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This can’t be happening. I can’t be bent over on an MV Agusta F4 312R, head behind the windscreen, knees gripping the tank for all they’re worth, toes on the rearsets and eyes widening in simultaneous wonder and fright as the digital speedo rips through numbers as if it were a stopwatch.
I can’t be on a dead straight stretch of Italian autostrada just outside Varese, near the Italian Alps, following a rider from the MV factory as he blasts down the road (mostly on one wheel) on a Brutale, at a speed that would probably mean instant deportation were the polizia to catch me. I can’t possibly be overtaking the occasional car as if it was standing still, nor can a blurring tunnel be forming on either side of me.
It’s absolutely inconceivable that I’m experiencing brick-wall deceleration by simply touching the front brake lever, when I look up from the speedo and realise that if I don’t slow down I’ll teleport myself into Switzerland. None of this can actually be taking place; it’s obvious that I’m in the middle of a dream and will shortly be rudely awakened. I’ll shake my head, stumble to the bathroom, splash cold water on my face and see nothing but my own mug in the mirror; no howling flashes of red and silver, no mountain roads, nothing.
But of course it did happen, and my arm is almost blue from pinching myself. In one of those circumstances where various wheels all move together in exactly the right way, I snagged a ride on the F4 in Italy, for which no small thanks are due to Joshua and his previous dealings with MV Agusta. This involved a train ride from Bologna to Milan and then another car ride to Varese, where the MVs are made, but the nice people from MV picked me up from Milan; in any case, I would have crawled all the way to Varese on my belly if necessary. The car ride only served to build up the anticipation, which I attempted to dissipate with conversations in broken, nay, shattered Italian with Alessandro, the driver. By the time I got to Varese, a lovely little town, the tension was almost unbearable; I was champing at the bit. ‘You are happy?’ asked Alessandro. ‘More than you can ever imagine, my friend’, I replied. ‘See, there is bike. Now you more happy!’ I looked where he was pointing and caught my breath – standing there, glowing in the soft afternoon light, was the F4, leaned over nonchalantly next to a Brutale, as if it were sharing a convivial cigarette with an old friend. My first instinct was leap out of the car, race off on the bike and never come back, but the small matter of an interview with Claudio Castiglioni, chief of MV Agusta, sobered me down (the interview follows this story).
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