Italian Citation
ITALY 10TH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE WORLD GRAND PRIX EURO-TOUR
ITALIAN CITATION
In Italy, as in America, speeding is illegal only if you get caught
BRIAN CATTERSON
IT'S NOT THAT I DIDN'T deserve a speeding ticket, it's just that I didn't deserve this speeding ticket.
After spending six days roosting around the Tuscany and Umbria regions of Italy at triple-digit speeds—even if my speedometer had been marked in mph, which it wasn't—it seemed incomprehensible that I got popped by photo radar while following a scooter. Yes, there I was aboard a Cagiva Xtra Raptor (see riding impression, page 64), tailing photographer Gigi Soldano on his Aprilia Scarabeo 150, when the polizia nabbed me for doing 81 r the metrically challenged, that's the equivalent of 48 mph in a 42 zone.
They call that speeding?
The 320-euro fine (about the same in dollars at current exchange rates) was tough to swallow, even if Cagiva Press Manager Martino Bianchi insisted he'd take care of it. Probably meaning he'd have his boss talk to some government official who would make it "disappear" in the time honored fashion. Only in Italy...
Which would make an appropriate subti tle for this story, because over the course of the preceding week we did.. .anc saw.. .and ate.. .and maybe even drank.. .a few things that you can experience only in Italy.
It all started on Monday evening at the Hotel Ville suil’Amo in Florence, rallying point for Edelweiss Bike Travel’s 1 Oth Anniversary Cycle World Grand Prix Euro-Tour. Of course, we had to get there first, which for me took a little longer than expected. Suffice it to say that one cannot land at LondonGatwick Airport, retrieve one’s luggage, clear customs and recheck bags in an hour and 15 minutes. The only good thing was, after hanging around the airport for seven hours (thank God for bookstores), I boarded the next Alitalia flight to Bologna to find none other than PierFrancesco Chili seated right
behind me. Honest!
The World Superbike circus had visited Silverstone the day before, and so while some of the other passengers were reading the race report ir^KMizetta dello Sport, I got ine straight from the fourthplace finisher! Chili seemed to enjoy the conversation, too, right up to the point when I asked how Colin Edwards and the Bostrom brothers did. Uh, sorry, Frankie.
Anyway, we landed safely in Bologna and I caught a taxi to the Ducati factory, where I picked up the yellow ST4 I’d be using for the week. Edelweiss had offered me the use of a BMW K1200RS, but reading the part in the tour brochure that stated, “Seldom will your bike be upright,” I realized that would be like taking a Panzer to the rifle range, so imposed upon my friend Ludovica Benedetti at Ducati instead. About half of the tour clients chose the alternatebike route, paying extra for a rental Ducati or Suzuki, while the other half were perfectly content aboard the various BMW models.
By the time I changed into my riding duds and loaded up the bike (fortunately, I own an ST2, so had packed my tankbag and saddlebag liners at home before I left), it was late afternoon, and I still had to find my way to Florence, some 90 minutef away Though it was sunny on the north side of the Monti di Calvana, it was raining on the south side, which slowed my progress some from the 140-kph (87-mph) speed limit on the twisty AÍ autostrada. Those metal expansion joints are treacherous when wet!
Fortunately, the Italians are big on long tunnels, so I didn’t get too damp. And thanks to the excellent system whereby little white signs point to the various hotels within the cities, I managed to find my way without too much drama. Okay, the fact that a friendly Italian motorist answered my plea for directions by leading me to the hotel helped maybe a little.
I arrived just in time for the welcome dinner, where I met our two tour guides, Christian Preining (a one-time Isle of Man racer) and Michael Faast (appropriately named), plus our 21 tour members. Sj)me of them I knew from the bfxe business, such as my boss, Editor-in-Chief David Edwards, staff photographer Brian Blades and Lockhart-Phillips owner Wendell Phillips. And a few more I knew from the other CW GP Euro-Tour I’d gone on in Spain in 1997, namely Californian John Bohannan (noted radiologist and a Club Desmo track-day regular) and a couple members of the infamous “Seattle Gang,” Terry Afdem (parts manager at a Dodge dealer) and Peter Wylie (dentist). Everyone seemed to be on their best behavior, retiring early in. anticipation of the following morning’s ride-well, everyone except for Dr. Wylie, personable Californian Mark Griffith (a
world traveler who now works for a classified publication) and the CW Wrecking Crew, who did our best to deplete the hotel’s wine collection. As the week wore on, we’d have help. Lots of help. It’s hard to ride past all those vineyards during the day and not sample some of the “fruits” with dinner.
As on most days, Tuesday’s roadbook gave us a choicf of two
routes, one short and one long Today’s long ride consisted of a sightseeing trip to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which despite my many business trips to Italy (this being my 1 Oth and undoubtedly the least businesslike), I’d never seen. So I joined Christian, David, Brian and Canadians Donald Simpson and David Schultz on a wet (for the last time) high-speed blitz down the autostrada to Italy’s west coast, where we took turns posing for the obligatory “holding \ up the tower” photo. And marveled over the fact that the tower’s designer, who no doubt lost his job (if not his head!) for committing such a faux pas, ultimately put his town on the map.
We stopped for lunch in Livorno at a little café overlooking the Golfo di Genova, where the fruta di mare was marvelous and the conversation comical. Turns o it our two pals from the Great Wjhite North were going to greatly enjoy the week’s swervery, because there was no such thing at home. Donald (a computer technician for an oil company in Saudi Arabia) said that he had a little loop that was kind of fun if he went 150 mph on his Honda CBR1100XX, while David (an equipment operator for a fertilizer manufacturer in Saskatchewan) trucks his Yamaha YZF-R1 to the mountains eight hours away for a weekend’s sport ride a couple of times per year.
I’ll never complain about the hour-long freeway flog to the Angeles Crest again!
After lunch, we headed back inland to San Gimignano, known as “The Manhattan of the Middle Ages” for its many tall towers, which apparently earned it top honors in the mineis-bigger-thanyours contests of the day. There, we made our first pilgrimage to a gelateria fon ice cream and coffee, and as [ve sat there on the quaint cobblestone patio, I had a horrible premonition of a Starbucks sign above the entryway. Between all the McDonald’s, Burger Kings and the like popping up all over Europe, it’s only a matter of time before corporate America turns the entire world into one big strip mall. Already, Italian lire have gone the way of the silver dollar, replaced by the ubiquitous euro. Like most tourists, I used to dread having to deal with the different kinds of currency in Europe, but now that it’s all the same, it’s a bit boring.
That night we stayed in Siena, a wonderful walled city that for the past 500 years has hosted a rather unique horse race. Once a year, the town’s cobblestone square is packed with dirt, the walls lined with haybales, and representatives from each of the surrounding 17 burgs rale for bragging rights, some inevitably ending up in the hospital. Medieval supercross!
The next day I hooked up with the Seattle Gang, and the rest of the week was a blur, like watching a video on fast-forward. “Yeah, yeah, nice 13th-century castle, seen one seen ’em all; now, if we take this twisty road over the Montefeltro mountain range...” That sort of stuff.
In addition to the aforementioned Terry and Peter on ST4s, the Gang included Peter Adachi (an optometrist) and Darryl Havens (Microsoft millionaire turned racecar driver, now retired from both) on Suzuki SV650s, and Bud Hoelscher (whose business card reads “Motor-head”) on an F650CS Beemer. Joining our little high-speed procession were Wendell on an ST4, Mark on an RUOOS and New Yorker Charles Fertitta (construction company owner) on a 900SS.
Despite their advanced age-Bud and Peter W. over 60, Terry and Darryl in their 50s-these guys are the proverbial “bad influence! ’ flagrantly disregarding posted speed limits, passing slower traffic like backmarkers in an endurance race, and generally laying waste to the Italian countryside. God bless ’em! Thing is, that’s how everyone rides-and drives-in Italy. Gang members, good riders all with lots of EuroTour experience, were immediately on pace. As “Wylie Coyote” put it, “You don’t make it to 62 riding like this unless you’re doing something right.”
Not that they don’t get it wrong sometimes. Peter A. had a little “moment” early on day one, and Wendell ran off the road and fell at slow speed right in front of me in a particularly nasty downhill decreasing-radius right-hander on day two. A little toothpaste (!) mbbed on the fairing, a little black magic marker, and they almost got away without having to pay for damages.
And then there was our hapless shutterbug,
Brian, who managed tolwad lis bike and camera one dand then lost his ignition key the next! He (along with 40 pounds of camera gear) did penance by “riding bitch” behind Edwards thereafter, which pleased David no end.
do again. 0th highlights included a stren uous late-night I~ hike between Wednesday night we stayed in the beautiful hillside city of Assisi, permanent residence of the late St. Francis, and then headed to the picturesque Republic of San Marino for the next two nights. Wednesday’s and Thursday’s rides included roadside picnic lunches, the latter graciously prepared by the handsome Sagrera family of El Salvador, and topped with salsa that Marcos Lopez brought from his home in Vera Cmz, Mexico. Some of that spiciness must have affected Marcos' throttle hand,
because I've never seen anyone wheelie an RT like that! L And hope I never San Marino’s crown-like towers tours of the Cagiva Research Center and MV Agusta Special Products division, and taking the, er, “long way” to Mugello for Sunday’s Grand Prix. Hey, there are worse things than being lost on the backroads of Italy!
After battling through biblical traffic, we arrived at Mugello shortly before noon on Sunday, and the place was off the deep end! Wendell and I were fortunate to have pit passes, and were struck by the dichotomy between the operating-room sterility of the paddock and the insane-asylum atmosphere of the spectator areas. The Italian fans are positively mad, the most flagrant evidence being their “noisemakers,” which consist of giant megaphone exhausts attached to everything from humble mopeds and scooters to stand-alone fourcylinder bike and even car engines!
Talk about loud.
And then there was the huge post-race spectator invasion, which saw poor
Abe physically yanked Yamaha! On the heels of another big track incursion in Spain, the FIM has done away with cool-off laps forevermore.
Prior to that weekend, I’d tried without success to really hear the new 990cc four-strokes on TV, but now here they were in all their glory! The Aprilia Triple made particularly magical mechanical music, along the lines of the Jaguar V-12 I heard run a few times at IMSA GTP races. The Yamahas had a high-pitched shriek and backfired a lot, the Suzukis were, as their press releases promised, “bold baritones,” and the Hondas sounded like.. .well, let’s say RC45s with late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham keeping off-beat time.
The racing, as is always the case in the GPs, was incredible, and particularly rewarding for the locals, because Italians topped the 125, 250 and MotoGP classes. Valentino Rossi’s victory was especially impressive, as he toyed with Max Biaggi the way a cat does with a mouse before devouring it. Plainly, there is no love lost between these two gladiators.
Rossi, already a three-time world champion and well on his way to a fourth, is now so accustomed to winning that he sets up little “vignettes” for after the race. In the past, these have included such antics as circulating with a blow-up doll as passenger or donning a chicken suit. At Mugello, mock polizia stopped him after the finish line and issued him a “speeding ticket.” Which if the trap velocities posted on the scoring tower were any indication, had to be for close to 200 mph! Makes mine seem pretty benign.
That evening, we had one last group dinner back in the original renaissance city of Florence, a place so blessed with architecture, art and music that I’d consider going back even without a bike. There, we were joined by Edelweiss founder Werner Wachter and sec ond-in-command Josef
“Huzzy” (say “foot-see”) Hackl, or| hand to lead the following week’s Bella Italia Tour.
After another fine dinner (it’s impossible to get bad food in Italy), Werner and David stood up to thank the group, Christian and Michael presented us each with nice embroidered golf shirts listing all of the tours we’d been on, and we said our good-byes, making plans to meet again next year.
Speaking of which: The 2003 Euro-Tour is bound for the Czech Grand Prix in Brno via the Austrian Alps, tentatively scheduled for mid-August (details on hw.edelweissbike.com or call the U.S. office at 800/582-2263). Also, in July we’re putting on an Edelweiss two-day tour from the Cycle World offices in Southern California up the coast to the AMA/World Superbike races at Laguna Seca.
Which is great except for one thing: If I get a speeding ticket, I’m gonna have to pay for it myself!
