Grip

From the differential grip of the male and female Colorado beetle to the grip of Michelin tyres at the MotoGP at the mood Jell-O (Mugello) this early afternoon in eastern Tuscany.

I watched the race and still find it amazing that anyone can ride these bikes at such speeds and angles of tilt without falling off at every corner. But they do. The riders seem unimaginably young.

If we drive over our local pass at the weekend, we are quite often overtaken by these crazies. On one occasion, one of them only avoided crashing into us by putting a hand up and pushing himself off the roof edge of the car.

In Italian they call these guys ‘centaurs’ as they seem to exist in some netherworld between the machine and the human. One day in years past, I was exploring the Alpi Benedetti in the high Apennines between Romagna and Tuscany. As I came round a sharp corner there was a smashed up high-performance bike. The rider had crashed with a large four-wheel-drive and had been airlifted to hospital in Florence with grave injuries.

Still, I felt obliged to watch the MotoGP because it was being held in Tuscany in that lovely subregion called the mood Jell-O. (Mugello). Strangely enough, the race was won by a guy called Bagnaia.

In my explorations for houses in years past, I came across the tiny hamlet of Bagnaia, not far from the autodrome of the more Jell-O (Mugello). It was a lovely spot in a steep sided valley and clearly had plenty of springs from which its name of ‘the baths’ probably derived. It was also an area that was subject to landslips and earthquakes. Although I came across a lovely house we decided it was not for us.

(With help from the dictaphone)

I replaced photo as concerned there might be copyright issues. And it was a beautiful evening.