Not quite the ferry we were hoping for…
Sea Scoot and Run #2 is the second time this event has been held in South Brittany and what a fantastic weekend it turned out to be.
Although Euro Lambretta was being held in France the following weekend, our travelling group decided to use this rally as a mini holiday instead.
21 of us were booked in by Sarah (our holiday planner) and all was looking good… until the afternoon before we were due to set sail. The French decided to strike (how very stereotypical!) so our overnight Brittany Ferries ferry to Saint Malo was cancelled. To make matters worse, we were sailing on June 6th – the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. After some frantic reorganisation, Sarah and Neil managed to get us all onto an earlier crossing to Caen rather than our original port. Meanwhile, Steve and Tracey found us some accommodation 10 miles from the port. D-Day arrived earlier than planned!
Disaster averted
Everybody was forced to change schedules to race down to Portsmouth on Thursday morning for the afternoon ferry.
It was lucky for Ste and Tracey that we spotted them broken down about 40 miles away from our rendevous point. Steve quickly decided that his scooter was terminal and my other half kindly agreed to let them use her scooter for the trip, which meant she’d jump on the back of me. A bit of redistribution of luggage and we were off for the ferry with about half an hour to spare. Disaster averted.
Beach landing
The six-hour crossing to Caen was much quicker than the overnight to St Malo but it meant we docked at 10 pm so needed a hotel (at €125 per person thanks to D-Day). We also had 220 miles to ride the following day instead of 120.
With the sun just setting on the 80th anniversary it was quite poignant to stand looking towards the beaches as we pulled into Normandy. Soldiers lined the deck and many of us reflected on the sacrifices made all those years ago. I doubt the French port workers were on strike that day!
Leed’s Central’s Trev, a one-man riot and creator of chaos
Diesel power
The first few hundred metres on French soil saw Trev Harrison riding through passport control in a cloud of billowing smoke without stopping to show his passport. He’d accidentally filled his KTM-powered scooter with diesel just outside Portsmouth and was forced to drain the tank in Caen. It still smoked like a French striker on a picket line though.
Despite hundreds and hundreds of police with flashing lights (probably from looking after world leaders earlier in the day) and at least two Lambrettas having no lights, we all made it to the hotel in the dark for a quick pint before they closed the bar and sent us firmly to bed.
British Normandy Memorial
This trip was punctuated by a series of coincidences. It wasn’t booked to coincide with the D-Day events, it wasn’t even considered. We weren’t meant to sail into the port closest to the main focus of the anniversary either. As it turned out we were just a few miles south of the British Normandy Memorial and the following morning (Friday) we took a 20-mile detour to Ver-sur-Mer to pay a visit. King Charles and many dignitaries had been there just the day before. The roads leading to the memorial were lined with allied flags, as were local villages.
Standing with Giants
The sight of 1475 silhouetted soldiers in the meadows and poppy fields overlooking the beaches is very poignant. ‘Standing with Giants’ is a temporary memorial, each silhouette represents one of the British soldiers killed in a single day on D-Day 1944. It was good to see a couple of the metal plaques had been sponsored by scooterists, including one from Cloud 9 SC.
A proud elderly Para drove himself towards the memorial on his mobility scooter, beret fixed firmly on his head and a steely expression on his weathered face. I’m sure he had many a story to tell.
22,442 fallen
The walk to the memorial itself is lined with stones depicting the battle of Normandy.
The standing stones around the Normandy Memorial record the names of each of the 22,442 servicemen and women who fell on D-Day and during the battle of Normandy that summer. Every name is carved into the stone pillars.
Sadly, man still hasn’t learnt from the horrors of the past.
Private Jack Banks
Among the many memorials around the place was the story of Private Jack Banks. The 14-year-old lad was already working at a brickyard when he lied about his age to sign up. He went away to fight the bloodiest of battles, eventually losing his young life in a mortar attack.
Do not park near this van!
All for one
Having all left the memorial together (around 19 scooters in total) we split up within the first two miles and lost each other. A police roadblock didn’t help (all roads were closed whilst President Macron’s cavalcade passed by).
For us, the 220-mile journey on my Quattrini 210 was fantastic. Just us and Big Kev and George on a GTS. For the other groups in our party, it was a different story. Karl had to put a new clutch in his Lammy for the second time in two days. Multiple people were running out of fuel, and Neil ended up buying a sprayer from a garden centre to fill with petrol because he couldn’t get a fuel can (most garages are unmanned in France and they’re few and far between).
Beside the sea
After a lovely fast ride in beautiful weather, we arrived at the rally site by mid-afternoon. It was held in a little place called Kerhostin on the Quiberon Peninsula. Riding the last few miles with other scooters we had a bay on one side and beautiful white sandy beaches on the other. It immediately felt more like a holiday than a scooter rally. That vibe was to continue throughout the weekend.
Friends from England, Scotland, Wales, Belgium and France were already enjoying a beer outside the venue, which was part of a campsite. Scooters were arriving all the time and many familiar faces were amongst the riders.
All together now
With a couple of nice seafront bars within a five-minute walk from the site, we got a chance to soak up the last rays of sunshine before heading to Friday night’s do. The DJs did a fine job of keeping the floor busy in a covered outside entertainment area until very late. British and continental scooterists doing what they’re best at, dancing and drinking until the early hours. All brought together thanks to a shared love of unsuitable machinery.
Petit dejeuner
As with many foreign rallies, this one also included a free buffet breakfast. When I say ‘buffet’, it’s croissants, bread and pain au chocolate washed down with black coffee and orange juice. It stopped me from withering away though after not eating the previous night.
People began to surface throughout the morning and by lunchtime the ride out set off with a surprising amount of scooters. We opted to leave our scooters parked up, Olivier had kindly hired a couple of minibuses to take us to the ride-out destination a few miles away. What an unforgettable afternoon it turned out to be.
Le Colibri
Unlike those who rode to the Euro the following week, we had wall-to-wall sunshine for our little six-day trip. Saturday afternoon was scorchio and we spent it in a beautiful bar next to the beach. Even the Scottish ‘Lucky Lucky’ men (and Lynne) went home with a sun tan.
Andy Greenslade (SWSC) and Olivier (Liege) got behind the decks for the afternoon and played a set of scooterist classics and chilled-out dance vibes. Close your eyes and you were in Ibiza. A brilliant afternoon, one you’ll be unlikely to repeat – with fantastic weather, company and surroundings.
We were even treated to some bagpipes, courtesy of a local pipe band. Spoilt rotten.
Bring the smoke
Before too long the ride out arrived in town. I’d say there were close to 200 scooters in it and it certainly brought the town to a standstill. Marshals had closed off the seafront parking and reserved it just for scooters. A great place to end up after a ride that’s for sure.
Saturday night
Back at the campsite, people were chilling and getting ready for the final night. We weren’t back in time to see the custom show results and presentations but saw the French Rock/Oi band ‘Shoot the dogs’ playing an early set before the DJ’s kicked in.
Saturday’s do was held inside the venue and after the excesses of Friday, it was a more subdued night for many (myself included) but still good fun. Many tokens were exchanged for beer, as is customary at these type of events, but it wasn’t going down as well as it did on Friday. Neither was the noxious liquid one of the French girls was making everybody drink from a baby’s bottle.
Watching two rotund gentlemen fixing a sidecar outfit is quite impressive…
Saint Brieuc
Having said our goodbyes it was time for our posse to head from South Brittany to the north, a steady 120-mile ride to Saint Brieuc. Nick Harker demolished a stator plate on the way, but was soon back on the road. Bill on his TV2 sidecar outfit also killed an ignition. The trouble with changing a stator if you’re a larger gentleman and have a sidecar is that space is limited. Bill, with the help of Neil (another larger chap) ended up spending four hours fixing it the following morning, whilst we all waited in the only rain of the holiday. Just when he’d sorted the ignition his kickstart was sticking, so the other side of the engine had to be stripped, mended and rebuilt.
Sunday night was a chilled one to help recover from the weekend’s excesses. Not much was open in town so we took over a posh restaurant and basically turned it into a pub with 20 scooterists shouting and balling. Some of us ate there, whilst others had a comedy curry elsewhere that turned into a complete farce.
St Malo
Having waited around for Bill to fix his scooter for hours we did the usual thing, all rode off in a group and got split up at the first lights. We didn’t see each other again until we got to the lovely port town of St Malo. This was our last night on French soil before catching the overnight ferry back the following evening.
As port towns go, the walled town of St Malo is very pretty, with ancient streets full of shops, bars and restaurants it’s the kind of place you can easily spend a couple of days. We actually ended up losing a night thanks to the 7.9% beer our hotel plied us with for the first few hours. Lethal stuff. I was glad to get to a French Irish bar to get some Guinness to water it down. We forgot to eat tea as well that night for the second time during the trip.
Night boat to Portsmouth
As we waved goodbye to St Malo and rode the 1/4 mile to the ferry port we were greeted by a lovely female police officer who excitedly took us over to see her pristine white Vespa Primavera ET3. She was part of the Vespa Club of Renne and was very enthusiastic.
Having had a couple of days to recover from the rally itself most of us managed to stay up until the bar closed. We needed to get drunk to blot out what has to be the worst-ever entertainment I’ve been unfortunate enough to sit through. ‘Bumbulum the Fool’ is an act not to be seen, even the part where I ended up with a large sink plunger suckered to my bald head. Garbage.
Back to reality
Riding off the ferry the next morning saw us splitting up and going our separate ways. We’d covered around 500 French miles, had no issues that couldn’t be overcome and not had any backup van or European recovery. From some of the awful experiences I’ve seen scooterists having at the hands of ‘reputable’ recovery firms abroad during the Euro, I’d say it’s worth taking the chance and hiring a van if you do get stuck on a Euro tour. Maybe we need to write an article about issues with breakdown cover? Get in touch if you’ve been affected.
Having said that, they’re not much better at home these days. Big Kev snapped a belt on his GTS on the way back to Macclesfield. The AA didn’t get him home until 21:18 that night, we’d been back since 2 pm.
All in all, a great mini-break overseas.
Thanks to Romain and Ronan for putting on an excellent rally in difficult circumstances, and also thanks to Sarah and Neil for organising everything, Olivier for being the Belgian fixer, plus our group of travellers and mates for being great company.
Words and photos: Iggy
If you get a chance to go next year jump at it, this year sold out pretty quickly…
