Mikel did grow up with Ducati Pantah engines. Already in 1981 the first Ducati posters did decorate his bedroom. 1984 he could effort his first bike: A Pantah 500SL. The following years were covered by fast riding on traditional roads, followed much later by some track racing. While the bikes used to become faster, stronger and more modern the initial passion for classic bikes and especially Ducati’s returned. Classic Racing with Pantah’s and Bevelhead Ducati’s became the ultimate passion. Touring with bikes was always a subject (especially trips to Italy) but the maximum acceptable in comfort was a Ducati Monster. Everything else was not sporty enough. Enduro’s have never ever been even a subject. To lose the ability to touch the road with your fingertips in the corner was resulting in an acute fear of heights.

Real Paris/Dakar bikes have been always and exception. These bike were real race bikes. Even if at the beginning there was never the plan to own one of them there was always a lot of fascination for those kind of bikes. The moment when Mikel did saw for the first time a real 900ie in Biarritz would stick always to his mind.

The story with Mikels Elefant goes back to an event called “die Wiese 2010” (a traditional party event that is left over from the 80s). Mikel did share the camp fire with Huggy. Huggy was just back from one of his countless Morocco trips and he could talk for hours and full of passion. Mikel loves this kind of passion when someone returns from an adventure. His journey was some weeks later underlined by some amazing photos. Huggy was right – a North Africa trip is mandatory for every biker before he finally dies. But today with the latest BMW GS it’s probably something that anybody could potentially achieve. Not sure if it is correct but apparently there is a GS options that calsl home if the rider or the bike have an issue and an helicopter is coming to save you – all just a matter of money… The real guys during the 80s have been the Paris/Dakar riders. There was not GPS or GSM at that time. North Africa was wild and the bikes have been rather basic.

        Huggy’s GS in 2012

At that very moment at the camp fire during the “Wiese 2010” there was one of these sticky ideas born that you don’t get out of your mind anymore until they get transformed in reality. The situation was the same as the very moment when the dream of riding a TT race became somewhere reachable. It gets out of your mind only in case you face it. The TT event was checked and done. When Mikel one day would have to face his Morocco trip then that could be only on a Cagiva Lucky Explorer. A machine which is probably the rarest and uncompromising of all Elefants. Since “die Wiese 2010” Mikel was searching for that bike.

In the beginning of the 90s Cagiva did dominate the Paris/Dakar with their factory bikes. Only a few month after Edi Orioli did win the Paris/Dakar, Ducati/Cagiva did present 1990 a replica with a 900cc V2 engine based on the Ducati 900 SS. While the smaller versions have been powered by carburetors, the 900 had a fuel injection system. It was developed by Weber-Marelli and debuted for the first time 1986 with the legendary 748ie at the Bol d'Or in Le Castellet. Since 1987 it was also used in the Ducati 851.

There are endless horror stories and deadly accidents about the Paris/Dakar. One of them is very special and concerns the Elefants:

                                Hubert Auriol almost at the finish line

In 1987 after the 2nd attempt should have been almost the first victory for the Elefants. Auriol was fighting with Cyril Neveu on his Honda and could stay always in front. He had a solid lead and could have slowed down for the last two stages. Just before the finish line of the penultimate stage he crashed with high speed hard against a tree. He was lying there for a while as the other riders slowly made their way to the finish line but they didn’t see him along their way. At the end there was panic because he didn’t arrive. Especially Neveu did miss his rival. After a while the Cagiva arrived with Auriol shouting on top of the bike they should stop him. People did catch the Elefant and did lift him from the bike. Both shinbones were broken and the bones did stick out of his pants. A horrible scene. He was still lucky to survive as he did not take the same path as his competitors. It was pure luck that 2 privateers die find him and placed him back on his bike and that the Elefant had only minor damages. Auriol reaching the stage goal seriously injured is definitely one of the mystery tales of the Dakar Rally.

The first rally victory during that year went to Alessandro De Petri during the Pharao Rally.

Hubert Auriol had to learn walking from scratch. He couldn’t ride a bike but he came later back and did win the Paris/Dakar on four wheels.

                                                Edy Orioli

In 1989 Cagiva hired another top pilot, the Italian Edy Oroli. He did win 1988 with Honda and took one year later the first victory for the Italian brand. Alesandro De Petri became third. The duo did win that year also the pharao rally. In 1994 Edy did win the Paris/Dakar again before the Castelioni’s had to step back once for all from the Paris/Dakar race.

Here you can read the full story of the the Cagivas at the Paris/Dakar.

With the original design of the factory bike Cagiva did release a replica with 90 cm seat height and 230 kg weight. It did cost more than 18000 Deutsch Mark and was probably targeting tall and wealthy people.

In 1995 the Cagiva racing division did build a professional and commercially available rally bike for privateers. The base was the Cagiva 900. In the special Marathon version, the bike good equipped with everything that is needed to be competitive between Paris and Dakar. The bike was as a special version of the standard bike homologated for the Marathon Class.The price was 20000 Deutsch Mark, which was cheap for a competitive privateer’s bike that had good chances at the Paris/Dakar. The bike was built by the factory under the responsibility of Fabricio Azzalin. It was equipped with a road book reader and a trip computer. Only the Satellite navigation system had to be purchased separately. There was further an engine protection and containers on both sides for water and tools.

A number of privately build bikes were inspired by the original Marathon bike.

After 18 month of intensive internet research Mikels goal was achieved. During those 18 months between 2012 and 2013 there were only two Lucky Explorer bikes published on the Internet in the neighbor countries of Luxembourg. One of them was found at mobile.de and the 2nd at ebay. The one that was perfect was located in Schwalmtal at Niederrhein – about 20km on the west side of Mönchengladbach.

The bike came originally from Italy and was bought 2005 in Meran with 17230 km. The guy who did sell it now did buy the bike in 2008 with 22000 km. He did ride the bike frequently but not a lot. He was an Enduro teacher, had also two BWM GS for touring and he did ride the bike mainly in the forest or on off-road trails.

The bike hasn’t been used for real competition races. There where a bunch of repairs and improvements done over the last couple of years. At that time the bike was 23 years old and it seemed to be in a quite good condition.

The bike was further equipped with hard bag mountings and Touratech aluminum bags.

The exhaust was a Laser Sports type. Further the road book reader and a trip computer where installed. Even a place for the GPS and the required power was already foreseen.

The bike did stand on a 21-inch wheel on the front and a 18 inch wheel in the back. Both came with almost new Conti TKC 80 off-road tires. They made the bike really tall.

There was a complete history of the bike in a folder that contained plenty of interesting information about the bike.

This bike was perfect it was auctioned on a late Saturday evening in the last second.

On the 30th of April Irene and Mikel hit the road to bring the new pbaby home.

The first contact was breath taking … this thing was huge… It would be already difficult to get up and down. Riding it properly was a totally different ballgame. Mikels acute fear of heights was suddenly back. It was difficult to imagine, but the day would come where this 230kg monster with the centre of gravity somewhere above the stomach would crash together with Mikel into the gravel.

What a genius bike...

I would probably take ages until the bike would finally end up in North Africa together with Mikel but the first goal was achieved. The good news: The bike was found.

Workshop Manual

(*) The article was published in 2012. The historical input comes from other Cagiva Internet Pages.