My first attempts were to dismantle my little moped and to reassemble it many times to change something.
I spent so much money that I could have purchased 3 of them new, but a passion is what is it. By my 18th birthday my father, who owned an old Moto Guzzi Imola 350cc, got a 500 Monza and gave me the old one ut realizing that it was too small for my frame and squandering every penny I had, I bought a Guzzu Le Mans 850cc.

IT was 1983 and it was about time to start a new life of daring and adventures. . For a generation like mine that was dreaming of open spaces and distant faraway places, it was time to go. Paul and I left at 5 o’clock in the morning with our destination Spain and Portugal. Paul owned a Kawasaki 550 GPZs, the first motorbike with the mono one. It was a 35-day, 11000 kilometer trip with so many laughs but with so much rain practically from Andorra all the back home. The following year we turned east. First was Greece with its history and traditions. In Salonika we met a family of Vicenza “the Soso gang”, as I jokingly baptized them at the moment, a family on the move: father and mother on one bike, son and daughter on another. We reached Istanbul, Turkey opening its doors to tourists and we found ourselves close to the Near East and the decision was unanimous; next year we’ll come back.

In 1985 I had to wait a full day under a tree (literally) for that was our meeting place and I had time to call home, telling my family I was waiting for the Sosos who came late with two friends riding in a car. So we took off for Cappadocia. We went down toward Dubrovik, by way of Montanegro and down toward Prestiana and Skopie. I was surprised to see so many cars overloaded with Turkish people returning home through Sarajevo, a city with so many different races living together in peace and harmony, never thinking that a few years later the place would have been completely different with war and no mercy for anybody. On the way back we spent so much time at the Bulgaria customs that we were really frustrated.

In 1986. I sold the Le Mans and bought a 65 TT a pseudo enduro which made me dream of dirt roads instead of asphalt-covered roads. Thanks to Dr. Poaol Donghi, then Chief Administrator of Moto Guzzi, I found myself in Baltimore, Maryland in the USA with a brand new Moto Guzzi to use. When I returned it I had traveled about 7000 miles on the US east coast from Canada to Florida.

In 1987 my wife and I went to Hungary, where we watched the Formula One Grand Prix. Senna won. The Ferrari was not good at all. On the way back someone thought I was Prost. It was only a joke. In 1988 was a year with ups and downs on a personal level for my father passed away and with him even a part of his beloved bike, a Laverda 98 that gave him so many exciting moments. This and the Guzzi 500 Monzas are memories that I preserve. I still have the TT 65, with which I went on a tour in France. I saw lovely places like castles along the river Loira, Brittany, Normandy and finally Paris, a city that I saw for the first time in the 80's while on an unfogettable end-of-year trip. I have the joy to return there once in a while.

In 1989 I am once again in Turkey with my wife. It has been four years since the last time I was there and I
saw so many changes in road and construction works that it was difficult to recognize well-known places.
The last time I was in Pamukkale we had to sleep in a farmhouse. Now instead of eight or nine houses there
is a small city. We go down along the coast to Antalya, then north to Cappadocia and back to Istanbul. The trip concluded on the beaches of Parga in Greece, a place that will become subsequently a usual destination.

In 1990 the odometer of the TT65 was over 100000 kilometers so I had to exchange my beloved bike for a
Super Tenere, which I broke in with a vacation in Spain. In March with Primo, my friend from the Assisi
Moto Club, we decided to visit Egypt but it turned into a nightmare. We arrived by boat at Pireus but the ship that was to take us to Egypt wasn’t there. We were stuck with many other people. We found out later that the ship was still under construction and we had already paid for the tickets Would you believe it? We had prepared everything with care, left on a Wednesday and returned home the following Sunday. Great, right? No comment!

In 1991 July we returned to Greece. My wife is attracted to this country and loves its warm sea and happy people. In September we embark for Venice. Ah, this time the ship is there and this is going to be her first voyage. After 4 days we disembark in Alexandria, then after a visit to Giza, we head south along the Nile, Asyut, Luxor, Assuan, the Valley of the Kings and the Queens and Abu Simbel. At 4 a.m. when we leave Assuan for Abu Simbel, the sun appears as a ball that finds it hard to climb in the sky, and at 8 o'clock we reach the extreme point of Egypt. At that time there was a leg of the Pharaohs rally where Ciro De Petri and La Porte rode at the speed 189 and 187 kilometers/hour. On the return trip we crossed the Suez Canal to reach Mount Saint Catherine. At Nuweaba we had to ferry across the Red Sea until we reached Agaba, Jordan, with brief visits to Petra and expensive Wadi Rum, a place loved by Lawrence of Arabia. Then we went back to Cairo and Alexandria, a trip I had been dreaming of since my grade school years.

In 1992 my daughter Veronica was born and that kept me home.

In 1993 with Primo and Mauro from Rome we departed for Morocco all by land. We crossed the Atlas Mountains, the Imperial cities and the desert until the city of Zagora. Then it was northward through the Dodra and the Dedes Canyons. Then there were all dirt roads but because of tourism tar-covered roads have become common.

In 1994 Primo and I are a team by now and we landed in Tunis and rode to Touzer, where we met Elio and Aldo from Turin; for 2 days we were together. From Douz we arrived at Kashar Ghilan, where after planning for a year this trip, our paths took a different direction; Elio and Aldo stayed in Tunisia while Primo and I traveled to Libya, Tripoli, Sabratha, Leptis Magna, the birthplace of the Roman emperor Settimio Severo, and then toward Ghadames. There together with a tourism agency manager who is leading a group of Germans tourists, we go down toward Ghat, a very beautiful area. Along the trail I recalled the words of Ciro De Petri before the beginning of the trip: "Libya , if you travel it with an all-terrain bike, is
like a highway.” That told by him could be normal; for me it is not.

The following year 1995 the decision we made the previous year in Tunisia became a reality: Gianni, Elio and Aldo and I crossed the Atlantic Ocean landing in Peru. Duty-paid the motorbikes we go down toward south always coasting along the PacificOcean. Through Nazca, Arequipa, we entered into Chile. After Arica where we take information, we went up the Andes Mountains toward Bolivia. Before doing that we had to
stock up on supplies of gas, about 60 liters in plastic tanks. We slept two nights in tents. It was cold at night but we were well equipped. It was tough to travel this way for we were overloaded. At a Chilean plant where copper is extracted we were given gasoline, food and escorts.At the border between Chile and Bolivia we meet Alois, an Austrian teenager on a bike, who had been pedaling around South America for
the past seven months. In a split second all our difficulties vanished. In a little villag of San Juan a group of children told us that that day there was no school because the teacher went to get his paycheck and that he would be back in two to three days. It seems like time has another dimension in this place. When we put our wheels up the Salar of Ujuny we couldn’t believe in our eyes: kilometers and kilometers of a hard surface reflecting sunlight in a blinding shine. We arrive at Ujuny with about 7 liters of gasoline left with each of us but there are still some surprises. Riding up in the direction of Oruro, La Paz, Lake Titicaca, we cross the divide to reach Cuzco, the ancient capital city of the Inca people, and after that the Urubamba River valley. Going through small villages people were cheering at us “Inca Rally”. They were referring to the event organized by Acerbis.On the way to Ollantaitambo because of a pothole that looked like a crater I fell and being in a downhill path I rolled over for about 20 meters. I bike was OK but I wasn’t. I felt a
sharp pain in the clavicle area. In Cuzco an X-ray showed that my collarbone was broken. That night I
couldn’t sleep because of the pain and the hard cast. The next morning I chopped off the cast and I felt
better. Riding up Machu Picchu I felt terrible pain and I was given shots of Voltaren. Then I had to decide how to take my motorbike back to Lima. I tried and despite the painful trek of 700 kilometers, I made it. I thought it would have been worse.

In 1996 Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costarica, Panama, a journed in the heart of history and the culture, but also of the so many contradictions that are the common denominator of this part of world! It was the period of the CHIAPAS, a sort of peaceful uprising. We had to stop about every 15 kilometers because of military checkpoints. At Frontera Carozal we took a ferry boat across to Guatemala. We had to push the bikes single line one after the other but when we reached Guatemala we found ourselves in trouble with customs because people go back and forth but motorcycles? No way! We were right and they were right so we had to give up arguing conceding that they were right and that it was our mistake. It worked out well.

In 1997 my second child, my son Giulio was born so I stayed home.

From 1998 until the present time we had to suffer for various situations like climate and political problems. Once in Calcutta, India we had to suffer because of bureaucracy. We had to spend five days at a custom station going from one office to another to another. Sometimes we had to protest loudly and finally we ended up reassembling the bikes under the watchful eyes of two armed guards. At 11 o'clock the same night we left the city at incredible speed. Next we crossed the border to Bangladesh. In Dacca some police officer had to escort us to the hotel since a crowd of people had blocked the traffic in the street. Curiosity has no country! We rode north and while we had no problems in Bangladesh border guards, the Indian custom agents, sent us back. We didn’t understand why but we couldn’t go through. Then we met a Dunes, an agronomist, who spoke English very well whose help was really appreciated. After riding along and through rice pads we reached the Gange River. From there the crossing took a couple of hours. Local people were surprised that we took the bikes with us on the boat, loaded as sacks of potatoes. After landing in India we headed north toward Darjiling, then Nepal and back to India with the majesty of the Taj Mahal, all the way to Bombay whose correct name is unknown to the Indian people since Mumbay is the correct pronunciation.

In 1999 our destination, Mongolia, is a place well beyond reality. It is a dream, so far away with desolate, wide open spaces, steppes, desert and highlands. There are only about 15-20 kilometers of tar-covered roads around the capital city. The rest are all dirt roads.

In 2000-2001 it was a journey through history since we went across countries that have been crossroads and places where different civilizations met each other. We had problems with the organization of the trip that had us strt about a month and half later which casued great difficulties on our way back. We drove 10500 kilometers across seven countries with temperatures that oscillate between 8 - a5 degrees Celsius with snow and ice on the ground. The motorbikes are 3 Cagivas Navigator given to us by the manufacturer in Varese. It was a test for the bikes an for us; myself, Giorgio Ricci and Pierfelice Finocchi. We started from Taskent, Uzbekistan, then Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, Syria, again Turkey, Greece and back to Italy. Our visits included among other places Samarcanda, Bukkara, Mashad, does Theran. We crossed the Turkish Kurdistan with so much snow on the roads. On the way back we visited Aleppo and Palmira in Syria. Disembarking at Ancona some people asked us where we were coming from. “Uzbekistan, where is it?” was the response when we told them where we had been. This trip has been the occasion to bring a message of peace to all the governments of the lands we crossed and we are thankful to our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our diplomatic representatives in those places.

2002 found us making the easiest voyage we had undertaken even if it was to the other side of the world. It was to Southeast Asia. Many friendships in Italy and Thailand assisted us with this organization. Departing from Bangkok, we crossed through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia and reentered Thailand. It was a very beautiful trip with sights of rapidly changing cultures but, in some cases, some difficulties dating back to the Vietnam War era about which we know much. Of Cambodia, however, we know little. What we do know is that people of that country have to deal with some 40000 land mines, whose dignity has been offended so much and has been ignored by the whole world. That was the last time that I traveled with Elio and Aldo. Elio later journeyed to South America and Aldo just vanished from Italy and his whereabouts are unknown
but I still remember them and I respect their decisionsIn 2003 I had a good idea where I was about to go -Iran- but I didn’t find anybody willing to come so I went alone even if my bike wasn’t running properly. I embarked from Ancona one Saturday afternoon. After landing in Turkey with the help of two Italian boys, Anthony and Joseph, working there, I found a spare regulator part of a Honda Denominator that was OK, more or less. I continue on for Cappadocia. The more I went eastward the more the way of life in political situations changed. Before reaching the Iranian border I took pictures of the snow-capped Ararat to immortalize them which I always do. In Iran the price of gasoline was the same as three years ago, 3 cents/liter. I rode southward down to south Esfhan, Persepoli, Shiraz, then Kerman and the mythical Bam that was to be destroyed six months later by a powerful earthquake. There I met Ralf and Caroline who were on their honeymoon for almost two years, each one riding on a bike. Not bad! They were from New Zealand. They asked me if, by any chance, I knew the Italian guy touring around for four years in Indochina. It was Enio Cavallucci whom I met at the Thailand border and Laos border. Small world! Sure I know him!
I go up again toward Theran, Tukey and riding along the Black Sea shore I met Giuseppe, enjoying a trip in
the area, about 300 kilometers before reaching Istanbul where I took a break. When I arrived back home my journey covered 11000 kilometers.

In May 2004 within the ClubTenereItalia.it we succeeded in putting together 4 motorbikes (four SuperTeneres) for a trip to Tunisia. This time it was Maurice, Joseph, Lawrence and myself. We decided to
have a lot of fun during our 10 days of much biking. It didn’t disappoint us; it was a 10-day vacation we enjoyed so much. When the time for the expedition to South America arrived we were ready. Write me!

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