Burning Man on motorcycles? Welcome to The Rotten Race

With the Greek economy still in tatters, people are seeking cheap forms of release. As such, the custom motorcycle scene is booming. After all, once you have two wheels and a full tank of gas, the open road is free.

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Since opening in 2014, The Real Intellectuals has become a mecca for Greece’s alternative motorbike community. Owner Nikos Theodoropolous, a graphic designer by trade, also founded The Rotten Race in 2015, a raucous annual carnival of live music and flat track racing (a race around a relatively flat, oval dirt track).

It’s April 2018, and I’m joining The Real Intellectuals for something of a pleasure cruise—a ride up to nearby Mount Parnitha. My goal? To better to understand the gasoline glue that binds the crew together.

After Nikos and wife Maria load their beagle Ozzy into his custom-built dog box (which they’ve dubbed ‘Ozzy’s moving castle’), Nikos kicks his 1989 BMW R100GS into gear and the whole neighborhood feels the deep rumble as the five bikes pull away from the store.

From Deus ex Machina’s Temple Of Enthusiasm in Bali to Sideburn Magazine’s Dirt Quake events on both sides of the Atlantic, the custom motorcycle scene scene is now global.

As we leave the outskirts behind and climb into the mountains, the bikes cruise effortlessly around the switchbacks that lead up Parnitha, while Ozzy lets out a gruff bark at anything of interest he spots along the way. Accessible, affordable and—most importantly—fun as hell: It’s not hard to see the appeal of the custom bike scene.

From Deus ex Machina’s Temple Of Enthusiasm in Bali to Sideburn Magazine’s Dirt Quake events on both sides of the Atlantic, that scene is now global. “We’ve grown up doing this, traveling around the country by bike,” Nikos explains. “Greece has a strong tradition of motocross, so we’ve tried to bring custom bikes and motocross together. That’s how The Rotten Race was born: Some friends, a dirt track in the suburbs and lots of ridiculous costumes. You should come back in October and check it out.”

Flash forward. It’s October. The seed planted by Nikos has blossomed: The lure of putting my own dog on the back of the bike, packing a tent and driving between beach-side campsites proved too much to resist.

I have a full motorbike licence, but, after registering to participate in The Rotten Race and with race day rapidly approaching, I am yet to secure a bike.

You would think buying a motorbike would be a simple transaction. Not in Greece. After finding a ’97 Yamaha Serow scrambler in relatively good condition (which a mechanic later reveals is actually an ’89 Yamaha Seroe scrambler), a week-long bureaucratic adventure begins.

Details aside, I’m left with just two days to complete the transformation into Crack Fox, a character from surreal British TV show The Mighty Boosh.

Fortuitously, around the corner from The Real Intellectuals is a shop named Vicious Cycles; creators of DIY paint brand Spray.Bike. By 10.30pm the night before the race, we’ve repainted the bike with a Louis Vuitton-style fox paw print and syringe pattern. I have furry fox ears on my helmet, a giant cardboard air freshener around my neck and syringes for fingers (not ideal for clutch control).

The next morning, it’s a 7am start to get to the track on time—a polo club in Athens’ northern suburbs. I’m late leaving the house, and the drag from all the fox fur on my helmet makes going anywhere above 40 kilometers feel like my head might get ripped off.

“The Rotten Race is unique: It’s the bikers’ Burning Man. I suck as a rider but I like dressing up and making fun of myself. It’s so liberating, you can be whoever you want.”

- Vagelis Tsingounis, participant

It’s cold, I’m knackered, a little bit stressed and wondering how I got myself into this. But as I come across a high bridge over a motorway, I see the morning-sun-kissed mountains of Parnitha, Tatoi and Pendeli towering over the city—and somehow this ridiculous undertaking all starts to make sense again.

In the pits, the revving engines and exhaust fumes get the juices flowing. It’s total chaos as riders haphazardly make their way onto the paddock for their three practice laps. After riding my bike for just a few hours total, I still have no idea what I’m doing.

The motto of flat-track racing is: Go fast, turn left. Each rider competes in three-lap heats divided into an array of competition categories—like 125cc, ‘inappropriate road bikes’ and scramblers (an old term for a dirt bike)—to crown a champion in each class.

Before my heat, rider Nikos Giamouridis provides some valuable intel: “Second gear should see you through, slam the back break as you come into the corner and put your left foot down to slide around.”

The race. By my third and final lap, it’s starting to feel right—just in time for me to sail across the line in last place. My racing career over, I’m free to relax and soak up the absurdity of the event. Three men in bright overalls appear on stilts, playing the French national anthem from a wind-up music box, pronouncing loudly to anyone willing to listen: “What eeeeeees going on eeeeeere? Thiiiiiis is all so roooooooootten!”

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I follow them back over to the track, where Memos Pilaftsis, one of the crew I’d met back in April, is strapping himself up in a homemade bubble-wrap ‘armored’ suit to compete in jousting on tiny motorbikes—adjudicated by the aforementioned stilt posse. Ready to go, Memos and his adversary hurtle towards one another, both connecting painfully with the torsos, but Memos stays upright and claims victory. It’s not quite knights of the round table-worthy, but it is something.

Men and women of all ages and stages are milling around in various states of disrepair. I spot a racer dressed as ‘a tribute to Japanese porn’, complete with a strap-on dildo. “The Rotten Race is unique: It’s the bikers’ Burning Man,” explains Vagelis Tsingounis, the owner of a custom-painted Italian-tribute Vespa. “I suck as a rider but I like dressing up and making fun of myself. It’s so liberating, you can be whoever you want.”

In 2015, the first Rotten Race pulled in 400 punters; today’s event has drawn a lively crowd of 2,000. I may have lost out on a prize, but I’m still in full Crack Fox costume and like many of the other riders—from the zombie body-snatcher to the voodoo chieftain—I remain in character for the rest of the day and nurse my sorrows.

I’m sweating profusely underneath my furry helmet and syringe gloves in the afternoon sun, as Greek punk band Bazooka play us out, but totally intoxicated by this form of petrol-fueled escapism.

I bump into Nikos and promise I’ll have brushed up my racing skills next time The Rotten Race rolls around. He slaps me on the back and replies: “Don’t worry man, racing is absolutely the least important priority.”

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