The bikes are back in town

There was something new for the 50th anniversary staging of the Circuit des Remparts on September 19, 2021. And that was something that Angoulême, in Western France, hadn’t seen for the past 22 years – vintage motorcycles thundering around the testing, technical 1.28 kilometre road circuit on, over and below the south-western slope of the rocky plateau on which the old city is situated.

Although the Circuit des Remparts – one of the few road circuits in France on which competitive motor racing still takes place – is better known for vintage racing on four wheels, when it was revived, postwar, there was motorcycle participation in 1947-52. Due in no small part to the tragedy at Le Mans in 1955, which brought an end to most road circuit racing in France, until 1978 the streets of Angoulême were quiet and used only by ordinary traffic. But