Le Mans 24 hour

[paulbaker85]

Just got back from a trip to Le Mans.
It's an annual outing but for some reason (alcohol mostly) my mate and I decided to go by C90 this year.

The challenge was (still is) to purchase a '90 each, get them ready for the trip (pump up the tyres??), then flog 'em afterwards.
Lowest total outlay wins!

It was a 700 mile round-trip over the weekend and all mostly went well.
The only mechanical issue that threatened to spoil things was that my rear wheel was disintegrating.
I eventually got home with nine broken spokes! But it held.


One highlight was when we took the '90s down from the campsite to a Dyno that was set up for the weekend.
We joined the queue behind a load of sports bikes, and waited, patiently.

A crowd of curious French gathered, asking us questions and generally being more impressed than was strictly necessary when we explained that, yes, we did actually ride there from England.
I think alcohol was involved at this point too.

The last bike before we were on was a GSXR that measured a very impressive 191bhp.
The crowd duly applauded and slapped the owner on the back.

Then came the first '90.....
Well, there was a bit of a problem at this point. The guy running the dyno had an attack of bike snobbery and started shaking his head at us and waving forward the next "proper" bike from behind.

Fortunately for us, not so for him, the French know about about people power and revolutions and all that.
The roar of dissent must have been audible miles away and Mr Dyno succumbed to the jostling and threatening demeanour of the crowd.

My mate's '90, which it must be said was significantly slower than mine, measured 7.7bhp and topped out at a "road speed" of 97km/h. The crowd went wild!!


(There's a video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ThOPU_vB2o
Things to note are that the dyno operator has to ask how to ride it, then cocks up the downchange and it leaps of the dyno.)

Then it was my turn....
Now my old '90 is an 1987 vintage. It's not the tidiest, it was a bit low on oil at this point and the rear wheel already had four broken spokes. It does rattle and make all sorts of horrible noises. I wear earplugs to block the mechanical nastiness that's going on, which allows me to go faster.

So I was seriously worried when he started winding it on. As there's no wind resistance the thing just revs until it tops out.
Of course modern bikes would have a rev-limiter.

The sound was horrendous - but as the old girl gathered speed and began approaching my mate's bike's top speed the crowd began to get excited again. When it passed 97km/h there was a huge cheer. At 98 another. At 99 the baying crowd started doing one of those long slow "wooooOOOOHHH" crescendos in anticipation the big moment: Would it break the ton? Would it simply break?

After an excrutiatingly long time it did! The crowd all started kissing and hugging, the noise was incredible; it was as though all their teams had simultaneously scored the winner in the 92nd minute. Absolutely fabulous.

For the record the top speed was 103km/h and 9bhp.
Good girl.

The poor bloke with the GSXR looked dejected. I almost felt sorry for him.


So now the fun's over. I got home entirely under C90 power.
I have to fix the wheel and polish the old steed up and stick her on Ebay.
And it must be said that I'm sad to do so.

The reaction over the weekend from everyone was either delight at the incongruous little bikes sitting there amongst the exotica, or respect that we'd undertaken the trip on them.

If nothing else, the weekend demonstrated to me and to a lot of onlookers that there's as much fun in a £300 C90 than an £8000 superbike. Possibly more.
But you lot already knew that, didn't you?

[aliengravy]

I'm glad you made it!! Cracking write up! Sounded like good fun! Would love to have seen the 90 on the dyno!!!!

Are you the same guys? Or do you know the guys that also went from this thread??
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1475

[Boo]

Brilliant! The atmoshphere sounds amazing as the Cub nears the ton!! The French do love to support the underdog, and there's that great French tradition of basically underpowered but indestructible vehicles driven pied-a-plancher everywhere. (2CVs and Mobylettes springing to mind)

[paulbaker85]

How bizarre!
Not the same group - there were only two of us.

But one of us is also from Hemel Hempstead.
They must have overheard us planning in the pub.

Can't believe we didn't see them down there - would have been great to have seen them, or maybe form a five bike posse!

[aliengravy]

How were the top boxes then??

[milly1964]

That is freaky!! Really wished we'd seen you too, three of us on 90's, 7 others on enduro weapons. You should see the camp we built from firewood, took nails etc, had a bar, kitchen, and a water balloon launcher station. We launched drain dye filled balloons into the camp they called 'concentration', easily 300 yards, had french spotters on the shower roof aiming us at the cocks revvin and poppin sport bikes on the limiters.... that part of the camp glowed at nite for the duration! Managed to get the stunt show crowd on the other side of the circuit too!
We're planning a trip into London from H Hempstead soon, should be 4 of us on 90's, pm me with your email and I'll let you know details.... thats if you still have them.... be a shame to sell them for a poxy 300 quid... keep them, they'll come in handy for more fun in the summer.

[aliengravy]

That is freaky!! Really wished we'd seen you too, three of us on 90's, 7 others on enduro weapons. You should see the camp we built from firewood, took nails etc, had a bar, kitchen, and a water balloon launcher station. We launched drain dye filled balloons into the camp they called 'concentration', easily 300 yards, had french spotters on the shower roof aiming us at the cocks revvin and poppin sport bikes on the limiters.... that part of the camp glowed at nite for the duration! Managed to get the stunt show crowd on the other side of the circuit too!
We're planning a trip into London from H Hempstead soon, should be 4 of us on 90's, pm me with your email and I'll let you know details.... thats if you still have them.... be a shame to sell them for a poxy 300 quid... keep them, they'll come in handy for more fun in the summer.

Yes keep them Couldn't agree better

[paulbaker85]

Even more spookily, several of us ride enduro too...

It gets spookier. We also took nails, hammers etc.
We made a trebuchet. Nothing like the range of your launcher though - sounds impressive.

Top boxes were top, thanks.
Each had a speaker mounted in it and one housed a 400W amp, with a fly-lead between them.
Easily the best sounds in the campsite.
Actually, if you watch the dyno video, the music you can hear (GreenDay) is coming from the top-box.

We were in the charmingly named "Concentration" camp.
Didn't get hit by any balloons filled with dye though!

How do I post piccies here?

[jamlip]

Great video! Dyno twat looks like he's having a massive sense of humour failure - excellent!

[paulbaker85]

Point taken re. not selling the bike.
It's not the money so much as the space.
Hmmmmm....

Have put a few piccies here:
http://www.villafirinci.co.uk/C90/