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The 1980 Paris-Dakar from behind the handlebars of a Vespa

Submitted by on February 11, 201012 Comments

The Dakar rally is probably the most gruelling and dangerous motor race in the world.  Motorcycles, cars, quad bikes and trucks compete, not so much with each other, but with the race itself, to survive each year’s course. Competitors slog through each mile in danger of serious injury and death.

In 1980 a French team of 4 riders, put together by Jean-Francois Piot, decided that this all sounded wonderful and that they would enter the race. On their Vespas.

So on the first of January, 1980, these brave (mad) riders set out with 211 other cars, bikes and trucks. On the 23rd of January M. Simonot and B. Tcherniawsky were amongst the 81 competitors to make it into Dakar and cross the finish line, having ridden their Vespa PX 200s from Paris to Dakar, across 7 countries and 10, 000km of brutal terrain.

Maybe they weren’t so crazy after all. Two out of four Vespas finished the race (50%), while only 79 out of 211 other vehicles crossed the finish line (37%).

So if you are planning on tackling the Dakar rally, do it on a Vespa!

Seth Reinhardt

Images courtesy of:

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  • retromotor

    Amazing find Seth.

  • Josh Evans

    ad·ven·ture – 3 – a bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.
    I love this definition from dictionary.com , and on my rides, try to resist the current technology and make every ride feel like an adventure, I havent got to this level though!
    Good to see these guys having a laugh when bike technology was still pretty average by todays standards.

  • http://bamakobyvespa.no Magnus

    This is what we will be doing on three Vespas in 2012!

    While the ones who did the Paris-Dakar in 1980 had quite a few backup vehicles, we will be totally self supported. The Dakar rally has now moved to South America, so instead we are joining the Budapest-Bamako rally which goes along some of the same roads through sahara as the original Dakar-rally.

    bamakobyvespa.no

  • Dade ‘dJeNgKoLL_seMuRe_011′ Darwanto

    Mantabz Gan..
    Lebih Baik Naik Vespa..
    Rawrrr..!!!

    Like This!

    Dade Darwanto;
    Scooter Fans Club (SFaC) Purwokerto, Indonesia

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  • http://www.bamakoorbust.org.uk Henry

    And I thought we were being all original!!!

    Three pizza boys from Sheffield are taking old pizza delivery bikes on the Budapest to Bamako Rally, if we can get the fees scraped together in time we will be in the RACING category!

    The idea is that although it will be gruelling, physically and mentally demanding, it will also be funny…..

  • http://www.bamakoorbust.org.uk Henry

    p.s Hi Magnus, very excited about this, let the battle of the scooters commence!!

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  • Andoitz

    LET´S GO MAGNUS!!!!

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