Place to be : Wheels & Waves-Punks Peak, 2017

Today we arrived early at Jeizkabel Hills for another highlights of the festival, ‘Punks Peak hillclimb’ an uphill sprint bent in the middle. This time we’re going along with El Solitario’s van. Another hour’s has spent from Biarritz, we were greeted by the smell of petrol, the sound of revving engines, and astonishing view on the background. The ‘El Chupito’ race spices up the pre-’50 to Powerbike mix of racers. Costumes are required to race the 50cc demon, and this year the theme was ‘Superheroes’ All sprints should be done in costume.

Especially as sprints grow faster and more serious annually, we heard a few dirty tricks were played, like loosening clutch lever pivots, and one rider seemed hell-bent on forcing his matches off the road—fine but for the barbed wire fencing. One walkaway crash and some hairy moments didn’t dampen things, and the premier event was won by the German former 250cc GP rider Katja Poensgen, proving women riders rock hard. We were lucky to have awesome weather all day.