Motorcycle & Bikers Blog
The Manx Grand Prix: the amateurs' Tourist Trophy, on the very same Mountain Course
Same island, same 60.72 km course, same absence of run-off: the Manx Grand Prix is the amateurs' Tourist Trophy, and it launched Geoff Duke, Phil Read, Steve Hislop and Carl Fogarty.
Racing side-cars: the driver, the monkey and the three-wheeled machine
A discipline where the crew is made up of two people: the driver on his knees and the passenger nicknamed “the monkey”. From the world championship born in 1949 to today's “worms”, by way of Rolf Biland and the Sidecar TT.
Trial: the art of getting through without ever putting a foot down
A discipline where you don't score points but lose them: trial, its marked-out sections, its observers, its 73 kg bikes with no seat and its extraordinary champions, from the 1965 Bultaco Sherpa T to Toni Bou's 39 crowns.
Supermotard: the off-road bike on slicks that conquered the tarmac
An American television show, a Californian circuit and the crazy idea of making motocrossers, flat-trackers and road racing champions compete together: supermotard was born in front of the cameras before becoming a worldwide discipline.
Velocette: the small Birmingham firm that won the first world championship
Two 350 world titles in 1949 and 1950, a 24-hour record at an average of 100.05 mph at Montlhéry and an invention that became universal: the story of Velocette, the small firm from Hall Green, in Birmingham.