Nolan Helmets Press Event, Almería ES

Nolan is the largest producer of motorcycle helmets in Europe, with more than 400.000 helmets output per year. Founded in 1972 by Lander Nocchi, Nolan Group offers helmets under the brand names Nolan, X-Lite, Grex as also N-Com communication systems. And – they are one of the first partners and long term supporters of BRUMMM.

For ten years now, Nolan Germany invites press people and friends of the brand for a few days to test their products in a very familiar and relaxed environment in Almería, in spanish province of Andalusia. We had the pleasure to join this winter – and, we had a really good time.

Besides helmets, Nolan also provided gear of Segura, producing high quality leather products since 1967 as well as latest bikes from BMW, Kawasaki and Yamaha, Metzeler tyres or swiss Motorex oil products, who jumped on this press-event-concept, too.

Track, road and offroad tours were offered and so we decided to go for two days on the racetrack and one offroad rallye on day three. At Circuito de Andalucia professionally prepared bikes were waiting for us: eight BMW S 1000 RR, three Yamaha YZF-R1 / R6, one MT-07 TwinCup- and two R3-Racer and three ZX10-R – all with slick tyres warmed up with tyre warmers. A few BMW S 1000 RR track bikes even were equipped with carbon fibre wheels by ThyssenKrupp Carbon Components, who offer super light racing wheels for different brands, that can be installed on streetbikes too, having ABE/KBE-Number for Germany for example.

Dario Giuseppetti, Stefan Nebel, Björn Stuppi and Markus Reiterberger were instructors and so ‘Reiti’ was the man to follow to get known best line and also useful tips to improve personal racing style. With brand new X-Lite X-803 RS Ultra Carbon helmet including spoiler on the helmet’s back and Race Pro 2 setup programmed you felt like a real racer on the 200 hp BMW. But soon you came down to earth when BMW Asia Road Racing Superstock Pro Markus Reiterberger wheelie-passed at 180km/h out of the corners. Anyways, turning back on a race track after many years on a brand new super sports bike is valuable experience to be thankful.

For day three the good Nolan people prepared with loads of work a rallye for six riding groups from mellow street riding to offroad expert level. Goal was to reach 14 destinations, taking photos and sending GPS-coordinates before getting back to an abandoned air field location, where barbeque, live-band, a trial show by Adrian Guggemoos and a performance show by Evelyn Frantic and Princess Tweedle Needle were waiting. Even not reaching all destinations we made it to upper podium, after crossing dried out river beds or creeping through low tunnels on Yamaha Ténérés, BMW F 850 or GS 1250.

What a good start in 2020 season. Thank you Nolan for the invite to this cool event!

Photos and Words by Hermann Köpf