COLLABORATION

THE MALLE RALLY CUSTOM DUAL 650 GT SUPPORT VEHICLES

Creating Custom Royal Enfield Rally Support Motorcycles For The Great Malle Mountain Rally – The Longest Motorcycle Rally Ever Hosted Across The Alps Mountain Range.

Words by Robert Nightingale / Photography by Max Howard

The unpredictable mountain weather will always bring the drama and the excitement and it really brings the endurance nature to the Mountain Rally adventure. This is the 4th time Malle has hosted ‘The Great Malle Mountain Rally’, the longest and wildest motorcycle Rally ever hosted across all of the highest and greatest roads in every Alpine territory, with 100 rally riders crossing 6 countries in 6 days. This is a long distance endurance Rally, a 2000km route, rising thousads of meters above sea level, with more twists and hairpin switch-backs than you’ll find anywhere else in the world. This is a real motorcycle adventure and the Malle Rally support team are never far behind the rally teams.

When the idea was first formed to create a pair of custom Malle Rally support vehicles with the Royal Enfield Custom Program, the word Endurance was immediately core to the design brief, these machines will need to endure! They will be the last out and the last in on every rally stage, often coming back into rally camp well after dark, riding through all weather conditions, with greater distances on the Rally research trips and doing whatever is necessary to get every man, woman and rally machine across the Mountain Rally finish line. So we looked back into the history of road rallying and long distance road racing, taking design inspiration from the endurance racers of the 1970’s. The endurance Rally design was driven purely by function, a tool for the job, with first sketches featuring the obligatory additional rally lighting, tool boxes, medic packs, fuel packs, spare kit, but with a more protected riding position, for the engineers to tuck in behind a fairing, in the perfect position to carve through the relentless Alpine switchbacks.

For more than a week before our departure to the start line, as we were putting the finishing touches on The Malle Rally Custom Dual GT support bikes with the Royal Enfield team, our focus was already set on the weather conditions of the highest paved road in the Alps. The Col de L’iseran, situated at 2774m above sea level and a strategic point in the Mountain Rally route that connects the rally stages from France towards Italy and the Alps Maritime and ultimately to the Rally finish-line at sea-level in Monaco, on the 6th stage of the rally. Wild weather was pushing across Europe with a hurricane coming through the Bay of Biscay, extremely rare for early September, but it was having knock-on effects on the already unpredictable Alpine weather, which can change quickly and dramatically at altitude. Over the last 4 years we’d never seen it before, but this year snow was very much a possibility on that highest mountain pass and like any of the Alpine passes, they could be closed with only minutes’ notice. So the entire Rally support team were checking all weather/navigation apps hourly for updates. But then as the first Rally Flag dropped in Austria, on the Eastern end of the Alps mountain Range, like with every adventure, there is always an element of ‘what will be, will be’!

"A light dusting of snow soon turned into a snow storm, with strong winds sending snow drifts across the road."

Robert Nightingale

The Malle Rally Custom Dual GT 650’s are based on the Royal Enfield Continental 650 GT’s – with GT historically standing for Grand Touring and this was the perfect base for a long-distance ‘grand-touring’ endurance build. The engine and frame were stock, the geometry of the bike was already perfect for 12+ hours in a single saddle. With the modified bikini fairing, external spotlights, single seat and custom made cowl giving the upper form of the custom build. The ‘Malle Rally Dual GT’s’ also have many subtle custom upgrades, with Harris Performance Clip- Ons, Harris Performance adjustable rear sets, upgraded K-Tech suspension front and back, custom short exhausts, with Bridgestone BT46 tyres, the Tail-Tidy and Kellerman micro indicators on both identical motorcycles. Featuring Malle custom luggage racks & Rally number boards, with the Malle Expedition Panniers housing all tools, medic kit, fuel pack and basic spares for the Rally teams. The unique ‘Dual’ custom paint work was inspired by the colours of the flags of the Alpine countries the Mountain Rally passes through, from the start-line in Austria, into Italy, Switzerland, France, Liechtenstein and the finish line in Monaco, with some rally stages having over 6 border crossings in one day/stage. Finished off with rally graphics to celebrate each Alpine territory and the mottos of the rally; ‘Prepared To Get Lost’ and ‘Godspeed’.

On their first Rally outing in the 2024 Mountain Rally, the ‘Duals’ were ridden by the Malle Rally engineering team; Calum Pryce Tidd from deBolex Engineering and Malle co-founder Robert Nightingale. As we departed the Rally camp in France on the morning of stage 4, we set out in balmy, blue-sky, 29C temperatures, all intel informed us that the Col de L’iseran pass was open, but snow was a possibility, all Rally teams were briefed and a back up Rally route was laid out in case of closures and the Rally teams departed, given the option to take the official rally route over the pass or a lower (and much warmer) route through the valley.

As expected, all Rally teams chose to take the highest pass and first teams through reported back of very cold and windy temperatures, but no snow, things were looking good. But hours later, after a few Rally teams had mechanical issues to support with, earlier in the day, we only started the ascent much later in the day than planned/hoped, snow was now 100% on the forecast. By the time we reached the very top of the mountain pass, we were the final sweeper team of three, with Rally photographer Max Howard and the two ‘Duals’. A light dusting of snow soon turned into a snow storm, with strong winds sending snow drifts across the road. We stopped for a few minutes to catch a few shots of the ‘Duals’ at the highest point of the Rally, minutes later the road below was gone. Just a white blanket of snow across the Alps beneath us…

That was then some of the slowest riding we’ve ever done in the Alps, slowly making our way through the snow, engine breaking only, through ice-compacted tunnels, with strong gusts, snow being blown up under the visor, sending chills down your spine. Focusing on the road ahead, one kilometre at a time, trying not to look at the barrier- less road side and the huge drops into the ravines below us. Cold, white-out, unnerving, but then suddenly quiet.

The three of us stopped for a minute, we cut the engines, the strong winds had stopped and the view was majestic, the storm had passed and we had the mountain to ourselves. No one else was obviously crazy enough to be up here and we’d all gotten over the pass just in time, leaving a now snow closed mountain pass behind us. No sooner had we been riding up into the snow, we were then back off the mountain, in a tiny Italian village, at 27C, warming ice cold hands on strong Italian coffee and buzzing from the wild ride behind/above us.

As we reached the Rally Camp that night in darkness, we gently pushed open the huge oak doors, half expecting to receive disapproving looks from cold Rally riders that had been sent out to ride in snowy conditions in the middle of an Alpine ‘summer’! The first rider greeted us with a huge high five, best day ever man!’.

This is what the Mountain Rally is all about setting ourselves challenges, goals, targets, routes and then throwing ourselves into the adventure wholeheartedly, building custom motorcycles together, overcoming the challenges, going the distance and enjoying the thrill and the excitement, then overcoming and celebrating any unexpected hardships and the joy that a real motorcycle adventure brings, which is all about endurance.