Where Are They Now: Mickael Pichon

Congratulations. He won the world enduro championship, Zach. He tried motocross for a little bit and then enduro. How does Zach move from motocross to enduro?
No, actually when he was young, when he was like eight, nine years old, I rode for three years the French enduro championship. I was French champion on the 450 class two times. I also rode on GP. I won the first day in the French GP. I think it was back in 2009 or 2010. He really enjoyed following the races. He was always coming with me at the races and he really loved it. Since he was riding, we always had this on the back of our minds to go maybe one day move to enduro. Then as an old racer of MX, I love MX. MX brought me everything. But when you are parents and your kids are riding motocross or supercross, you have to be honest. It’s kind of scary. So, me and my wife, we love to watch him ride motocross, but we tried to push him to go to enduro as soon as he could. But to get better, to improve your speed and your fitness and everything, motocross was a really good school. Then as soon as he had the chance to get a good deal to go in enduro, we made the move last year with Sherco factory. He did really good, so we are pretty happy about that.

I saw him at Paris SX, doing some laps on the supercross track there. So, that was fun. I don't know if you know the GNCC series over here. Is this like that, or is it like time keeping? Like real enduro where you have time keeping and you have time checks and all that?
I know in the U.S. you don’t have the same kind of races. The GNCC, we have this in France but not in Europe. The world championship enduro, you have to ride all day. You go from 9:00 in the morning to 4:00 or 5:00 pm. Then you have three special tests, and you have three laps to do, three big laps. Maybe about two, two and a half hours lap. You have a special test. Sometimes the special test goes from five minutes to fifteen minutes. So, you have a total of about one hour for the whole day. But in-between the special test, of course you have to be on time to checkpoints, and then you have to do your own mechanic also.

Another world champion is on the way for Pichon.
Yeah, he was junior world champion but now he’s moving to the big class. I think he can do well. He can go on the E1 class, which is like MX2. I think he can get close to the podium, so we will see. But he’s young. Moving in enduro, he’s only 22 so he has a lot of time. As long as he loves it and he enjoys and he’s improving and he makes a good living, it’s good for me.

Do you go to all these? Are you back traveling to all these races again?
Yes. Last year I did, because I tried to be there to help him. When he’s doing the loops every time, he has guys like me, a few guys. We follow him and we go in the special test. We see the lines and everything to help him out, to tell the good lines. Sometimes we have some helpers that are knowing you need to have the good lines to pick the good lines, and we have to help him for that. I enjoy going to the races to watch and help him out. He’s riding the Spanish championship this year, but I don’t go. I will go to the world championship. Next weekend is the first one in Italy, so I will go there.

You still come to America quite a bit, right? I talk to Mitch Payton quite a bit and he has told me, “Oh, Pichon was in here last week,” or whatever. And then [David] Vuillemin saw you. You still come over and visit and hang out?
Yeah. Actually, I still have some very good friends there in California. Every two or three years we go there in the wintertime with the family, with our kids. Then we try to spend some good time with the sun. It’s really nice being in California in wintertime for us, because here the weather is quite bad. Then of course when we go there, I try to rent some bikes for Zach and for my little kid, Lenny. Lenny is 11 years old. We go out to all the tracks in California. We love it. I love to be there because we spent five years there with my wife, Stefanie. To be honest, it’s maybe the best years we had in our life. We love the place.

I made a joke one time to Mitch Payton years ago about maybe you were difficult for him, or maybe you and your dad were difficult for him. I have to say, you’re one of his favorite riders to ever ride for him. He really, really liked you and you have a good relationship to this day. That’s awesome.
Yeah, but you know Mitch is not easy either. That’s why we got along pretty good. I learned so much with him. He was the first manager I go after working with my dad. Then he was quite tough on me, but I like when people are tough on you like that. It’s for the good thing. They want you to win and they know you are capable to win, and Mitch pushed really hard on me, but I learned so much with him. I was going to the Kawi track every day and there was always more and more and more riding and more testing. But then I won two championships working with Mitch and Bones [Jim Bacon]. Bones also, I liked to work with Bones for the suspension. I learned so much. Those first two years were pretty tough. It was a lot of riding. It was a lot of pressure. I was also riding the east coast and I was always flying back and forth from California to the east coast. So, that was new for me at the time, but really, I really loved to work with Mitch, and I learned so much from him.

He’s a lot more mellow now. He’s way mellower than he was in your day.
Maybe. I don’t work with him anymore. In my time, we had some fights at some races because maybe I was sometimes not doing the right thing and maybe not pushing hard enough, but for me, I don’t care. When people are pushing me, that’s how you improve yourself. You have no choice. Then we went to US this year, like a few weeks ago. We went to Dallas Supercross. I was there with my wife and my little kid because we went to see my daughter. We have a daughter in Kansas. She’s there playing volleyball. She’s at University of Kansas. She’s been there now for one year. So, we went to see her, flying from Paris to Denver. Then we drove to Kolby, it’s a little city in the middle of nowhere. Then we stayed there for a few days with her, and she came with us flying from Denver to Dallas. We went to supercross, triple crown. It was really nice.

I was going to ask you if you kept up with American racing and supercross and motocross, but it sounds like you do. You follow the series?
To be honest with you, that’s almost the only thing I watch. For me, when I go to a supercross in U.S., I always feel like I’m ten years old. I go in the stands in early afternoon, and I stay there for the whole day like that, like I’m a kid. I love it. The first time I discovered supercross was in the Paris supercross at Bercy. The first time I went there was ’86, so I was ten years old. Then at that time, it was Rick Johnson, David Bailey, Johnny O, and all those guys. So, that was a big dream for me to discover supercross. It was completely new. From that day on, I dreamed to go to U.S. and to do that. Even now when I go to Anaheim supercross or San Diego or like Dallas last time, I feel like I’m a kid. I love it.

Vuillemin and [Marvin] Musquin same way. They went to Paris when they were kids. They got photos with JMB. They saw him beat American riders. It’s funny. All of you guys were so influenced by Bercy.
Oh, yeah. We had the chance then to after ’88, ’89, we had the chance to have a good French supercross championship. But Bercy was the main race in France and in Europe, actually. That was the only time we could see the best American riders. At the time, actually now when you go to the Paris supercross you have just a few guys, two or three guys from the U.S. At that time, it was like everyone. Ten or fifteen guys, both classes. That was really huge. Three nights. So, that was a big thing for us to be there, to ride there then, and then go to the U.S. We tried to follow all of us like what JMB did. We did the best we could. We never won like he did, but we tried.