VIBA Motor of France brought one of their limited edition LARA800 Scramblers to Snow Quake. It's based on a modern MV Agusta 800 liquid-cooled triple and they allowed Dirt Quake veteran Pierre-Alexandre Treust race it on their own handmade ice tyres (Treust was Toy Story's Woody on a full fat BMW airhead Boxer at DQIV. You can see him in this post).
The day didn't start well for the €32,300 (plus tax) exclus-crambler. The top of the lightweight battery cracked, perhaps due to the frigid temperatures, and shorted. But VIBA boss, Yann, had packed a spare (very professional). Once they got going, and Pierre got his eye in, the bike ran well and the pilot was brave, on a bike with not much steering lock. For those who don't know, you really want a lot of steering lock on a bike you're trying to powerslide. If a bike doesn't have much lock, the forks hit the lock stops before the back end has stopped over-steering and then it wants to highside and there's not much a rider can do about that. Especially on ice.
The way people rode heavy street bikes on the Ice Rosa Ring was an real eye-opener. Legends, the lot of them.
More Snow Quake reports from other racers coming over the next few days. G
Posts
