So I go for a ride with the Firenze DOC. I'm riding along 2 up and a couple on a Desert X are next to us riding through town. They wave and take some photos of us. Cute cute.
We stop up top at Piazzale Michelangelo and Claudio Domenicali (Ducati CEO) takes his helmet off and introduces himself. I'm a little wowed, father Ducati is here weaving through traffic like a badass on the latest bike with his wife cupcake. Speechless we shake hands, do a few selfies. We have a little interview moment. He goes and gets his wife, they want to know everything. We exchange phone numbers...
It's the 20th anniversary of Ducati Firenze so they spent a little bit getting everyone out. 500 or so show up. Every bike. Paul Smarts, Cagivas, DesertX, a row of SBKs & Panigale, Monsters coming out of the woods, endless Multistrada variations... Kickstands up at 14:00 sharp, bikes are still pilling into the Ducati Florence lots at 14:38... Italian O'clock.
Someone next to me starts their engine. Starts revving it. I see hands in the air making swirling motions. Helmets start finding heads. I don't know where my wife went. I start gearing up thinking, "oh for real, we're actually going to go somewhere." The Ambulance crew climbs in their van, yes there's an ambulance crew that's going to follow us. Good sign. That's free here btw. You just call and say, we're going to have a soccer match can you send an ambulance, and they do. Ambulance rides are free here like they used to be in the US.
The clouds were dumping for days. Forecasts look abysmal the week before & 2 days out the Whatsaap chats were ablaze with doubters. Yes Italians all use f*king Whatsapp even though it's a facebook abomination. In the EU it has huge privacy restrictions unlike the US where Zuck can suck whatever he wants off your tech devices. I play along because it's the only way to communicate with groups here. Forcasts say maybe sun, maybe rain, who knows it's Spring.
9AM the sun comes out. The gods are smiling on us. We get to the gear shop in town where an order miraculously arrived in the nick of time and my wife has new boots for show&tell. We find any cafe on the way and shovel panini which is a deep sin in Italy skipping a proper 3 hour sit down lunch with everyone you know, but it happens. That's why there are panini. I'm American, and I have to get there on time because omg for no other reason :15 mins early! An hour later we're milling about the Ducati shop in line for the bathroom with 20 others. That's where I find her. My wife has managed to use the lu but I haven't.
Hundreds of engines are starting outside. For real. Do I want to be at the back of 500 bikes where a crash is most likely and the exhaust of at least 78 not particularly well tuned bikes find sunlight for the first time in ages?
No. We need to go.
I start noticing that 498 Ducati from every era have incredibly similar timing. It's like a massive flock of sightly excited hearts beating in unison. It's unreal. I realize I've never experienced anything like this ever in my life and I also really have to pee. I'm exploding and we're about to leave for a 2 hour ride. I spot palm trees behind the shop. The palm trees get a watering. I run to my bike, gear up. We were clever enough to casually push the bike an hour earlier over to the exit of the lot.
Bikes are piling out like a river of red, now and then a blue Monster with stripes or a black & green Multistrada Enduro covered in mud. My wife has been riding since she was not old enough to ride. Her dad worked for Cagiva when the Castiglioni owned Ducati as well. She had a 250 race bike before she had a driver's license but she can't get her helmet strap figure out today to save her life. Ok fixed. Gloves on. The river of bikes is flowing past us. We mount up & we're off.
I'm used to California where everything is a race always and usually is here too at every stop light with every scooter NEEDING to be in the front. It's actually pretty casual, everyone is miraculously missing each other piling out, finding a lane, making the left at the light. Wow, 700 feet and no one has died. Good. Everyone is cool. The relay team is seriously on it blocking intersections, and jetting by to the next one through all the bikes. I'm realizing there was no instructions or briefing before we left. The relay team is in florescent yellow jackets and are buzzing through like sharks in a tuna school. How is this working? No idea, but it's fine. I'm just going with it. Flow, breathe.
I look in a mirror as we bank left around a bend. The endless row of red is mind-blowing. We must be a half mile long. I can't see the end or the front.
Luca, DOC FI goes screaming by on a borrowed DesertX like a scolded banshee - I get on his ass and we weave a bit. He finds the right lane entering our in cross traffic and parks it in front of the row of cars, I find an idiot about to nose into us to make a left. I fly over and park it on his grill, stick out my hand and shake my head. Oh, an American in an SUV. I look vacation dad in the eyes until he lifts his hands from the wheel, smiles and waves. I see a yellow vest come to take my place and I launch back into the pack. I weave a bit up - I've got to see all these freaks in action. This is insane. Every flavor of Ducati blasting through the streets of Florence. We own this town today.
Once I went on a BARF ride through San Francisco. Random people, like myself notice several dozen bikes go by, so they jump on, just like I did. We did the intersection blocking trick and we blasted through SF all the way out to the coast where there were stunters doing some seriously incredible tricks and girls with blue hair matching their blue bikes and every manor of rat bike, sport and street bike imaginable. I'll never forget that day, there were probably 200 bikes or so. This is more than double that. All Ducati.
(photo: not even half of the bikes)
The first time I rode through this ancient city I was taken by a deep appreciation that I had evolved passed walking on these 800 year old stone streets to riding a computerized racebike. Today bumped that lump in my throat up a level going in pack. The best part was the winding streets up the mountain south of the city to the giant piazza, Piazzale Michelangelo sits with its bronze copy of the famous sculpture of David. Trees and stunning villas bury the street in beauty. Its esses are perfect and would be a dream race up this hill if it weren't for its overwhelming tourist traffic. Today however, its ours. We bob we weave. This is where my wife notices the couple next to us on the DesertX taking photos of us. I didn't see any of it. I was hyper focused on traffic. Now and then an oncoming truck will take a curve generously and you can miss a bumper crossing over the center line by centimeters if you're not on it your toes.
We roll into the parking lot to look over the city. The view is spectacular. Florence in all of its glory just on the other city of Boboli Garden teaming over with flora and fauna. It's one of those places that you can't believe exists except that it in front of your eyes. The ancient towers, the sky scrapping Brunelleschi dome of the cathedral, endless intricacies and stories below.
This morning I had a chat exchange with Claudio. He said let's keep in touch. Should be interesting.
May 7th DUCATI DAY. All the fan boys gathered to take the streets. Every now and then doing the cheesy events is actually pretty amazing.
