Wheels & Waves, Biarritz, F
How Many Cubic Inches can a Town hold?
A whole burbling and rumbling lot, if the weather’s right. Summer’s the time when lovely Biarritz, the place where Napoleon Bonaparte himself made bathing in the sea a thing, gets turned into the thrumming, potatering and screaming heart of the custom-vintage-race-surf-art-style-bike scene for 5 days. Hundreds of motorcycles roam the streets, and the many highlights of this festival of internal combustion are almost too many to find space on the memory chips that Minako, our reporter on the ground filled to overflow.
The Village of the Extraordinary.
The Wheels & Waves Village harbours a complete cross section of the custom community with all its facets: garage customizers, vintage clothing, a flea market of swapmeet parts, merch, souvenirs, posters, liquid and solid refreshments, you name it. This is where Minako met Kurosu San of „Cherry's Company“ and Toshiyuki "Cheetah“ Osawa, who had designed the poster for the 13th edition of Wheels & Waves. He also brought an iconic 1946 WL Harley-Davidson to the start line.
Cubic Inches need Exercise.
There’s not many places where the motto „thrash it don’t stash it“ is being so ruthlessly employed than at Wheels & Waves, with its quirky assortment of races around Biarritz. The most gruelling of them all is the "Punk’s Peak" hillclimb, a 400 m sprint up mount Jaizkibel. Here all kinds of bikes are eligible, from pre 50s up to all out superbikes. If straight and as fast as possible is your thing, enter „The Race Of The Lords“, a two-part drag race returning to the start line. Less throttle, more skill is the thing in the "WAW Vintage Rally", which takes enduro aficionados across 6 kilometers of woodland. Finally, there’s the "El Rollo", a flat track race in nearby San Sebastian, but that’s another story.
Art on Wheels.
Away from the roar of the races, the food trucks and the parties there’s a quieter part to Wheels & Waves, such as the "Art Ride" a little outside of Biarritz. And, yes, it’s a (motorbike) ride to art and across art itself, centering around tank art, helmets, surfboards, skateboards, bikes, all artistically tweaked and beautifully curated. Add print art, stickers and posters to the mix and dive into a world of its own, worth the long ride all by itself.
And don’t forget the Waves!
With all the motorbikes fishtailing through the dirt or gliding over the coastal roads, the famous Biarritz surf scene sort of slipped through Minako’s overworked shutter fingers. Maybe next time she’ll push it up a notch or two on her to-do list and snap a few shots of beach, surf and surfer dudes.