twowheeler
two wheels are best
Stashed the VFR in Troon and caught an early morning flight to Italy, where we stayed for a week and a half for a birthday celebration in Brenda's family, no riding, but plenty to see bike-wise. So in no particular order . . . .
The Ducati Factory in Bologna.
These bikes were lined up out the front as part of "Monster Day", which I learnt was an advertising campaign primarily aimed at women. A large organised bunch of riders shortly rode away on these and other Monsters out of shot -
The factory was really interesting. No photos are allowed within it, but we were escorted around every area except the race division, watching various stages of assembly. Different bikes have different assembly lines - we followed the Panigale line. Near the end we watched #28 (of 500) Panagale 1299 Superleggera get its test run on the rolling road. If you have 80,000 euros you too can own its 200bhp and 155kg of carbon fibre excess. The tour is quite smart marketing IMHO. There is obvious pride and happy workers everywhere you looked, and most of the bikes are pretty appealing, to me anyway.
No restriction on Museum photos though -
A 900cc beast, complete with kickstart, the seat must be at least a metre off the ground -
Fogerty's 916. Check out the early carbon brakes -
Casey Stoner's -
Spent about 2.5 hours there all up and enjoyed it very much. The taxi in the morning from Bologna Centrale train station to the factory cost about 20euros, which was OK, but I had lots of time to kill coming back so walked 4ish km (including a couple of wrong turns) to Borgo Panigale train station and paid 1euro for a return journey, yeah :credit: .
The Ducati Factory in Bologna.
These bikes were lined up out the front as part of "Monster Day", which I learnt was an advertising campaign primarily aimed at women. A large organised bunch of riders shortly rode away on these and other Monsters out of shot -
The factory was really interesting. No photos are allowed within it, but we were escorted around every area except the race division, watching various stages of assembly. Different bikes have different assembly lines - we followed the Panigale line. Near the end we watched #28 (of 500) Panagale 1299 Superleggera get its test run on the rolling road. If you have 80,000 euros you too can own its 200bhp and 155kg of carbon fibre excess. The tour is quite smart marketing IMHO. There is obvious pride and happy workers everywhere you looked, and most of the bikes are pretty appealing, to me anyway.
No restriction on Museum photos though -
A 900cc beast, complete with kickstart, the seat must be at least a metre off the ground -
Fogerty's 916. Check out the early carbon brakes -
Casey Stoner's -
Spent about 2.5 hours there all up and enjoyed it very much. The taxi in the morning from Bologna Centrale train station to the factory cost about 20euros, which was OK, but I had lots of time to kill coming back so walked 4ish km (including a couple of wrong turns) to Borgo Panigale train station and paid 1euro for a return journey, yeah :credit: .