Text and photos: Laurent Scavone
Family Sundays can sometimes be a drag. An unavoidable ritual, a day considered boring to death, the obligation to put up with those you didn't choose but who will be part of your life... Forever! Your moralistic sister, your brother-in-law whose political convictions divide the family, and the kids who whine as soon as they drop your iPhone. I say this even though it's not like me, I say this because not so long ago I was young and handsome, whereas today I'm just handsome. In short, all this to confess that my former intolerance has given way to a certain benevolence towards this family that made me who I am. Which implies that my passions are due to a two-wheeled family, lovers of exotic vehicles. To tell you the truth, my biker uncles had two Boxer dogs named "Norton" for the calmest one and "Cagiva" for the little bitch who sniffed butts and ate your clothes.
There are Sundays that don't smell of roast and green beans, or plain ice cream, where the snoring doesn't come from the living room after a hearty meal. Sundays that arise on improvised grounds, this one is in the Paris region, it whispers in the middle of nowhere, it howls at the approach of the dust cloud that flat trackers raise on the outside of each curve. This is where the Sunday table is set under an arbor sheltered from the still biting sun of this September weekend.
Nothing around us to disturb this family meal unlike any other, grandmas and grandpas emerge from vans, these ancestors on 2 wheels have old legs... full of sap on LSD, damn they're turning. Yo! they "fuck" you when they're flat tracking. We embrace and immediately splash each other lightly. The drinks are cold and the barbecue gives us fiery eyes. The kids don't like playing hide-and-seek, they prefer touch-and-go on motorcycles, we understand them.... Now I wonder why my kids never want to follow their father, why environmentalists have put it into my offspring's heads that anything that spews smoke contributes to the end of the world "that's your old-fashioned stuff from the last century!, it's lame, Dad"
Christophe Decombard is our host, he kindly sent me an SMS 48 hours before the mass "Are you coming? We're going to our private track to ride in circles, bring drinks." I said nothing was holding me back in Lille that weekend, same for Alain who wanted to accompany me, he's had enough of Sunday roast chicken!
They are here, those you have heard a thousand times about in this blog or in specialized magazines: Frank Chatokhine, Zoé David, Dimitri Coste, Pierre-Alexandre Treust, Jeremy Decombard, Rénia and Jean-Yves Sellin, Cyril, Laurence, Tonton la mitraille to name but a few. One family for one passion: motorcycling. What is a means of transport for some and a lifestyle for others, the world may well collapse around them, they could ride in the middle of a world under the influence of zombies... hoo, hoooo!
I enjoyed the sausages, recommended by my Belgian butcher, a great fan of Guzzi, California 2 and 3, that's his thing, he knows a lot about them, just like with sausages, always big, fatty by conviction and stuffed with cheese and beer because otherwise "it would be sad"!
It's not sad on the track, while Frank and Jeremy plough the ground with their rear wheels, little Nemo Decombard with his 49.9cc imitates the big ones, postures and styles while we look for some shade on our sun loungers. The wind rises and at the same time the dust, how can I tell you that nature, even when we mistreat it, sends us poems written on the azure of a perfect sky. It's a spectacle that makes your hair stand on end. Races are improvised on YCF 125 and 190cc mini bikes, it becomes infernal and exhilarating... A family is beautiful, here we will nap on Sunday, one day perhaps, but it will be forever, in the meantime we keep the grass turning under our Maxxis tires.
