The NONCONFORMIST
The radical Nard Ultra 6 Moto2 racer, with its wishbone front suspension and ultra-minimalist chassis format, sits in the paddock of the Croix-en-Ternois race circuit in northern France waiting for me to ride it. Created by retired hydro-electric civil engineer Gilles Nard, 71, and his sons Sébastien and Julien, this bike would be considered pointless in any other country.
THE NARD ULTRA 6 WAS CONCEIVED BACK IN 2014
But not in France, which has consistently featured the most innovative approach to motorcycle chassis design in the white heat of competition. Because the successive examples of alternative thought which have flowed from the nation’s workshops over the past half-century mostly aren’t fanciful follies which dare to be different just for the sake of it. Instead, they’ve often provided a genuine solution to that age-old conundrum: how do you make something that works well, even better?
Major manufacturers like Honda and BMW have adopted elements of these mould-breaking designs on their series production models, so French alternative chassis technology deserves to be recognised as a crucible for helping to develop a better bike.
The president of Yamaha Motor Europe Éric de Seynes showed his faith in the validity of the Nard design by supplying another YZF-R1 motor to the father and sons team, to allow them to construct their own prototype endurance racer which, without Covid-19, would already have gone testing en route to competing in 2020-21 World Endurance
