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La Dolce Vita
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Motogiro d'Italia road rally
Jeff Buchanan
10/01/2005
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Zep Gori/Dreamengine
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Certain
competitors take the Giro very seriously, making a science of the timed event
with arrays of stopwatches and clocks. At the hotels each night, they pore over
the results to see who has gained time—and who has lost. They compete with hopes
of adding their names to the roll of Motogiro victors—and to win a special
Motogiro Edition Ducati Supersport 900. Runners-up receive trophy cups.
The
experience is everyone’s reward; the Giro, I’m told, has a way of staying with
you. Vicki Smith of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., made history in 2001’s inaugural
rally when she became the Motogiro’s first-ever female competitor. She has
returned each year since, to an event that she says changed her life. Like many
of the participants, Smith’s affinity for the Motogiro is a measure beyond
passion for motorcycles. She credits the Giro as catalyst for an epiphany that
prompted her to rethink her obsessive work ethic and to emulate the relaxed
Italian pace.
It’s easy to allow myself to slip back through the years as I
race through the Italian countryside on a vintage motorcycle. Reminders of
progress less evident, I am lulled into a contemplative, meditative state by the
steady drone of the single-cylinder engine churning away at peak rpm. Riding
becomes intensely personal and introspective. With a 50-year-old 125cc engine
beneath me, tires no wider than my fist, each turn of the throttle, each pull of
the clutch, and each shift of the transmission becomes a well-planned,
anticipated action. It feels like riding a motorcycle for the first time,
again.
The small pack of racers I have joined pass through the next village
in a procession of beautifully maintained, postwar motorcycles. We emerge into
open country, heading steadfast for the next checkpoint. And so it goes, village
after village, checkpoint after checkpoint, bringing echoes of the past to those
who have lined the avenues to cheer us on. These are the magic and nostalgia of
the Motogiro d’Italia.
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