But perhaps not for long, I've just read about Ixions saga.
Anyhoo, We recently spent 6 weeks in bella Italia, there's far too much to bore you all with, but it was the most fantastic holiday. We went as far south as the Amalfi coast, north to Asiago and Lake Como, and from Venice across to Portofino.
Unfortunately we couldn't rent a bike, we had to settle for a Peugeot 307 HDi, that's 1.6 diesel litres of rampant french horses.
But it would cruise at 140 - 150 km/h and return 6.6 litres/100 km. Better than my Bandit. It would also sit on 180 km/h at 4000 rpm for many km's and felt it like 100.
That's right, you poor deprived denizens of nanny Helen's utopia, there are places where you can drive at whatever speed you like (within reason) and not worry about the IRD hiding around every corner (or Guarda di Finanza over there). I didn't even bother with a radar detector, you just keep one eye out for the odd Auto Velox, that's speed camera to us.
Some things take getting used to, such as; the accepted practice to let someone know you want to pass, is to sit a metre off his tail at 160. Strangely enough, no-one minds, no-one gets road ragey, no-one does the 'brake test' so beloved of our motoring cretins, they just move over and let them go.
There are seemingly no road rules, they rely on common sense, a little courtesy and a lot of assertiveness. Our local import drivers wouldn't survive 2 km in Italian traffic, they'd be gibbering wrecks.
Northern Italy is bike heaven, the alpine roads have surfaces like billiard tables, there's no loose metal, diesel spills, stock shit or any of the things that make our country roads such a joy.
We're talking about 100's of bikes, all heading up to the Asiago plateau in the Dolomites. You name it, it was there. Tourers, Motards, Hyperbikes, all sorts. I even saw some genuine knee down action on some of the tighter hairpins.
It was a rude shock to return to 12 degrees of cold wet weather, and a few days after returning one of the Police members of this site, who shall remain unnamed, thought it was reasonable to travel at high speed through peak traffic on the bridge to pull me over for "failing to give three seconds indication of a lane change".
Dear me, what a difference. An Italian cop wouldn't even put his helmet on and mess up his hair for anything less than a bank robbery.
(Not to mention the blond supermodel who had a second job in the Polizia Municipale in Milan, rode a Honda Transalp and frisked tourists on request.)
I think he realised the disproportionate nature of his response, as he didn't write the ticket.
Anyway, I might just pop in here from time to time, but as I said at the start, it doesn't seem to be the anarchistic, irreverent site that I loved.
I think the jobsworths have won.
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Originally Posted by Lou Girardin
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