I would say it was a perfect day but what the hell!, no doubt it was. After CRD’s founder and friend Pedro Garcia invited us for breakfast at El Diamante, we leap over our motorbikes and the wild bunch headed to Jarama Race Track where the vintage festival took place. It was a nice sunny day of october, the temperature was perfectly standable riding on the motorbike or walking among the classics with the camera.
It was my first time in this event and I was pleasingly surprised by the atmosphere, the organization and the profile of the public in general, a quite balanced mixture of tough guys, classic and vintage lovers, refurbishers and world champions like Agostini and Nieto.
In some way, for those like me who have been in touch with motorcycles since an early age, walking among all these jewels was like a time travelling.
Memories arised from the inside out.
Sorry I am one day late. The following picture was taken in Pittsburgh in 2009.
I have been several times to the States. I love to go there, anyone who knows me, knows that. I go everytime I have the chance (and money) to do it. Last year, I went there on holidays for two times twice, the second time I took a solo trip driving around Utah on a beamer and on the first trip, me and my girlfriend Sol, we flew into Las Vegas and we decided to drive to Overton that first night.
By the end of the next day, it happened to be Memorial Day. After visiting Zion Ntl. Park, we had some problems finding some place in Springdale to spend the night.
We finally drove back to Hurricane and had no problem with room vacancy. Although we were kind of nervous facing the fact that we could sleep in the car (a confortable and roomy Dodge Caliber by the way) that night, it was fun, anyway.
As Eddie Rabbit said once, I don’t know where to start.
Look at this brat, he’s just a kid struggling to turn that handlebar. He’s bravely commanding the Derbi Panther, a quite advanced and flashing bicycle at that time, including a rear drum brake and a 3-speed cogset actioned by a shifter unusually placed in the top tube.
It was me and it was all fun.
Ooooh man, it was summer of 1993, I was 15 years old (young!, very). My father just got me this wonderful, even perfect, XR for my birthday. A whole new world opened in front of me since I took my first ride on a motorbike with 7 years old.
Things were different at that time, and I am not selling you that things now are worst or better, but at that time things were just different and you understand what you want pals.
I just need a picture like this to share with you my understanding of those years. If you focus on some details you will see a helmet, which I borrowed from a friend and that time it wasn’t mandatory to wear it when riding on the road so imaging off road. I was wearing regular boots and cargo trousers and some black tee. Safety in this case was not first, was just behind fun…
This picture had to be taken during the first days because I remember that tail light did not last too long and had to be replaced for a strong one.
Last Sunday, the second race of the Rebull Best Crono Madrid Open season took place in Boadilla del Monte, the town where I grew up and was a preferential witness of a brat like me, taking his first steps on both, bicycles and motorbikes.
This time, the race was aimed to be a Criterium, which in this occasion means that riders had to take 23 laps around a 1.3 kms (0,9 miles aprox.) urban circuit.
In terms of classification my participation was a disaster as I had a flat tyre not even having completed the first lap!. A huge failure in this way but a great success in many others. I had the chance to participate for the first time in this type of event (I have been in some alleycats though) and because of this, I can’t stop thinking about being in the next one and do it better. According to this, I’ll have to train harder in order to reach the desire improvement.
It was also a success in the way that it meant a chance to learn from the riders with more experience, so I took some good notes about some criterium stuff.
Once upon a time… Well, basically and in a nutshell what happened to us (Sol, Natalia, Javi and me) this Easter Week was that a street dog didn’t pay attention to us because it was staring at the river, so we decided to cross the river under the snowfall, and then we jumped a barb wire fence to find spiderman completely frozen so we try to call an ambulance from a boot phone (can you believe that?!) and nobody answered so we went to the church to pray for the soul of a superhero while some locals where laughing at us and the growns-ups with their long faces. And we run, and we rode the bicycles and we took all the mud with us… The End.
But above all these, we did have fun!
Sweet cup capes for the upcoming bitter Monday.
Love for Iron 