Sardegna Legend Rally: Epic journeys across Sardinia
From May 31 to June 2 on the island of Sardinia took place another Sardegna Legend Rally - a traditional non-competitive event for professionals and enthusiasts (on bikes, quads and SSVs).
The Sardegna Legend Rally is the successor to the famous cross-country race in Sardinia, which in the past was named Rally di Sardegna (1984–2007) and Sardegna Rally Race (2008–2017). In the list of winners of this race can be seen Italians Andrea Balestrieri, Fabio Fasola, Alessandro Botturi, Spaniards Joan “Nani” Roma, Marc Coma, Jordi Viladoms, Joan Pedrero, Frenchmen Gilles Lalay, Cyril Despres, Austrian Matthias Walkner.
The program of the current Sardegna Legend Rally was laid out according to the principle - a three-day journey-adventure through the whole island (more precisely, through the Barbagia region), from coast to coast. The main goal is to maximum bright impressions, travelling to a variety of wonderful locations, and the atmosphere of a great adventure together. According to one of the participants, this event most similar to a big 600km enduro adventure with a group of friends.
Domitilla Quadrelli: “I’m sure those were the best days of my life on the bike, they were truly beautiful. This year’s Sardegna Legend Rally had a record number of female participants - we had ten riders at the start!”
Fabio Fasola (winner of Rally di Sardegna 1988, three times Dakar participant): “The event was wonderful, as was the whole of Sardinia. For me Sardinia holds a special spot in my heart. I won the Rally di Sardegna in 1988- it was one of the best cross-country rallies in the world then. It was almost like the Dakar, but without the desert - demanding and difficult routes, complicated navigation.
And revisiting these places, made possible by BikeVillage, always revives memories of those times and renews my desire to race a motorcycle.
For me, the Sardegna Legend Rally is an opportunity to start on a bike again. I still enjoy navigating the route, enjoy reading the road book - I feel like I’m back in those good old days again!”
Antonello Chiara (Sardegna Legend Rally Founder): “Today you see me smiling because the current Sardegna Legend Rally has finished. And I can finally rest a bit and think about the next Sardegna Legend Rally event that we are planning for October - to be more precise, it should start on October 25 in Budoni.
Although we have been organising rallyes in Sardinia for 40 years, it is always a challenge for us to make them more interesting and attractive. We strive to always find and offer participants new route options, with new beautiful locations and panoramas.
We achieved that goal again this year, and we were able to offer just an incredible route, with a great coast-to-coast journey. And I’m even a bit envious of the participants - I’d like to ride the whole distance with them on a bike too. Maybe when this event is over, I could ride this route for a while and try to cross the Gennargentu massif.
To this we added the final day, which took place entirely on the seaside at Piscinas. We were lucky with the weather, it was not too hot, the temperature was somewhere up to 25 degrees, and in Gennargentu massif it was 14–15 degrees at all. I look forward to seeing you at our next event in October!”
