This is a tale of two cylinders and two wheels that began long ago—a story of a protracted courtship that, as soon as economic circumstances allowed, transformed into a visceral, instinctive passion. Her name was Imola, a Moto Guzzi purchased second-hand with the modest funds accumulated from sporadic student jobs. It’s also a narrative of falls because, as any motorcyclist knows, it’s through falling that you learn to rise again; it’s by falling that you learn not to fall anymore. However, there are falls from which you don’t recover, and the motorcycle, like many other things, turns into a memory that gradually fades away. What you may not know is that what you considered an irreparable loss still lurks somewhere, patiently waiting. And it’s patient—patient and relentless, like all stories intertwined with myth, sharing a common destiny of rebirth.
What you come to understand over time is that you must relearn the simplest tasks, not as before but in a different way. That day, when you fell and lost the use of your left arm, even a mundane act like tying your shoelaces becomes a virtuoso exercise. One could choose to have someone else tie their shoes or resign themselves to a life of loafers, but the crux lies in this choice. Falling so drastically imparts another lesson: you can decide whether to stay on the ground or to damn your soul to find an alternative way to stand back up. One step at a time, one goal at a time. You fix it in your sights and start circling until you discover its weakness—the different, never-before-attempted solution that will show you how to hit the target. I said how, not if. The variable of time ceases to exist; there’s only the fierce determination to win, to finally get there.
You arrive even, or perhaps especially, with inevitable defeats that, like falls, teach you not to lose anymore—to seek a different alternative. Today, another target is in sight, unthinkable until recently, but that’s the beauty of goals: they show up when you’re ready or when they decide the time has come. Like all mythical stories, this one returns to the starting point, to the precise moment when everything changed. So, today marks the beginning of another story, always with two cylinders and always on two wheels, and once again, it involves a Guzzi. Today is the moment to get back in the saddle.
