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| | | Motorcycle Olympics, stunt on bobsled track in Lillehammer |  Written: 30/03/2007 : 15:35. Read 9321 times (6/day). | James Bond was chased down a bob sled run by three gangsters on Yamaha XT500’s fitted with machine guns and long ice studs in the 1981 classic For your eyes only. Her Majesty’s most secret weapon escaped as usual, but the stunt itself was one of the most spectacular motorcycle stunts on film ever. Could we do this? But of course, the only question would be whether we would be shaken or stirred in the end…
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We arranged for the Olympic bob track in Lillehammer, Norway to be free of bob sleds that day and grabbed a 2007 Yamaha WR 450 F and XT 660 R (true to the original XT500’s). Then Yamaha fitted some serious ice studs to the tyres, 5mm at the back and 8mm on the front. On black ice up and down a bob sled track you are not only defying gravity, but also grip. The ice bankings makes a wall more than 6 feet tall and the track is 1750 metres long. More shaken than stirred then…
Enduro and Dakar veteran Gjermund Frostad volunteered to join me and off we went!
It was a daunting first run up the track! We didn’t know anything about how the tyres would grip, how the bikes would behave in the bankings. To protect the ice from the sun sails are fitted on a large part of the track. The frame holding the sails are metal bars and the track is only 1.2 metres wide. On the tall enduro bikes I had to keep my head down or risk decapitation, whilst making sure I kept the correct line to avoid climbing the banking mid corner and fall down.
F*ck, can’t see the exit due to the sails. Glad I’m not claustrophobic! -Accelerated as hard as I could up the ice straight and touched third gear briefly before gearing down to second for a corner. Mind-blowing the amount of grip and just gearing down provided enough deceleration most of the time. Oops, that was my Tech 10’s touching the ice. Bloody narrow this track! The suspension on the WR was too soft for the smooth and hard surfaced bob sled track. In the bankings the risk was that the suspension decompressed mid corner causing loss of grip and gravity! You’ve got to ride seriously fast to stick to those ice walls! A bob sled sticks to the walls by the help of gravity, speed and a true 5g’s! All I had was 50 odd brake horsepower and two wheels peppered with sharp ice studs.
Reached the top more confident than at the bottom and did the same downhill until I reached the finish straight where I had started. Top speed was just above 60mph, but I could have gone faster. I absolutely loved the sensation of riding where no other man had ever ridden a motorcycle before and did another 15 or so runs before calling it a day! Frostad managed a time of about 70 seconds whilst a bob sled can do it in 55 seconds, downhill only mind… Would I do it again? Hell yes! This should be a new sport and maybe it will.
Note: We are planning to make this an annual event. Next time I’ll do it on an R1!
By: Tor Sagen/Photo: DMW Foto
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(not translated yet) PARTENARIAT : DU NOUVEAU SUR LE POLE MOTOS à CHALON SUR SAONE
