Bologna and Ducati factory visit - Ducati.ms

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 4:26 pm

About 3 weeks ago wifey and I visited the factory in Bologna. First I have to say that Bologna without the Ducati factory is worth a visit. It's an interesting place and has some great architecture and lots of nice cafes etc.

We arrived at the Ducati factory in the morning and had a nice French guide (yes, French). The walk through was good value and highly recommended; even wifey enjoyed it and, for the young uns out there, Ducati have some very attractive young women building Ducati motorbikes!

After we left Bologna we headed for Florence (Fiorenza). Florence is OK but not as fabulous as you'd think. Once you've seen 50 churches and cathedrals in Europe you're pretty much over it.

However, we drove to Florence across the Tuscan mountains, past the turn off to Monza and really enjoyed the road. It a great riding road if you ever go to Italy and was being used that day by dozens of riders all trying real hard to scrape their pegs. One of the shots I'll put up is the cafe at the top where bikes and cycles gather. the road itself is barely used by cars or trucks now that there is a motorway through the mountains. I shot a couple of short videos too.

Of note is how few road bikes we saw in Italy compared to N Zealand. Most bikes were scooters and even in Bologna there were relatively few although there we more real bikes around.

(images to follow soon)

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 4:35 pm

I had a Cucciolo briefly in a BSA frame dated 1948 in original condition. I actually bought it for a friend. Also had other tiddlers and the Ducati Mountaineer 100 was fun with it's 100cc 2 stroke air cooled (Fan cooled) motor.

The drawings here are photos of Ing Fabio Taglioni's original drawings hanging in cases.

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 4:38 pm

The museum is not really big and it needs a bit more breadth to its coverage. Probably half the bikes are new or relatively new. I understand that's hard as many of the better machines are in private collections.
It was good to see Mike Hailwoods bike and also Paul Smarts bike in there along with the Foggy and Troy Bayliss bikes etc

The little multi cam motor here (after Hailwoods bike) is a 350 triple. Very interesting thing.

The first motor is the failed Apollo; a pity that didn't work back then because of dodgy old tyres.

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 6:45 pm

This is the cafe at the top of the Tuscan mountains. They have a signed photo of Vale on the wall and they sell Tee shirts and polos for bikers visiting the cafe. The street sign outside is covered with mainly motorcycle club stickers from all over the world.

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 7:01 pm

I'll have that one thanks............
which one?

well, any of them actually

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 7:02 pm

what about these?

well OK, any one of them too

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 7:08 pm

mmmmm, Supermono; one of the sexiest motorbikes ever built...................and a cut away engine too!

oh yeah, they had a couple of cutaway 8 valves too....yawn

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 7:09 pm

I know they're fast and handle great but fully faired bikes don't get me too excited nowdays

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 7:12 pm

I'd love a Ducati camera but the last one I saw on eBay was going for around $4k!

Nice pics on the side of the factory and here's a shot of The Leaning Tower of Bologna. Yes, it's does lean but not quite as much as this wide angle shot mighht suggest.

idleidolidyll · Sep 28th, 2011, 7:28 pm

By the way, it's true: Italian drivers are bloody crazy!

In the cities lanes are often not marked and there's a race to get to the front of the queue at the traffic lights.
Italians seem to be very poor judges of the width of their own cars as they wander across the centre line on damn near every corner.
On the motorways, they cut corners regardless of speed or whether the is a car already in the space beside them.

Damn lucky for them there are bugger all police to be seen or to see their shocking driving.

As for motorbikes, we stopped on that road in Tuscany and watched a good 20 plus bikes go around the corners. Most were poseurs in pretty leather suits (it seems you must have all new brightly colored clothing to ride a sport bike in Italy; fashion victims they certainly are!), however while watching them stick their knees out around the corners, it was obvious that most that day were at best average riders. Most were hilarious to watch and could probably have gone faster if they tried LESS hard to LOOK like they were going fast.

That said, I'd like to go back and do a ride around the country. The area up around Lake Como was awesome and so was that highway 65 from Bologna to Florence.