Our mates at Malle are nothing if not adventurous. When Robert Nightingale and Jonny Cazzola aren’t designing impossibly fashionable bike baggage from their London HQ, they’re out on the highway testing that gear throughout the myriad occasions they arrange yearly. Occasions just like the epic Nice Malle Mountain Rally.
The Nice Malle Mountain Rally is a supported 2,000-kilometer [1,243-mile] regularity rally, stacked with round 100 riders of customized, basic, and modern-classic bikes. Operating over six days, the occasion begins in Austria and ends in Monaco. However what makes it so formidable, is that it runs throughout your complete Alps mountain vary—from east to west, and north to south.
Filmmaker Charlie Bristow joined the Malle staff for the latest working of the Mountain Rally, to seize the surroundings, camaraderie, and insanity related to traversing the Alps with 99 different like-minded loons. His 12-and-a-half minute-long quick movie [above], which was screened final night time in London, is a wide ranging snapshot of a journey that at present sits excessive on our to-do record.
Charlie documented the occasion from three wheels, strapped right into a Malle’s radical rally-spec Morgan Tremendous 3. That meant he might get nearer and decrease to the riders, immersing himself within the Rally because it crossed the Alps.
This version of the Nice Malle Mountain Rally was stacked with all the things from a highly-customized Harley-Davidson Pan America, to different new and previous Harleys, Royal Enfield 650s, Nortons, basic Paris/Dakar BMW boxers, and a handful of Triumph Scramblers and BMW R nineTs. Riders coated round 300 to 350 km [186 to 217 miles] every day whereas crossing 5 checkpoints and being timed by Malle’s staff of marshals.
That form of day by day mileage doesn’t sound too nuts, however when you throw the best roads within the highest mountains in Europe into the combo, together with unpredictable climate, and it quickly turns into an endurance journey. Riders compete in groups (a few of that are put collectively on the beginning line), the place the main target shouldn’t be solely on finishing every stage however taking good care of one another too—all whereas having fun with among the world’s greatest bike using.
As a regularity rally, the objective isn’t pace, however slightly consistency. Pace limits should be adhered to, so the trick is to finish every stage as near the allotted time as potential. A minute early or a couple of seconds late, and your staff loses factors.
“On paper, it feels like a really unusual concept—strapping 20 liters of petrol between your legs, then setting fireplace to it slowly as you embark on the most important recreation of disguise and search throughout everything of the Alps mountain vary,” says Robert. “However when you end up 2,500-plus meters up on the facet of a mountain, in some distant checkpoint, staring throughout snow-capped peaks, downing robust Italian espresso and swapping rushed tales from the stage earlier than, with a load of motorcycle-obsessed mates from everywhere in the world… the camaraderie is like nothing else!”
“All of us are in it collectively, working in direction of one single objective—to get each man, lady, and bike throughout that end line with as a lot enjoyable and journey as potential. For that one week, we get to flee the world, we simply journey and journey. With a long-distance journey just like the Mountain Rally, it turns into so mediative—physique and machine turn out to be one and your thoughts will get into this move state, taking up 57 hair-pin bends again to again.”
“It takes pure focus, however you get correct time in your crash helmet to assume. Then to see the Alps by means of the eyes of recent riders annually is superb. When riders from downtown Los Angeles or Tokyo see a few of these tiny rural locations, it may be fairly mind-blowing.”
The Nice Malle Mountain Rally takes on all the well-known mountain passes, like Stelvio, Furkha, Splugen, Gotthard, San Bernardino, Col d’Iseran, and Passo Rollo, but additionally connects many lesser-known roads and Alpine passes. “The well-known passes like Stelvio are nice,” says Charlie, “however most individuals simply do the well-known hairpin bend part on the south facet after which return down the identical means once more. When you stick with it to the ‘darkish facet’ of Stelvio it turns into actually wild, with enormous alpine forests that go on without end.”
“Once we have been coming down the Maloja go, we simply caught the golden sundown on the high. Practically all the groups have been again on the camp by then, however because the movie staff, we’re often the final ones in, with the marshals and assist crew. We have been coming right down to Maloja, and immediately, as we turned the bend, there was this enormous completely flat sheet of cloud, possibly 500 meters thick, within the valley.”
“As we plowed into the thick cloud layer beneath us, temperatures and visibility dropped dramatically, and we blindly adopted the distinct sound of the three customized Malle Rally Royal Enfields to navigate the way in which. As we hit the lake on the valley ground, the cloud gave means barely and I received these superb pictures of the ultimate staff all coming into camp. Using above the clouds is one thing fairly wild.”
A number of customized bike builders additionally joined the Malle Rally staff, together with Alec Padron from Revival Cycles and Calum Pryce-Tidd from deBolex Engineering. “I really feel actually privileged to be part of the Malle Rally crew,” says Calum, who’s been the lead engineer on the Rally for seven years now. “It’s among the best weeks of the yr, the place I lastly get out of the workshop and get to actually journey bikes.”
“There are all the time mechanical challenges and little or no sleep, however a giant spotlight for me was the 2022 Mountain Rally the place we had two of our customized bikes on the journey—a dB25 Ducati and our Kawasaki ZRX1200R. Being tucked up behind one among our initiatives and watching it dance round every bend was a extremely particular second.”
The Malle Rallies additionally appeal to their fair proportion of basic bikes. Alex Coco has now accomplished three Malle Rallies on numerous classic machines, selecting a 1980 BMW R80/7 this time round. “I wasn’t on the oldest bike this yr,” he says, “but it surely’s two of my favourite issues: bikes and mountains.”
“There’s a stillness within the mountains that you simply simply can’t get wherever else. Mountains make you assume. One’s using improves with each bend or switchback. Nothing feels higher than the stillness of the mountains towards the noise of a basic bike.”
We’re actually satisfied—which is why we’re marking our calendars for The Nice Malle Arctic Rally in 2025.
Malle London | Fb | Instagram | Pictures by Shane Benson | Quick movie by Bristow Movies
