Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126913
(Above) Sometimes the roads followed by the Incas Rally switchbacked . like this for over an hour, all at breath-stealing altitudes. (Above) long-distance rally bikes usually carry lots of fuel. (Below) Massimo Valenti's 250cc Beta holds 16 gallons of gas and has a small fairing. eventual destination of Nazca. At these altitudes, both rider and bike wheezed asthmatically, the latter producing 34 about the horsepower of a moped at th e top 0 f t h e was h ed -out narrow an d rocky ribbon of track that folded its way backwards and forwards to the side of a mountain. At the bottom of this near-cliff face the terrain was barren and blasted desert: at the top it could have been Switzerland. It was like stepping into Jack and the Beanstalk, particularly when the route took an old Inca road lined by a mysteriou and ma~sive sto!!~ w-"11" The Italian turned out to be a good sort. He took pity on me and from then on was the Englisll-speakers' conduit of information about such . mmor d ' l sasw h I d etal eretoexpect an l'd d estroye d b n'd ges, no petro I S 1 es, and route changes. Team Rock Oil's results started to improve. Thanks Luca. Day three was one long 660-kilometer (410-mile) special test from Nazca to CUlCO, high in the 'mountains near the lost Inca city of Macchu Picchu. It took me 10 hours and 17 minutes, some two hours slo~er ll!"!.ri r'!E~ le_a_der Balestnen, .?!!p) !~'l- The rider's briefing and instructions were in Italian; the event was organized by the Italian company, Acerbis. ished 10th fastest. Bob finally came in useful as well. I found him and the van he had set off in the. day before stuck up to its axles in mud and thus avoided the same fate mysel f. It later appeared that he and the other occu- . pants had spent the night freezing on the dirt floor ofsome cafe high in the Ande . A French journalist nearly collapsed there from exposure. It took them some 40 hours to make the trip to Cuzco - in many ways he had it tougher than I did. . By this time I was pretty knackered myself. The ride, the altitude and the squitters were wreaking havoc on the already-delicate Sweeney bod and nobody told me about not eating too much until you get used to the height. That night ljustcollapsed. Fortunately, a day off La visit Macchu Picchu (very impressive but frustrating because nobody seems to know anything about it) and a relatively easy loop section the day after gave me a chan e to recover anp cork up the old bowels - Bob reckoned the relatively quick time to Cuzco was due to jet - propulsion providing some added thrust La the Armstrong's modest bhp figures ... The field had thinned out to around 25 riders by this stage, many retirements being due to the high speeds or kamikaze livestock on the NazcaCU'lCO stage. Top Italian Andrea Marinoni hita car and broke his leg while animals walloped included a C!JW, goat (by me) and duck (as dead as one). Only the pigs were cool and stayed put when you went past. The . sole American entrant, Sherm Cooper ("60 going on 25"), dabbed heavily early on and wrenched his knee ligaments badly enough to mean an operation and the end of his race. Japanese KTM and Armstrong importer Toshi Nishiyama wrecked the second of the four bikes he was to trash in the course of the event; we duly rechristened him Toshi Mashimoto. He was officially out of the event but that didn't stop rum rebuilding seized engines in hotel lobbies until three and five in the morning just so he could carryon riding. Day five - from Cuzco to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca - provided some great views but was generally easy apart from some deep water crossl'llgs whl'ch drowned out J'ust about the whole entry at one time or another. Swiss rider Arnaldo La Scala stopped at one but couldn't fire up his TT600 again: he was lost for several.days, appearingat breakfast back in Nazca at the start of the eighth and last day with tales of how he tried to sleep beside the bike on the first night until distant g!!nfire between the local .sJl!!p~rO Lummoso gueTillas and the Guardia Civile got closer and closer. Fortunately, the police got La him first and returned him La the rally where he discovered that his baggage 'had disappeared. "The organization are sheets; you can print that," he . vouchsafed later. Puno La Arequipa was one of the worst day's riding I've ever had. The early muddy potholes knocked the spit out of me and the later dry ones finished me off. You couldn't go slowly and faster was worse. Then there was rain, hail, snow and finally IS-foot visibility cloud - with sheer drops on one side of all the hairpins. Fortunately it was nearly as bad for everyone else on the proper race bi kes and I still managed eighth to equal the previous day's result. Back near sea-level by now with the trots on the run (?) I was feeling a lot better and determined to give it some right toe on the penultimate day's special test in the volcanic desert area between Arequipa and Nazca. This actually started to happen as I managed to pass a few riders, nearly stuffing a Peruvian who refused to move over off a hairpin cliff edge. I hadj ust moved up to fifth on the road with the next guy just in front and 60 kilometers (37 miles). to go when the back end of the bi ke started to snake around. It was a slow puncture, so the contents of a "Blow Tube" were bunged.into the tire and locomotion resumed, only for the bike to run out of gas for the first time. The Peruvian stuffee appeared and I waited for the one-finger sal ute. Instead he stopped and donated some petrol! I felt so ashamed I let him go and finished up eighth again. Still, by this time I. knew I could keep up if there were no rocks or really bad bumps and the final day il'l; the desert and on the sand dunes by the ocean was a glorious day's riding. Blasting up 300-foot sand hills with the ridiculously blue Pacific in the background and sailing off the top at' 60 and 70 mph was the most fantastic experience I think I've ever had. Then about five riders who had set off before me appeared from inland where'd they'd gone astray and I knew iliat a good finish was on the cards if nothing went wrong. In company with Geoff Eldgridge. the sole Australian entrant, I left them behind for the final 90 kilometers (56 miles) which was just throttle-to-the-stop stuff on compass bearings 50 to 3450 with only the odd stick or stone cairn to check our pa sage. The final dune appeared through the haze and, thanks to Luca's brief-, ing, I knew we had to go around the left hand side of it. I peeled off and, just to impress the officials around