The list is much longer and, while they are not all that they are, yes, they are all that they are.
Throughout history, the rider’s imagination has driven his eagerness for adventure, his passion for speed and his daring to face the significant challenges of moving the world of competition to extremes that come into the realm of legend, in the plane of aeronautics or, directly, in the world of science fiction.
Inconceivable speeds on the ground, the assault on impregnable, flaming Earth fortresses that launch the two wheels with the thrust of a sidereal rocket, impossible balances sliding at a hundred miles an hour, acrobatic flights with the most terrestrial and fastest machines, parachutes that slow down the momentum of a cannon, tires with nails and the adventure that Poe dreamed of, with his Arthur Gordon Pym, crossing the continent at the pace of a world-class competition. They are the most extreme races, where the boldest fantasy unleashes on a motorcycle the full force of its frenzy. We have selected ten of them, taking into account their fame, their difficulty, their risk, and also their legend. We hope you enjoy them.
- Dakar (January)
The essence of the adventure led to a marathon race. The Navigator’s instinct, the prowess of all-terrain and, also, the spark of speed enters into a combination on the physical form of an athlete to realize the fable of a French Dreamer, first through the African sands, to be moved, later, to the Martian dust of the South American Altiplano.
The incredibly hard part of this race is to reach the goal of each stage, many times after sunset, of course, but what is genuinely superhuman is to get up every morning to take the start of the next stretch.
- Springfield Mile AMA Grand National Flat-track (may)
The oval of the mile is the stage for a summit of a specialty that serves as the basis and training to the majority of the sprinters, but above all, it shows the fan as a unique show in that the pilot balances the body to the left and to the center, up and down, to control wheel spin, more cross, or more parallel to the line of advance, to over 100 miles per hour!
The Springfield Mile: an impossible balance, with the left foot in the air, which draws in frantic harmony the dynamics of plasticity on the dirtiest track.
- Tourist Trophy (June)
“They’re crazy, they’d have to ban it, they’re suicidal.” These are usually the most public comments among those who dare to judge the Riders of the Tourist Trophy, almost always based on the most lost of the unknowns.
You have to be British to understand the fastest, oldest, and most dangerous speed test in the world. It is necessary to have grown up breathing the spirit of the TT and to have listened with admiration to the Legends contained in the Isle of Man to understand this mythical race, which keeps in its bosom, still intact today, the very origin of its speed by bike. So we can’t understand them, we just have to watch the Vertigo in his lightning return to the island; and admire them, of course, admire them, because, frankly, it is challenging to find in the world of the two wheels someone who feels a passion more snatched by the bike than a rider of the Tourist Trophy.
We will keep an eye on the second week of June, this year, also, with the participation of two of our own: Rail Torras and Antonio Maeso, who returns to TT after his serious injury.
- Erzberg Rodeo (June)
It has its precedent in the sands of Le Touquet, with its legendary enduro and its thousand participants trapped on the beach, or in the temporary Gilles Lalay Classic, over the Frozen Limoge forest.
The Erzberg Rodeo, and by extension, the extreme endure, has brought the most refined skill of the trial to the bikes of lengthy suspensions and elevated fin.
Thus, a scenario like that of a giant mine exposed to the open sky presents itself as a unique showcase for the best of the specialty to show off, with the risk of suffering the harsh setback of abandonment, while the viewer enjoys unprecedented panoramic images in the endure World, while the sponsor finds, what a doubt, an advertising platform unimaginable only a decade ago.
Every year, a legion of intrepid “endures” take the exit to address the siege of that authentic Austrian fortress, which presents impregnable, judging by the few warriors that reach the goal.
- Pikes Peak (June)
The most famous slope race on the planet faces machines of the most varied origin on a 1435-meter slope, to touch the sky at a high goal up to 4,301 altitudes. Maxi trail and supermotard motorbikes compete against sports cars, year after year, to achieve a victory against the Chrono, against the slope and the asphyxiation of the engines, while some mechanical pumps, with turbos in their bosom and more than 300 hp to the wheel, exhibit their muscular strength on the longest and steepest slope of the races, which in its origin was gravel and which in 2012, finally, ended up seeing asphalted the total of its route.
The Pikes Peak race represents a challenge in the heights, with an unfathomable vacuum lurking at the edge of each curve and an atmosphere diluted at altitude to stifle the effort of machines and pilots. Pikes Peak, the cloud race.