Bonjour mes amis Amricains et bienvenue l'exposition Tuning de Paris. Held at the Parc des Expositions on the site of the old Le Bourget Airport, south of what used to be known as "gay" Paris (before the term was hijacked by men in tight trousers with big moustaches), the annual Paris Tuning Show is a grand display of all that's new and bijou in the world of modified machinery. And not just machinery of the two-wheeled variety because, mes enfants Amricains, the Paris Tuning Show is also Europe's premiere showcase for all the latest four-wheeled automotive trends, as well as the place to be if you like your in-car sound system L-O-U-D with a capital F.
Originally the exclusive domain of extreme concept and prototype motorcycles built by France's top customizers to show how clever they could be with mounds of billet aluminum and carbon fiber, this year the Paris Tuning Show expanded to feature more mainstream (and mundane) displays from motorcycle manufacturers such as Ducati and Yamaha alongside the stunning specials the Paris Tuning Show is famous for. With sport-oriented and racetrack-influenced bikes lording over the usual variations on Yamaha's portly V-Max power cruiser (a bike the French love almost as much as snails and women with the ass of a 12-year-old boy), the bon motos magnifique at this year's Paris Tuning Show were definitely once again from the hands of home-grown French metal-bending genius, the wonderfully named Ludovic Lazareth.
With approximately 170 exhibitors distributed throughout the vast 40,000 square meters (that's 430,000 square feet in American) of exhibition space in the many different-sized halls at the Parc des Expositions, and with everything displayed with the same sort of Gallic charme et modle that definitely lends itself to fashion over form, it's no surprise more than 150,000 happy madames et monsieurs visited the Paris Tuning Show during its four-day run. We're assuming you weren't among this mob, so we brought back plenty of photos that should speak for themselves.
Get On Up!Mastering the mono with help from the On One Wheel wheelie school C'mon, admit it-every one of you who picks up this magazine wants more than anything to be able to crank blocks-long wheelies (if you can't already). The simple fact is, nothing says, "I'm da man (or woman)," like a long, high, perfectly poised wheelie, and nothing says, "I'm a big fat chicken," like a bunch of lame excuses surrounding why you can't get it up. Which is, in a few words, how I recently found myself signing a waiver to participate in Keith Code's aptly named On One Wheel school in an effort to correct this pathetic situation.
According to Code-well known to corner carvers everywhere as the founder of the California Superbike School, one of the first (and finest) advanced riding schools in the nation-the reason he created a wheelie school is simple. "People requested it-and also, I couldn't do wheelies myself!" he says, laughing. "So I figured I could kill two birds with one stone by starting a wheelie school. I talked to guys who run other schools and they all said the same thing. I mean, you've got a world champion roadracer running the school, showing you how to go around the corners like a champion, and all the students want to know is, 'When are you gonna teach us how to wheelie?' Aaaaugh!"