from the land of the rising sun; the typography is handcrafted as in the past, the graphics are sharp and artistic. English is de rigueur, we don't just ride, we glide; we don't parade, we make an entrance... The Wheels is not just an event, it's a time capsule that transports us to a country that doesn't exist but which everyone fantasizes about. The Wheels is not for fans of the Pecquencourt motorcycle show, nor is it for hipsters; the Wheels is a gathering for those who claim a culture of stories, heritage, values, beauty, and goodness. People come to see and be seen, for the Basque coast, for oysters from the covered market, for the Spanish mountains, for the ocean, and for the heroes of custom culture who are the new heroes of pop culture.
Back to the roots!
That's the new promise of W&W: to return to the essence of the first gatherings. We'll find the races, such as the run on an open Spanish road "Punk's Peak Sprint Race" Jaizkibel Hondarribia, "El Rollo Flat Track Race" San-Sebastian Hippodrome, and the enduro race Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle, not to mention the various surf and skate contests. Indeed, it's this entire program that drives us to make the journey, but let's be careful not to lose the "Roots" spirit that made amateurs and tinkerers true heroes with whom we, the Sunday riders, could all identify. To get a glimpse of those who compete without glory; today there are security cordons, passes, numbers, and accolades that create distance between them, the good ones, and us, the losers. So what to do to stay "Roots"? Neglect safety, do it less well, or differently? I don't have the answer. Perhaps learn to say no, no to increasingly demanding sponsors, to draconian standards, and especially to make room for amateurs, oddballs, and the touch of madness that the Southsiders have made a dogma since the creation of this unparalleled event.
Sunday evening, the camp's madness takes over, and we follow Mayol, a friend of the crew, who rides shirtless with a Ruby Castel helmet because you're allowed to bite the dust with elegance here. Then, in the inky night under the stars, we end up taping our iPhones to the front of the bikes, torches lit, for a night enduro, casting gigantic shadows in a ghostly forest where worried animal eyes stare at us, but no one cares. This weekend, every guest sought the thrill, like that foundational W&W run, and there, in the cold night, blindly traversing a tunnel of trees, supported by shouts, laughter, gasoline, and reddened exhausts, we tell ourselves that 5 days in Biarritz for W&W is too much for those with no imagination and not enough for those whose lifestyle is... freedom.
I would like to thank the entire Southsiders team, and especially Christophe Canitrot.
