It was December, or maybe even January, and our little family had been planning a spring trip to Europe for months already. My beautiful wife Page asked me, "What do
you want to do?" and I mumbled something about a visit to the Ducati factory or maybe Mandello del Lario, the ancestral home of Moto Guzzi. She looked at the map, saw that Mandello is on Lake Como, and said, "Let's do it, then. Let's go there."
With some help (OK, a
lot of help) from Daniel Kalal's Italy trip report, things fell into place nicely. I plagarized ruthlessly and not only rented a bike from Duilio Agostini, just like he did, but also followed in Daniel's footsteps by booking rooms at Mamma Ciccia's bed and breakfast.
The overall plan was to fly to Paris and spend a week there visiting museums, eating well and generally carrying on. We were in the company of our best friends (another family of four), and three other hangers-on. One day was dedicated to a version of "The Amazing Race" set up by Page, who split us up into teams and sent us roaming through the city satisfying various challenges. Page speaks excellent French and knows Paris well, so she was the logical choice to be the author and thus the finish line judge.
My team lost the race decisively, despite my having the best opportunity to cheat. But let's not dwell on that, eh?Here's STN representin' in Paris.
I'd forgotten how motorbikes are everywhere in European cities. Check out these pics of Paris streets.
In Europe, you're not a freak if you're carrying around a bike helmet or wearing leathers. You're just going to work or nipping down to the shops. I love that.
Here's me and my daughter Hallie on a bridge over the Seine. Hallie just turned thirteen. Note the Vanson; that's the jacket that was largely purchased with the New Enough gift certificate that I won on STN. Nice coat; I would absolutely trust it in a crash. My only beef is that the Vanson armor does not match the overall quality of the rest of the jacket. Also, armor doesn't come with the jacket; you have to buy it separately. What's with that? A $500 jacket without any armor?
After our stay in Paris, we flew to Milano and took the train to Lecco (only about an hour). Here I am in Lecco with my kids Hallie and Harper. We had to get up pretty early to catch the plane so you can see there's some sag in the joy.
And fifteen minutes after getting on the train in Lecco, we were in Mandello del Lario. When you get off the train, there's the Moto Guzzi factory. Right there, over my shoulder!
The Moto Guzzi factory, Mamma Ciccia's, and Duilio Agostini are all within five minutes' walk from the train station. After a bit of confusion we found Mamma Ciccia's. Silvia, the proprietess, welcomed us warmly. Mamma Ciccia's is on the right, and the apartment we stayed in is in the blue building on the left.
Silvia's husband David is in charge of the wine cellar at Mamma Ciccia's, and he did well by us. After perhaps one too many glasses of his
vino bianco, I had my first good night's sleep since we arrived in Europe. The sun streaming through the skylight and the church bells chiming seven woke me up, and after a shower I arrived happily, expectantly, and somewhat groggily at Duilio Agostini at 8:30 sharp. The shop is open from 8:30 until 18:30 and I wanted to get in my full day of riding.
Unfortunately, Alis, the owner, wasn't there yet and no one else spoke much English. My command of Italian is limited to the menus of modestly priced restaurants so although the staff was exceedingly friendly there was little actual communication. I was wearing a Juventus (football club) shirt that I'd bought in Paris and Mandello is Milano AC (another football club) country so that produced a certain amount of good-natured ribbing that I encouraged by loudly responding "Torino, si!"
Fortunately, Alis arrived before I'd caused any trouble or the throwing of small motorcycle parts around the room. She set me up with a Guzzi 1200 Sport, a bike that I had been wanting to ride and specifically requested. You can't get one in the US yet; it's basically a Breva with more motor and better suspension.
I'd bought a 1:200,000 scale map in the US and picked out a road that went east along the foothills as my route. It looked pretty lightly traveled and was twisty as Bill Clinton at a Senate hearing. However, Alis' husband Peter (I think that's right) gently suggested a change. What he basically said was, "Sure, you've traveled 7,500 miles to Italy to ride our roads. Best thing to do is...head up to Switzerland."
The irony was lost on Peter, but he certainly knew where the good roads were. He suggested that I ride north along the shore of Lake Como and then to the Bernina Pass in Switzerland, and then loop back or perhaps better yet just turn around and retrace my steps.
After a bit of breakfast and a splendid caffe latte with my family, here I am ready to set out.
I really like the way the Guzzi Sport looks. The Breva is pleasant to look at, but maybe too pleasant. Like the BMW R1200R, it's an excellent bike that's understated to a fault. The Sport has a little more hot rod spirit, although the headlight looks too small to my eye, and I wonder if it wouldn't be better with a big platter of a headlight like the 1982/1983 Suzuki GS1100E.
It was cool (about 11 C) and a little hazy but the day held promise of sunshine. Here's the road along Lake Como. I was trying to get the terraces on the hillside above but didn't do a very good job. Hey, not everyone can take pictures like Orson.
The first couple of hours I was finding my legs, getting used to the bike and the unfamiliar roads, road signs, and the rules of engagement. The Guzzi was very friendly in this regard with stable handling and twist-and-go power. Agostini had fitted it with a carbon end can that gave it a great mellow rumble. It wasn't obnoxiously loud and at first I didn't realize that it wasn't stock.
After 90 minutes or so I stopped for coffee. Check out the sign and you'll see why this place was irresistable. "Stop Moto"!
The coffee was great and I continued on with confidence. Maybe it's a function of age but as I get older I'm much less concerned with spec sheet information and more interested in the way a bike feels to ride. The R1 I had was a spec sheet hero, but in real life it was the clean throttle response and torquey power below 7,000 rpm that was relevant in day to day life, not the breathtaking top end.
And that's where the Moto Guzzi shone, at real world speeds. It was like driving a seventies muscle car with better suspension. Lots of useful motor from 3,000 rpm on up. Twist the throttle in whatever gear you happen to be in and you bugger off into the distance leaving behind a juicy V-twin rumble like a car's V-8. Heavy, but that gave it a solid feel and plenty nimble as long as you didn't mind giving it a good push on the bars. It was set up a little soft for my taste but the suspension is adjustable and I didn't change it.
Here's Chiavenna. Still Italy but on the way to Switzerland. The valley is steep and way up on the hillside you can see a little town. What in the world made building a town up there seem like a good idea?
And in Bourgonuovo, here's an MV Agusta in it's native habitat. Note the waterfalls in the background.
When I got to the Swiss border, I stopped in at the crossing building to get my passport stamped. To my chagrin, the border guard was carrying on a conversation with the woman before me in German! I fumbled through, "Ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch," and the guard cooly replied,
"What do you want?" Ouch. I told him I'd like my passport stamped and he looked at me as though that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. But he did it, and I'll never see him again anyhow.
After the Swiss border the road got much better. Better pavement, nice cambers, seemed like a good time to up the pace a little,
ja? Peter had described it as "
Heidi country" and as usual he was right. Check this out.
The miles to San Moritz were covered at a brisker and brisker pace. And then it was time for lunch. I about had a heart attack looking at menu prices until I realized that they were posted in Swiss francs rather than Euros.
This shot is for my buddy EJH, who lent me this copy of "Eggs and Mirrors" to read on the trip. It's poetry and short prose by a Seattle writer. Erik, this book was indeed read partly in Switzerland.
After lunch I zipped up to the Julierpass, where even at 1500 it was 6 degrees C. The Goose and I were becoming very good friends.
On the way down from the Julierpass I hooked up with a group of riders, maybe six. Somehow I wound up in front and was feeling frisky so the pace got pretty hot. Hey, somebody's got to show these Italians that Americans know how to ride, too. Beautiful day, nice road, no stops for pics. We were busy. I rode with that group until they stopped in Chiavenna.
Just south of Varenna I saw this Futura in factory colors that weren't available in the US. Seemed like a nice pic. By this time it was about 20 degrees C and all my extra layers were stuffed in my little backpack.
Here's Agostini's upon return about 1800, with the bike cooling down in front.
Agostini has designed an exhaust can, with catalytic converter, for the Griso. Take a look at this. It looks
great on the bike and the build quality is very very nice, certainly way better than the stocker.
This exhaust is only available from Agostini. It's so new that the sticker on the silencer is just that, a sticker. The metal tags that will be on production units aren't done yet. They've sold one, serial number 001, to a customer who came in when I was there. He was pretty pumped but his didn't have the metal tag yet either, and Alis made him promise to come back and get it.
I really like my R1100S. But if I was in the market for a replacement, or if I was in the market for an R1200R, I'd buy the Guzzi Sport instead. It's a little quirkier, has about the same power and delivery but has that great V-twin rumble. And you can get factory hard luggage, too. The bike I rode had the bag mounts but the bags weren't mounted.
It's significant, though, that I live very close to my Guzzi dealer. If I lived 200 miles from a dealer I might have a different opinion.
After Mandello we went to Cortona in Tuscany for about a week. This is the view from our tiny terrace in Cortona. Nice, eh?
There are plenty of old Italian bikes roaming around, still in daily use. Here's a daily driver Moto Guzzi in Cortona.
Couple of non-motorcycle related pics: Greenland and Baffin Bay from 35,000 feet up during the flight home.
Packing gear was a riddle. I didn't want to take a huge suitcase, so instead of bringing the 'stich, I wore the Vanson jacket and packed my BMW armored summer pants. I brought glove liners for my gloves and magic socks (Smartwool) a la XLR8. When I started out in the morning I put on an extra pair of pants under the BMW pants and wore a sweater and wool scarf. As the day wore on, the sweater, scarf and glove liners were shed.
As to a helmet, I decided not to pack a helmet but to buy one from Agostini and have them ship it home for me. The lid I bought was a Caberg, which is Italian made. It has a built-in flip down internal dark screen.
At first I thought it was just a gimmick, but on the ride back I took a stretch of autostrada (mainly just to experience it). The autostrada has many many tunnels, and in the tunnels I'd flip up the dark screen and then flip it down when I came out into bright sunshine. Worked great.
So that's it; a day in Italy and Switzerland on the new Goose. Hope you liked it; I know I sure did.
