This is the Gumball 3000, and I’m here on a motorcycle.
Our friends at Harley-Davidson International (Harley’s primary non-US operation) wanted to find out why. So they got on board as a Gumball sponsor, entered a couple of bikes, and rang us up to find out if we wanted to tag along.
This year was the 19th year of the rally, and the course ran from Riga in Latvia to Mykonos in Greece—via Warsaw, Budapest, Dubrovnik, Tirana and Athens. The rally was book-ended by a pre-race day celebration in Riga, and a two-day party in Mykonos.
With celebrities like CeeLo Green, Major Lazer, Afrojack and Gumball founder Maximillion Cooper and his rapper wife Eve all in attendance, the Gumball parties are reportedly massive. I say ‘reportedly’ because I didn’t actually go to any of them. On average they start at 11pm…which is fine if you’re sharing driving duties in a car with a co-driver the next day, but not great if you need to ride large and unfamiliar motorcycles over great distances.
All was revealed at the driver’s briefing the next day—in between participants shaking off hangovers, or still drunk from the night before. Max Cooper delivered your typical route and safety briefing—including the small detail that we’d need to cross Albania in convoy and under armed escort.
A typical Gumball start is a massive spectacle. You get huge crowds, a European TV presenter in a pink suit covered in Batman logos, loud music and supercars revving their engines furiously—only to gingerly putter down the start lane one at a time, as the flag drops for each of them. It was noon before we rolled off the grid—rather late to start the 700km slog to Warsaw.
The riding itself was a pretty mental too. Within minutes of leaving the city center, the heavens opened and we pulled over to don rain suits. The crappy weather would persist all day—outdone only by the even crappier road conditions. Then there were the cars that would attempt to pass our group, only to have to duck into the middle of us halfway because of oncoming traffic (I almost became a trunk ornament for a Lexus on one occasion).
A few hours later, we rolled into the small Polish town of Augustów, still almost 300 kilometers from where we were supposed to be. It was already half past eight, and we’d heard reports of police patrolling the Belarus border further along the route, holding up entrants for silly reasons. Knackered, we booked into a cozy hotel on a lake and called it a day.
While I tucked into a steak and a bourbon, the Harley crew—Nik, Alex, logistics and transport whizz Josh, and Charlie (I’m not sure what her official job description is, except that she does ‘everything’) mapped out a route. The bikes would go to Wroclaw and Prague, where I was due to leave, and then on to Salzburg and Munich, before everyone flew to Mykonos for the Gumball finale.
We rode through dense Polish forests, gunned it on Polish highways, and found Poland’s dodgiest outhouse. Our first leg was still a bit of a reach, mileage-wise, but a decent start time meant significantly less stress.
The stint from Wroclaw to Prague was pretty short, and took us through some spectacular scenery on twisty—but rough—roads. We even found a motorcycle race start grid just outside one village, and marveled at how hairy it must be to race on the roads we were riding.
I spent my days switching between a Street Glide and Road Glide, both powered by Harley’s latest 107ci ‘Milwaukee-Eight’ big twin. I prefer the Road Glide with its fixed fairing, but both were pretty practical machines for the task at hand, with big, comfy seats, foot boards, storage space, cruise control, the ability to chug along all day, and a sound system hooked up to my iPhone via Bluetooth. If I had to attempt the Gumball again, I’d probably pick the same bike—with a few choice mods of course. I couldn’t get a solid answer out of Nik if Harley would be back the next year to give it another shot. But he had a look in his eyes that said if he did, he’d know exactly how to tackle it.
And the Gumball itself? Yes, it’s a little silly. But going cross country on a big ol’ bagger with a rad crew is something every motorcyclist should experience at least once. Or, as Nik put it when asked why Harley were there in the first place, “we just love riding motorcycles.” With thanks to Harley-Davidson International | Instagram | Images by 8 Seconds and Wesley Reyneke. via Blogger Ride Report: Inside the surreal world of the Gumball 3000
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Oliver Eliott
I'm Oliver. I'm an adventurous person. I love exploring the unknown. |