Magny-Cours, France (June 2024)
I was so excited! A few of us from the Lambretta Club of Australia had managed to snag tickets to the Euro Lambretta event at Magny-Cours, France, from 13th-16th June 2024. These tickets are like gold dust for European clubs and having not participated at a Euro since 1993, because adulting and work commitments got in the way, I felt honoured and privileged to have the opportunity to be one of those lucky members to be going and was thrilled to be hopping on a plane all the way from Australia for some scooter shenanigans in France.
Steve and I travelled from Sydney, and our friend Jack from Perth, to England where we met up with the Dorset Modrapheniacs; Jack and Steve being members of the Modrapheniacs, Steve a lifetime member as former #1 for a number of years.
On Sunday morning 9th June we boarded a ferry from Poole to Cherbourg. I was pillion on the back of Steve’s Serveta and Jack rode his trusty Series 1; the guys grateful they’d made the decision to keep spare Lammys in storage in England, and myself feeling a bit gutted I didn’t have something to ride. Once we arrived at Cherbourg I jumped into the Modrapheniacs’ back-up van to enable Steve to ride a bit quicker. We didn’t want to be slowing down the group of riders, knowing that groups always ride to the slowest scooter. Then, we all took a detour for a few extra days to visit Normandy’s D-Day beaches commemorating the 80th anniversary of the landings. I’ve written about that adventure separately, as this section of our tour warrants its own post.
A few days later, on Thursday 13th June in the afternoon, we eventually arrived at Magny-Cours in central France, approximately 260km south of Paris and 240km north west of Lyon, near to the city of Nevers. We learnt that Siobhán and Akiko, also representing Australia, beat us there by a few hours having ridden two-up, all the way from Cornwall, England.
After checking in, we spent our afternoon exploring the rally site, scoping out our digs for the next few days, and assessing the valuable contents of our goody-bags. Of course, the first order of business was to buy drink tokens (jetons) and to secure our tickets to the scooter tombola raffle. This year the prize was particularly tempting, being a Casa Performance engine in a Series 2, beautifully restored by Rimini Lambretta.
For Steve and I, this was our first glamping experience and we were very impressed with our facilities supplied by the French company, Les Relais Indriens. We had a lovely double bed which was raised a sufficient height off the ground to make it easy to manoeuvre into and out of bed, and with a very comfortable mattress and warm bedding, complete with tables and stools, solar powered lights and bedside charging station/lamp. We weren’t so much impressed with the bathroom arrangements which were a bit of a trek from the tents area and Steve promptly christened them as the “kitty litter shitters”, claiming they were particularly ripe and likely to get considerably worse over the following days. To be fair, they were eco-friendly, so that’s a win for the planet right? But at our age we have definitely become a bit more precious about our bathroom situations. I preferred the plumbed version of amenities and after searching, I found the holy grail. Alas, there was only one plumbed toilet available for ladies, which was located in the main hall and this area was locked overnight.
When Siobhán bragged about their Airbnb with a private bathroom just a short stroll from the rally site, I have to admit I was envious at first. But then we had a chuckle when they confessed it was a caravan with their very own kitty litter shitter, although at least theirs was private. It’s funny how we have gotten soft in our old age and how much our standards for comforts have changed since our rally days in years gone by. The struggle for modern comforts is real!
Steve, being the enterprising problem-solver, quickly devised a plan for his nightly bladder relief. His only other option, he claimed, was to drink less before bed. As if that was ever going to happen. But more about that later.
Over the remainder of the afternoon, we parked ourselves in the open-air beer garden to catch up with old friends and soak in the sunshine.
Thursday evening’s meal at the campsite consisted of a culinary showdown with options from supporting food trucks – pizza, kebabs, curries and crepes. The drinks menu was limited to Heineken, red wine or white wine – which we were more than happy with. Steve and I decided to continue on with the refreshing cold beer and chose the kebabs food truck, only to realise our grave mistake in our food choice after catching a whiff of Jack’s choice of tantalizing curry. We suffered from a serious case of food envy! We got over it quickly though, as beers and conversation continued until we decided to retire for the evening.
Friday morning we awoke to the sound of rain. Well I was hoping it was only rain, considering the distance to the toilets. During the night, Steve had worked out another method, finding an alternative use for the rally cups supplied in our goody bags. As he emptied his cups outside the back of our tent it looked exactly like left-over beers from the night before so anyone nearby didn’t bat an eyelid. I chose to lay in bed as long as possible dreading and delaying the obstacle course among all the tents, tent-ropes and parked up Lammys to head to the portable kitty litter shitters. When I did eventually peak outside the tent I was relieved to see confirmation the noise earlier had been from rain, however not impressed about all the wet freshly mowed grass I had to navigate on my way to the bathrooms. Although I did giggle along the way hearing the symphony of snoring from the nearby tents. Fortunately the kitty litter shitters weren’t too bad – yet. The showers were challenging though, with their tiny cubicles and limited hanging space for my dry things, it was a bit like trying to do gymnastics in a phone booth. But at least the water was hot, coming out with a good, strong force. I emerged clean and warm, then successfully maneuvered back to our glamping tent like a ninja to avoid mud and minimise the wet grass on my shoes.
Unfortunately it was to continue to rain on and off throughout the day. But that didn’t stop things going ahead, like the ride-outs and the long wine & cheese self guided tour, the latter which Siobhán and Akiko enjoyed. Jack, Steve and I were content to hang around the site all day, checking out the dealer stalls, admiring all the Lambrettas parked up and riding around the site, watching the Dyno testing, and chatting with old friends.
At lunchtime Steve did a little knurdling in the repair tent hindering Martin on another club’s Targa Twin, while I took what I thought would be a leisurely stroll to the nearby village to pick up some supplies from the supermarche for later. If I’d known it was a 40 minute walk, and not the 20 minutes I was promised the night before, I might have “borrowed” Steve’s Lammy and ridden there. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one with that idea, judging by the constant flow of Lammys riding up and down the road to the village. I noticed a few parked up by the bar in the village, too.
Friday night’s meal was supplied by food trucks again and due to the weather we relocated from the open air bar we had enjoyed the evening before, to the dining hall. This time most of us opted for curries, which entailed lining up with other Lambrettists, mostly English. While the wait became ridiculously long, everyone was in good spirits, not too concerned about getting wet in the light rain. In fact most declined the offer to share an umbrella with the Aussie (me), claiming they were quite used to a bit of rain. Intrigued by my LCoA attire and Aussie accent, they seemed more interested in hearing about Australia, impressed how far I had travelled from Sydney to attend the Euro.
Once we’d eaten we remained congregated in the dining hall with bottles of red wine and more chatter, while listening to the tunes spun by the resident DJ. It was strange singing along to tunes we all knew, only to realise the odd song was being sung in a French version. At one point the club at the next table in matching T-shirts caught my attention. I may have had a few too many vinos by then and boldly asked them for photos, making some new friends in the process.
Saturday was more or less the same as Friday. A few unhappy campers had decided to leave early, either complaining about the poor weather, or the campsite’s less than ideal layout or pitching surface under their tents, and some complained about lack of activities on site. There was still rain drizzling on and off, there weren’t as many dealers as some expected, no gymkhana entertainment, no welding facilities and very few spare parts for sale to assist those who had suffered mechanical issues on their way to Magny-Cours. Most of us who remained, passed the time by wandering around the site again, checking out scooters and a couple of new stalls that had appeared.
On Saturday afternoon, Steve, Jack, Siobhán, Akiko and I went to watch the new movie about the 1984 Barcelona Diagnol 24 and here, for the first time, we bumped into Nick, our 6th representative from Australia. The 90 minute movie was very enjoyable and informative. At the end, Jaime from Eibar (the documentary producer) had a special treat for those of us who hadn’t left straight away, introducing us to two of the race organisers, with the opportunity to ask questions, which went for another 30 minutes. It was fascinating and stirred a few ideas and dreams about whether this race could be resurrected.
Afterwards, Steve and I went back across to the Eibar stall in the dealers’ area, to buy a copy of the movie and a couple more items which we hadn’t noticed earlier. I also convinced Steve to visit a nearby stall to invest in some strawberry scented 2 stroke oil for the ride back.
Saturday night was the gala and awards dinner. The majority of the Australian contingent sat together, with the Modrapheniacs club, and chatted waiting for the food and awards to start. This was the first time that all rally attendees were gathered in the dining hall, having previously all been scattered throughout the site. We wondered how the organisers’ caterers were going to pull off delivering our meals to so many people. There looked like we had well over a thousand people there. It was great to see many clubs sat dressed in matching club shirts especially arranged for the Euro Gala dinner. I thought it would be nice to see the Australian contingent do that if we are fortunate to attend future international events. Being a bit noisy with all the chatter, it was difficult to hear all the awards being announced so I can’t really report too much on who won what but suffice to say Steve and I were mildly disappointed to learn we didn’t win Furthest Travelled when we had thought we may have come from furthest afar. Steve wasn’t too bothered since this happened to him last time he attended the Euro in Italy 2017, missing out on this trophy which was announced as being awarded to someone who travelled from Glasgow. Seems geography might not be the organisers’ strong point? We were also sad we didn’t win the Tombola Lambretta but pleased for the winner, who we heard was a lovely and deserving bloke from Ulster. His reaction was quite warming too, from what we could see in later photos posted on the Facebook page.
Come 8pm the meal service not only all went off without a hitch but the four courses of food were incredibly delicious. Everyone was impressed at the quality of the food with its exceptional flavours and presentation. After dinner we didn’t end up staying too late, as we were planning to be leaving early, plus we had run out of wine.
Sunday morning Steve and I were rudely awoken at the crack of dawn (which is very early in Europe in June) by the sounds of squeaky horns and two stroke engines tearing past our tents down the main road as they departed the site. We arose shortly after, packed, enjoyed a breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs and French bread, then joined Jack and the rest of the Modrapheniacs to set off ourselves, around 9am. Siobhán and Akiko had left much earlier as they had a long ride back across France to their ferry port at Roscoff.
Our guys rode through rain to Alençon with me happily dry in the back-up van following behind them. We only encountered one minor issue – being stopped by Gendarmes on the motorway at Le Mans. After some initial communication problems we ascertained they were wanting to know the horsepower of the scooters having concerns about being on the motorway with all the sports cars and busy traffic on the Le Mans weekend. Once satisfied the Lambrettas were indeed allowed on the motorway, they let us on our way although insisted we take the quieter roads for the remainder of our journey to Alencon, for our own safety, implying the crazy sports cars on their way back to England were too dangerous. They then asked for a photo before letting us continue on our way. I’m surprised they didn’t mention the strawberry scent coming from Steve’s Lammy, it caused some amusement with some of the accompanying riders in our group following Steve.
After an overnight at Alencon, where we bumped into the Isle of Wight contingent on their way home, we rode back to Cherbourg in fine weather to catch our ferry back to Poole. We were pleased to learn Siobhán and Akiko also made their ferry to Plymouth on time, also without any mechanical issues.
What a fantastic weekend we all had, despite the rain and a few minor discomforts. The friendships made and rekindled, passion for Lambretta and reliability of the scooters our group were riding with (yet again no breakdowns), gave us all some wonderful memories that will remain with us for a lifetime.
We’re already hoping to return again for another Euro soon!
