Sage and I love our RC cars. It’s a hobby I enjoyed at his age and I’m thrilled to be sharing it with him now. Back then – that would be the mid-1980s – I coveted my Tamiya Holiday Buggy, a costly car I somehow must have convinced my dad to buy for me. I painstakingly put it together from a kit with detailed instructions (in English and Japanese) that included exploded diagrams for building its driveshaft and gearbox.

It came in a big box with the most wonderful illustration of what it might eventually look like (with a bit of imagination and more painting skills than I had, I’ll admit). I loved its weirdly knobbly rear tyres (cars didn’t have those in the UK!), the little gas tank on the door, smiley faces on the lights, and of course the cowboy hat-toting, Californian at the wheel. I’m pretty sure it broke regularly, and my dad would duly take me to RC hobby shops to get it repaired…

Tamiya’s Holiday Buggy was first released in 1980. I can still vividly remember doing donuts through puddles with this buggy on the patio of our house. All of Tamiya’s box art was painted by the amazing Shigeru Komatsuzaki and I loved staring at all the buggies in the range.

If truth be told Sage is a little spoilt, as he’s reaping the benefits of this nostalgia. Somehow we’ve now built up quite the collection – from 1:10 scale to 1:24 scale, crawlers, buggies, drifters, truggies, and more… Most are our cars are ‘ready to run’ and a couple are veritable beasts compared to my rattly Holiday Buggy, and would surely trounce it in a race, or bash it into smithereens.

The Tamiya Hornet Reissue that we built up. We chose to spray paint it gold as my buddy Ron had some leftovers in a can.

But our very first project was building up and painting a vintage Tamiya Hornet, a 2010 reissue of one of the models I so wanted to get in the 80s. Serendipitously, I bought it in a thrift store in Truth or Consequences whilst riding a section of the New Mexico Off Road Runner, though the onset of Covid meant that it sat, only partially built, gathering dust in my storage container in Santa Fe until this year.

Putting it all together – pressing in bearings and figuring out oil-dampened shocks – was as enjoyable a part of the process as driving it itself. And our very first test run – after we’d sought the advice of some helpful Tamiya forumites to figure out an electronic impasse (an example of the internet at its best) – was a cause for celebration and jubilation!

The Tamiya Hornet that we finished building up and painting on Sage’s last visit to Oaxaca. It’s impossible not to be captivated by the way it skips over dirt and rooster tails on turns!

Still, even if we’ve accumulated a few more than we really need, our RC cars get us outside, more often than not on two wheels, and I love our late afternoon bike rides/buggy races that we’ve been enjoying here in Oaxaca. Plus, it gives these outings a different purpose – aside from building up some city riding skills, getting blood flowing through our bodies, and being a great way of spending time together. We even have a series of race courses that we build for our hotly contested and somewhat competitive championships; sometimes we carry a ramp for jumps and old balding tyres to chicane through.

Welcome to Monkey Magic’s RC Club!

There are no rules! Except… you have to turn up by bike…

Enjoy donuts…

And ride under a piñata…

Have you got what it takes? (If so, we’d love to have you in the club!)

Bike and RC car stuff

Sage is growing into his borrowed Jones SWB Spaceframe by the day. It’s a size small and we’ve cut down a seat post so he can run his saddle low enough. Its enormous tyres give him lots of confidence off-road, and the Spaceframe design means he has enough standover.

I’m currently riding a Jones LWB HD/e in non-assisted mode, size M. I can ride a size L too, but sizing down means I can lend the bike out, especially when it’s electrified.

If we’re taking the ‘big cars’ – we both have monster 1:10 scale Traxxis Rustlers – then I load them into the Francis Farfarer. If Huesos is coming too (which he generally does), one goes in a backpack and the other is strapped to the top of the trailer. I’m running my BXB Golback (size L), a Wizard Works half framebag, and a set of Buckhorn panniers in most of these images.

Sage has a Tailfin rack, to which he can easily add a couple of panniers, and a small Yellowcat Industries front bag for snacks, layers, and sundries.

Our rigs. Sage has a high viz t-shirt courtesy of our friends in the Yucatan – Bikers Zaci.

Strapping a Traxxis Rustler to the trailer to make room for Huesos. These cars are great fun but you do need lots of space to use them, and they’re brutes to get around.

On a day ride to San Andrés Huayapam with Huesos and the little 1:18 scale Losi Mini JRX2s, which nest cutely in the BXB bag. I love these buggies. Although they’re not the very fastest, they’re quick enough to be fun, they jump well, and the batteries last for ages. However, the conditions have to be relatively smooth for them to shine and the tyres do wear down quickly on asphalt.