El Rollo Recap by El Geoffy

The Wrong Bike for the Job – By Geoff Cain

Somewhere between being collected from the airport in a vintage Chevy truck and being handed the keys to a prototype motorcycle, I probably should have realised this wasn’t going to be a normal week.

Mind you, normal isn’t really what Wheels & Waves does.

Normal also doesn’t happen when you’re hanging about with the LiveWire team along with Dimitri Coste and SMCO brothers Shaun and Aaron Guardado. That tends to skew things slightly.

Biarritz has a way of convincing you that motorcycles are the most important thing in the world while simultaneously making them feel completely secondary. You arrive thinking you’re there for racing, but before long you’re parked outside a café, watching old Triumphs rumble past, surfers drifting toward the beach, and strangers waving at you like you owe them money.

It’s all very relaxed.

Suspiciously relaxed.

The sort of relaxed that usually precedes some kind of happening.

This year, my assignment was El Rollo TT aboard the new S4 Honcho Trail.

Now, before we go any further, it’s worth mentioning that someone from the LiveWire squad looked me dead in the eye and said:

Naturally, I immediately didn’t crash it. (Good start.)

Later, I caught up with Shaun Guardado, who described the thing as “fun” and “punchy” which is promising feedback as I was due to race it the next day and it made me feel reasonably confident it would be a blast… and that we might even manage to look competent while doing it.

EL ROLLO

El Rollo has changed a bit since I was last at Wheels & Waves. Eight years ago, it felt bigger, busier, and slightly more chaotic. This year’s version? Much better. Less crowded, more riding, and an actually brilliant circuit.

Plenty of elevation changes. A mix of lefts and rights. Loose dirt. And just enough opportunity to publicly embarrass yourself to keep things interesting.

There was even a little jump which I took every single lap, obviously, because restraint is not my strong suit. A proper race track should always include at least one feature capable of turning a sensible adult into an absolute liability.

The trouble started when I looked around at what I’d be racing against. The Honcho was entered in what can best be described as the “inappropriate” class. An excellent name, because the bike was wildly inappropriate for the company it was keeping. Parked nearby were machines built specifically for this exact purpose: factory-backed race bikes, a Stark Varg, a Honda 450 DTX, and a Royal Enfield piloted by a British national champion.

There was also a Husqvarna 401, although I only saw it briefly before lapping the poor chap.

The Honcho, meanwhile, looked like it had accidentally wandered into the paddock while looking for somewhere to park. Which, of course, made it immediately likeable.

The track itself was incredibly slippery. It was the kind of surface where confidence arrives roughly thirty seconds before disaster.

The Honcho’s smaller tyres were working overtime trying to translate my increasingly ambitious ideas into something resembling grip.

To their credit, they gave it a proper go and the bike surprised everyone, myself included. It accelerated far harder than something that size has any right to. The chassis felt playful without becoming nervous, and every lap encouraged increasingly poor decision-making.

You’d come out of a corner thinking: “That was probably a bit much.”

Then you’d do it again the next lap.

Only faster. The racing itself was brilliant.

Across four heats, I managed finishes of 3rd, 4th, 4th, and 2nd, including a particularly entertaining battle with a Honda 450 DTX, which was made even better by the fact that it used to be my bike before I sold it to a mate. It’s always satisfying when your former motorcycle gets a front-row seat to your questionable life choices.

There were, admittedly, a few moments where things nearly unravelled. One corner in particular required a rather creative interpretation of track limits. The rear stepped out, the front decided it had other plans, and for a moment I was heading directly toward a stack of hay bales with a level of commitment I hadn’t fully agreed to. Thankfully, years of poor judgement and average riding ability combined with the Honcho’s surprising composure somehow saved the situation.

The hay bales remained untouched.

Mostly.

By the end of the day, the Honcho Trail had clawed its way onto the podium with a third-place finish overall. Not bad for a bike giving away suspension travel, wheel size, tyre size, and several hundred cubic centimetres to most of the field.

The crowd seemed to enjoy it too. People do love an underdog, especially one that looks like it’s having a laugh while mildly embarrassing more “serious” machinery.

During the cooldown laps, I decided the responsible thing to do was demonstrate the bike’s full capabilities with a few burnouts, some donuts, and the occasional wheelie.

Purely for research purposes. Obviously.

The reaction was exactly what you’d hope for. It became clear fairly quickly that the Honcho wasn’t trying to be a serious race bike as it was far too busy just being fun.

Which, realistically, is the better option anyway.

By the time we rolled back into the Wheels & Waves village, the bike was properly coated in dirt, dust, and evidence of a day very well spent. Exactly how a motorcycle should look after racing.

The best part of Wheels & Waves isn’t necessarily the racing itself; it’s what happens afterwards. The stories grow taller with every retelling. The near-misses get nearer. The wins get more impressive. And everyone stands around dusty bikes pretending none of that is happening. It’s a flawless system.

Eventually, the week came to an end as it always does. The village packed down. The crowds disappeared. The trucks were loaded.

But for one afternoon in Biarritz, a tiny electric motorcycle with absolutely no business being there lined up against some very serious machinery…

…and refused to be intimidated.

Which, honestly, might be the most Wheels & Waves story imaginable.

Then I had to figure out how to get back to England. Boooooooo.