Enduro Vintage 2017

THE ORIGINAL ENDURO

You didn't know it, some motorcycles have a reverse gear...

It was in 1975 that Thierry Sabine, then working at the Le Touquet town hall, had the idea of creating, like American sand races, a sporting event reserved for motorcycles on the beach and in the dunes of this coastal and summery town in northern France. Named at the time "l'Enduro des Sables", this gathering of oil and drizzle, smoke and wind, cold (it's February) and mussels and fries (we are in the North) has seen its success grow more and more, until it became an unmissable and legendary event...

Should we see in the name it adopted a few years ago, and following the abandonment of the not-very-ecological circuit in the dunes, a sign of decline? Enduro...pale, not at all! Quite the opposite, the scope of its success has grown as the scope of its circuit has shrunk.

Today, the event gathers, every year at the same time, an increasingly enthusiastic public. More than 400,000 spectators this year and now several competitions over three consecutive days: Sunday, the classic with its 1200 competitors, Saturday, quads and juniors, Friday, the Enduro Vintage.

This aptly named Enduro Vintage, of which 2017 was the third edition, obviously flirts with the retro wave whose influence no one has escaped. But even more than that, this vintage enduro reaffirms a return to its origins. There were 283 riders in 1975, 286 today. And if the event, at the time, allowed the participation of a 250 XL Honda full stock or a YZ 400 adorned with a W garage, it still allows it today with the same relaxed attitude, since it limits registration to machines from before 1990. Because that's the spirit of Touquet Vintage: cool attitude, a group of friends, the pleasure of riding, eating sand and saying it's good. The public, 50,000 spectators, are not mistaken and take their Friday off to witness the battles, two thirty-minute races, with a smile on their faces. A smile on their faces to see that a 1975 Ossa 350 Enduro still runs, that a Montesa 250 Cappra makes noise but still climbs, in short! that our old bikes still have some oomph left.

VINTAGE HAS NO AGE

And then Enduro Vintage is also about team spirit, like Christophe and his 5 friends who registered "as a family" to experience and share the same pleasure. Old motorcycle, old boots, vintage helmet, retro outfit and a certain age, they did it... and will do it again. But don't think that the event is reserved for the old. The youngest have also caught the bug (Charles Pick, Gentlemen's Factory rider on a Montesa 250 at 28 years old). If there's just one thing to regret about this third edition, it's perhaps that fewer and fewer riders are fully embracing the vintage look.

So let's encourage these "die-hards" of the look who make us believe that we are truly in the 70s and not quite today... Now, I could tell you who won this year but I especially want to tell you that next year, I'm coming back!

Text: PASCAL LEFEBVRE // Photos: LAURENT SCAVONE

If you want a Bell Moto 3 helmet, click here

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