We wanted to spend as much time in Italy as possible hence flying through Belgium , Germany and then Austria pretty fast. I love Austria and would really like to spend some more time riding around the mountain roads.
We then headed up towards Stelvio Pass. For anyone that hasn't heard of it, it consists of 48 hairpins up the Austrian side and another twenty odd hairpins back down the other side into italy. To be fair the hairpins on the Austrian side are a bit too tight, off camber and with bugger all visibility, but it's certainly an experience everyone should do once.
great rite up mate and great photos,,,,,, somehow it does get the real feeling of a road trip, ( phone charger not working,, small but big things ! :Banghead: ).............. oh and,,, get your bloody hair cut !!!
Sooooooo we were very happy to get into Italy as that was our main goal. First stop was Lake Como for a swim and then Miss Pineapples place in Caglio to meet her Dad and his girlfriend. We were so glad to get the leathers off, and I found myself in the surreal situation of meeting the folks for the first time and being shown around the house in just my boxers. The house is on the top of the mountains and was great fun blasting around the twisties. It would be perfect on a Hypermotard!
Caglio is famous for cycle races up the windy mountain roads. It used to host a round of the Tour De France and now does the Italian something or other cycle race. Italy has patron saints for everything and here they have one for cycling! This chapel has bikes donated by all the winners of the races.
well.....wait to you see the pictures from the Brothel in Pompei ruins haha. Being an ex-Royal Marine nakedness is part of the jobspec, and I do like to do a good job.
So Caglio was the place I had a rather stupid novice error. After blasting around the mountain roads in the morning we popped back to the house to pack our things ready to head for Bologna and the Ducati factory/museum. I'd been running the Pirelli SuperCorsas that the bike came with that had had the earlier puncture on the rear. They were in pretty good nick still with plenty of rubber left and about 1500miles at this point and not showing any signs of diminishing grip. It was a nice warm day still when we set off again and the tyres still felt warm from the mornings blast as we left the house. With out really thinking, and loaded up with all my luggage, I dropped the bike into the first hairpin a couple hundred meters from the driveway. The front of the bike let go at a fortunately very low speed and we went sliding 10m down the steep hill from the hairpin! Very fortunately I had Snell Performance fit crash bungs before leaving and those and my Kriega luggage prevented any damage to anything other than the mirrors and my Kriega straps. I was cursing myself as I slid down the road for being such an idiot not letting the tyres warm up again. I'd made the same mistake on my R1 leaving the office 6 months earlier and swore that I wouldn't do it again!! The bad news for me was that the mirrors bolt to the corner of the main headstock alloy support and I had snapped the tab on the opposite side to the broken mirror. I think this happened due to the force from the inside mirror pushing the screen against the outside one and breaking the tab. I did manage to temporarily glue the metal tab back on for the outside mirror. I tried glueing the broken mirror but ended up cable tieing it on as it fell off within 30mins of wind. I'm kicking myself I didn't get a phot of the crash site, I was too busying swearing. The picture below shows the screen removed, the broken metal corner can be seen at the top side of the gold coloured metal bracket. Unluckily for me this is one large part that I'd have to get fixed on my three week old Panigale! Fortunately the next planned stop was the Ducati factory!
So once we'd done a bit of gaffer tape and glue temporary repair to the broken mirrors we headed off into the night and one of the worst rain and lightning storms I've ever seen. Fork lightning was literally hitting the ground around us, quite an exciting ride apart from the fact we needed to arrive in Bologna before 2130hrs to get into the hotel we'd booked. The next day , once the lady who owned the B&B had stopped caressing the Panigale, we headed to the Ducati factory and museum. Ducati..... for anyone that hasn't heard of the company...thats the people who make shavers, intercoms and radios!!
Needless to say a visit to the service department down the road was top of my agenda to get some new mirrors and the headstock part replaced. The Italians charge labour by the minute which was welcome as it was a fairly quick job to get the bike back to like brand new. They gave us a little Monster to play on over lunch whilst waiting
Sooo we had heard load of great things about Passa della Futa which runs through the mountains from Bologna to Florence roughly parallel with the main road. Unfortunately it continued to tip down with rain for several days. The only upside being that the tyres last longer which I really didn't care about! I'd happily buy news ones every other day to enjoy the epic roads out here! We took the main road and the pass would have to wait for another time. One lesson I did learn from this trip was that it's worth fitting tyres that work better in the wet if there's a fair chance or rain as it's usually the case in Europe unless it's mid summer, even on a race bike like the Panigale. I swapped to Pirelli Diablo Rossos on the way back and the confidence on wet roads was like night and day, with only a little sacrifice in the dry weather performance.
Now, where was I? Ah yes, off to Perugia. We arrived late in the evening in more pouring rain and the city looked pretty ugly from the main roads. It definately didn't look like the sort of place to leave a Panigale hanging around. We found a hotel near the center where we were able to park the bikes outside reception and went for a wonder in the nighttime rain. Once inside the old city walls the place was amazing! The main square is very famous for it's use of space. The architecture makes a relatively small area look massive. The brick work is very impressive.
Ha, well we visited her mum in Bari who likes to swing a chainsaw around wearing her slippers and pretty much built a restaurant on her own and is not looking too bad at all for her age so I'm not too worried about that just yet. Anyhow I've kindly passed on your comment and I suspect you'll get a reply in true Italian style
Mr.R... I could tell you that at 35 I look like this or this that I look exceedingly good with moustache (are you really questioning this?mmmmm) that I do this... and this.... and this.. and this... and this... and this..(pay attention to this one especially) I could tell you all these things and more but really, all you you need to know is: HAHAHAHHAHAA
