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I love Ducati motorcycles. Have loved them since I first touched one, as a teenager, on the showroom floor of our family business, a motorcycle dealership in southern Wisconsin.

That was in 1964, a long, long time ago.

There could not have been a better family business, from the point of view of a teenage boy: all the latest European bikes at my disposal, without having to buy one!

Yet somehow I never actually rode a Ducati. Assembled and polished and sold them, but never rode one.

I rode (safely, never dropping a bike on the street; I was quite the coward) for twelve years. Then I stopped (see the blog entry “it happened to Hannes; it could happen to me”).

The gifted affliction that is love of motorcycle sport did not leave me; it only went into benign remission.

photo: Joe Bonnello. Joe is one of the world’s most highly regarded photographers of motorcycling sport. His website may be hard to find (he’s been out of action recently), but Googling will get you started. Or contact him at joebphoto@verizon.net.