Cycle News

IN THE WIND P26 GILLES VAILLANCOURT 1940 – 2015 G illes Vaillancourt, founder of Works Performance Shocks, passed away peace- fully at Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks, California, on Monday, June 1, 2015, with his wife, Debbie, by his side. The 75 year-old industry icon suf- fered a heart attack while watch- ing TV Friday night, May 29, and never regained consciousness. Vaillancourt was just 20 years-old when he rode his Royal Enfield motorcycle all the way to California from his Montreal, Canada, home, but had already been working on motorcycles for years. He had an inquisitive na- ture—one of those guys who took things apart when they weren't broken, just to see how they worked. He worked for Triangle Motorcycles and other area deal- erships while studying welding, tool and die, and pattern making at Santa Monica City College. A concert violinist, Vaillancourt also played in the Santa Monica City College Orchestra. Always looking for ways to build a better mousetrap, Giles' dissatisfaction with the perfor- mance of early '70s motocross shock absorbers compelled him to develop his own unique valving and dampening systems, which led to the 1973 formation of Works Performance Products, in Chatsworth, California. These were the days before single- shock suspension systems with variable linkage—every bike on the track had a swingarm and two shocks. Nobody raced with stock shocks on their bikes, not even the novices. Within a few years, it seemed like half the bikes in the pits were sport- ing the cool aluminum bodied shocks with the bright blue springs that he developed; nearly every top pro ran Works Performance shocks on their bike at one time or another. Ron Griewe, the test editor for Cycle World magazine, in- troduced me to Gilles sometime around 1977. I loved his shocks and we did some testing togeth- er, a couple of times out at his favorite spot, Red Rock Canyon in the high desert. I was a punk kid motocross racer, in the best shape of my life, and it was all I could do to stay ahead of this short, chubby middle-aged Ca- nadian through the whoops! The sick part was that it looked like he was sitting down the whole time. When I asked him how he went so fast through those whoops while sitting down, he just grinned and said that it only looked like he was sitting down because he has short legs, but he was actually standing… oh, and he had Works Performance shocks in the back, dummy! Many years later, in 1998, I ran into Gilles at the first Vin- tage Iron Banquet, held at the Hilton Hotel in San Bernardino. It was an epic charity event and Works Performance founder and AMA Hall of Famer Gilles Vaillancourt passed away June 1.

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