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We woke up to a glorious day aboard the AF225 and the views outside the window were spectacular. The sky was a mix of so many oranges, blues, purples and pinks that it was impossible to believe that God paints in his spare time when his subjects are sleeping! The flight landed on time and even though I was very worried about missing our connection which was only of an hour 15 minute duration, we managed to clear immigration and change terminals with ease. The French seem to have got their act together finally as this was the first time I did not loose or damage my suitcase and this was also the first time I managed to catch my connecting flight!
We boarded the aircraft to Bologna (pronounced Bolonia) and while the flight was uneventful, I started to read about Ducati Monster in a motorcycle magazine. Strangely, I could not concentrate while Sunny as usual was shooting the majestic Alps from the window of the plane. I realized why I had the lack of concentration. On touch down, my stomach twirled and a thousand five hundred thoughts started playing in my head. It was as if a video recorder was switched on and I stared reciting some of the memorable entries that xBhpians had submitted for this very moment. It was as if I was carrying thousands of dreams with me and living them all in one instant. With humility and a sense of responsibility, I recited as many as I could
Holy cow!! (Tuhin)
Boy, its still hard to believe am not dreaming, but hey, if I am don bother waking me up. (xtc39)
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Itni shidaat se maine tumhe paane ki koshish ki hai, hi, har zarre ne mujhe tumse milane ki saazish ki hai. (Govind)
Gods can’t BEAT me… Satan wouldn’t
DARE… I breathe my STREET….
I ride my FIGHTER… The Hell do I CARE… (Jasmeet)
and so on and on.
We landed at Bologna and our baggage arrived and all of them at that. We took a cab and headed straight to Ducati. James from Ducati was surprised to see us on time. Probably he had heard about the French prowess in clearing passengers and their baggage and about the Indian Stretchable Time. We ofcourse were proud to have proved him wrong! These were no ordinary Indians he was dealing with here!
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We filled in some papers and were lead straight to our bikes. A penny dropped as the bikes appeared from amongst the tens of Ducati’s parked in the parking lot. from 848′s, Multistrada’s to Monsters and Streetfighters, it was as if it was raining Ducati. Your two soon to be Ducatisti’s were bursting with excitement, joy and impatience. James gave us an overview of the Traction Control settings on the Streetfighter S and the ABS on the bikes. These are no ordinary machines and navigating the menu on the snazzy instrument panel of the bike unveils features after features.. it’s amazing the detailing and the length to which these guys have gone to to produce these bikes! If this is what a streetfighter is capable of, what would the Multistrada be able to do considering it has many more features up its sleeve than this one?
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The heat and humidity was as bad as what we left back home in Delhi. There in the Ducati public parking lot, we started to spread our luggage and spread it we did – all over the place. This went on for almost 6 hours.
The Ducati Monster and Streetfighters do not come with any provision for carrying luggage. While the Streetfighter absolutely does not, the Monster still has after market fitments that are available. Jamie from Ducati Tours, an independent company (not related to Ducati except that they rent the Ducati’s for tourer’s) and based out of a place 150 Kilometers from Bologna called Lucca arrived and fitted the Monster with a carrier and side soft panniers. I had carried soft panniers of my own from back home which I somehow managed to fit on to the Streetfighter. Luggage space was at a premium and it took us a lot of time to finally wrap up the sorting and packing. The whole process was interspersed with:
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- Running to the Ducati Cafe to buy water, coke and odd stuff to eat. The cafe was well equipped and decorated. We could get whatever we wished for!
- Meeting and having an in-depth discussion with a journalist from the Motorrad magazine.
- Buying stuff from the Ducati store, there were mouthwatering T’s, jackets, scale models, caps, key rings and so on.
- Changing in the Ducati Loo (which is not as high tech as their bikes I am afraid)
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- Photo sessions all over the place
We were packed and ready to leave by about 3 PM and hired a cab to drive us to the Ramada hotel to drop our luggage. Sunny and I rode behind the cab. What happened during this short 12 kilometer ride can only be understood by someone who has an experience of breeding and training race horses!
The monster wheelied at the slightest of throttle, the Stretfighter stalled as soon as I came out of the Factory and at times but oftentimes would refuse to follow my will ! It was becoming difficult to keep up with the crazy cabbie, control the bike, remember to ride on the wrong (read right) side of the road and become friendly with the steed! We somehow reached the Ramada and deposited our suitcases without being thrown off by our thoroughbreds. In the parking lot of the Ramada, We dark gallons of water and held our breath – In our mind’s was – What lies ahead!. After a little chit chat with the bikes, we mounted again and set off for Venezia (Venice). We had decided to take the straight line on the Autostrada via Padova.
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The GPS took us straight into a small country road which twisted and turned for a few kilometers. I was surprised since this did not look like an Autostrada to me! Maybe, India was more advanced and had grasped the concept of an expressway better than Italians! However, this road gave me a chance to become friendly with my bike. Soon, it would be purring between my legs and started to understand me, we hope to become and remain friends forever. She is a collection of 155 thoroughbred race horses and the rider has to be really deserving to even contemplate sitting on her.
The biggest problem I had to grapple with was that the bike is so smooth and delivers all the power already at 4000 rpm even though it idles at about 1200 revs. I would touch 140 km/h and would not even realize that I am at that speed! So, when entering a turn, I would always enter too fast and would have to take to breaking abruptly. And the breaks on this one are as powerful as they can be so the result was a feeling of “Oh my God, I am going to crash” at every turn! Once I realized this, I would consciously slow down on approaching a turn and check the speed on the speedo. Soon, we started talking each others language and she started understanding Hindi. Then began a love affair which is still blossoming! I am in love with this bike – period.
I will go and check the menu in the language section on the instrument panel, I am sure, Hindi would have appeared by now!!! When I was navigating the menu, I saw many languages to choose from, I was thinking that it was only for selecting the language for reading the display, Judging by the level of engineering that has gone into this bike, it seems to me that the selection menu trains the bike to respond to how an Italian, a Spaniard, a Frenchman or a Englishman would think while riding! —- This is utopia but those who believe that what we read in Science Fiction does become reality later and those who have seen FireFox where Clint Eastwood flew a plane with thought control, would understand my excitement of being responsible for coining a future innovation in bikes which I am sure will come from Ducati and none other!
Well, the ride from Bologna was boring barring one excitement. We had taken a stop to get Benzina (folks, in Italy, if you get Gas, you get Diesel. To get Petrol, you go for Benzina!!) So when we filled up and tanked up ourselves with Isotonic water, we started off again towards Venice till I realized that I had left my backpack at the gas station itself!!!!!! The feeling of lightness on my back while riding lead to this realization and I made a mad u-run towards the gas station. To my relief, the backpack was still there, as I had left it. I strapped it on and set off to catch up with Sunny, which I did at the turn towards Venice away from Padova.
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We reached hotel Alle Torri, pre-booked by us a long while ago and dropped our gear. After this, there was a rush to get to Venice. This is probably one of the most beautiful cities that I have seen in my lifetime (and believe me, I have seen quite a lot). I rank it all the way to the top and I was in a hurry to get there and touch base a second time, even if it was for a short while.
We rode in and parked our bike near the bus stand in the public parking. This parking is quite unlike any public parking that we have back home. All two wheelers were neatly aligned and parked besides one another taking care that others would need to use the narrow space in the aisle. There were a variety of vehicles parked and Sunny captured them for posterity in his camera.
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A short stroll towards Square San Marco (Saint Mark’s Square) we realized that there was simply too much to do here and if Sunny spent his life time here, he would be shooting every waking hour!! So, realizing how tired we were and that all eating joints were closing down, we settled in a small roadside pizzeria and guess what…. ate an authentic Italian Pizza!
More tomorrow.
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