For a really long time I was dreaming of organising a multi day vintage trip with The Roadshow, the stuff they did in the California desert in the 60s and 70s. Think: desert sled, open face helmet, jeans or leather pants, T-shirt, waxed jacket and leather boots. So after daydreaming for a long time I knew it was time to try and create a 60s desert trip. So that’s what we did.

After participating in some rallies over the years I thought it would be really cool to organise a multi day trip through the mountains of Andalusia on 90s bikes with full 90s atmosphere without the race aspect. Riding, camping and campfire stories.

So that’s exactly what we did. 10 riders on vintage bikes: Honda XR600, XR250, Yamaha XT600 and one very brave Dakar replica BMX R80 GS.

Monday evening everyone arrived at our guesthouse in Mijas. We made a typical Andalusian paella, did a briefing about the plan, do’s and don’ts. After dinner some of the riders did some wrenching in our workshop to make sure everything was ready for departure the next day.

Tuesday morning we packed our bags, load the bikes with gearbags and of we started the 5 day trip of 1000km.

The story about racing abroad.

For the season closer of Dust & Fun I was invited by Deus Ex Machina to race with them in Ravenna Italy, a really beautiful 250m short track.

It took me a full day with plains/trains/taxi’s to get to the location but going to races in different countries really triggers me. It’s really inspiring how everyone races together sharing a passion and having a complete different life story.

Racing abroad gets you out of your comfort zone. It makes you work with what’s available with limited preparation by yourself, working with the unpredictable and still be prepared and ready for it.

Last year, as a season closer, we raced at DTRA Greenfield in UK, on friday we participated in the Happy Trails schooling class by American pro flat track rider Jeffrey Carver. The chance to get to train and meet our racing idol, we had a good connection and that was the start of having Jeffrey over a year later at our ‘The Roadshow training weekend’ at Dirt Track Lelystad. We’ve let Jeffrey know about our upcoming event that we were organising and asked if he wanted to do an exclusive class on Friday. He did not hesitate and was very excited to join us and be part of the event.

The story about how it started:

My first flat track race was in 2016 at El Rollo Wheels & Waves at Hipodromo de San Sebastian, Spain. I had no idea how to do it. I was on my Rickman Metisse with Montesa 250 engine, 18 inch rear and 21 inch front with hand cut road ties (apparently it is supposed to be 19 front and 19 rear).
In that race there was a mega fast rider with glamorous style lapping me at least once per heat race. Turns out it was Dimitri Coste (@motelcoste), famous French rider.