[Ducati] (no subject)

[Mikiel Kingsley]

On 6/8/06, King, Cameron <Cameron.King at tusd.k12.az.us> wrote:
>
> Subject: RE: [Ducati] The perfect Italian vacation
>
> Vicki,
>
>     I have been reading this list for several years now but I don't often
> 'post'.  I have been reading about your "MotoGiro" experiences (awesome!),
> but I can not tell how much it would cost a regular person such as my self
> to
> go and do the "Tourist Trophy" at the 'MotoGiro"  Can you enlighten us?
> Thanks for all that you do by offering us this forum, and for you tender
> 'guidance' and support,
>
>                                                                     Cambo
>

Cambo,

I went this year in the tourist class.  Between airfare (fron Los Angeles),
the bike rental, the race entry, a few hotel stays (we arrived a few days
early and left a day late), and beer I figure I spent about $4500.  Worth
EVERY SINGLE PENNY.  No kidding.  I'm still surprised at myself that I
hadn't done it sooner considering all the glowing reports from others in
years past.  Other than the long ride in the plane the trip was wonderful
from start to finish.  Riding in the Motogiro is like doing an 8-hour track
day 5 days in a row.  Sure, it's on public roads, but in the tourist class
you get a friendly police escort who rides one of those big BMW police bikes
like a banshee.  We broke every traffic law Italy had, and then we made some
up so we could break those too.

The one thing that really surprised me was just how technical the riding
was.  I thought the tourist class would laze along and look at the scenery
and make frequent stops for gellato.  Well, we did stop for gellato on a
regular basis, but when we were on the bikes the pace was very fast on some
of the most challenging, twisty roads I've ever seen.  Most of the day you
never get above 3rd gear.  A 250 kilometer day takes 8 hours.  It's left,
right, left, right, left, right all day long.  When I turned my bike in I
think I had more wear on the sides of the tires than on the centerline.
Even in the tourist class this is not a ride for newbies (as one guy in my
little group found out the hard way).  Each day is exhausting but
exhilerating.  The people from Dream Engine take very good care of you.  The
bikes were great (though I think those of us who rented universally hated
the tires they came with), the food was outstanding, the hotels were
terrific, the country spectacular, the people were wonderful (though I never
could figure out the damn gas stations).

I definitely recommned going, but I think anyone even considering it should
get in a few track days beforehand.  I wish I'd brought a video camera to
strap to the tank, because I can't do this trip justice by just talking
about it.  I made a little slideshow montage, but I don't have the bandwidth
to host it from here.  Anyone out there with a big enough pipe to host a
10MB file?

One more thing: bring a GPS!

-- 
-Mikiel
'96 900SS/SP "Buttercup"