Awesome motorcycle stories, who doesn’t have them. And above all, who doesn’t like to hear them told. That is why MotoKicX serves a strong story every Thursday, a matter of starting the day well.
It must have been about the 14th Superbiker. As a young freshman editor and absolute supermoto virgin, an invitation arrives to participate in the pre-Superbiker press test. I can’t understand why the rest of the editors thank you kindly for the invitation and sign me up.
Arriving in Mettet I have to blink my eyes. Is that Stefan Everts? And there Supermoto world champions Eddy Seel and Gérald Delepine? And European champion Fred Fiorentino? Since when do they have a press card?
I get a Sébastien Legrelle HM 450 with a power delivery that could be called schizophrenic to say the least. All or nothing. Anyway, I mumble onto the track and on my first lap I already crash on the off-road part. Not bad, but I have to ask someone else to kick the HM back on.
After a few laps Everts brakes me in front of the hairpin. I keep pace in the corner, which I can’t believe myself, but when I come out he’s three gears further before I dare to hit the gas. Quite an eye opener.
It gets even worse when I drive over the big jumping hill and Fiorentino jumps over me, literally looking down at me and shaking ostentatiously no. When Delepine breaks a collarbone moments later, I consider my Supermoto baptism successful and I quietly drip…
Text Pieter Ryckaert • Illustration Bruno Vackier
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