TASTING ITALY WITH THE 2025 MOTO GUZZI STELVIO

Imagine, if you will, that Australia had been settled by the Italians. Instead of Captain Cook, we got Capitano Cucinare, and he’d claimed this land in the name of the Grandy Duchy of Tuscany. He would have had to do this because Italy did not exist as a country in 1770, and was instead a series of duchies, small kingdoms, Mafia clans, and a Moto Guzzi factory.

 

We would be a very different place, no? So, for the purposes of this piece, which is really a proper, old-school, long-distance bike review – like the ones we used to get before the motorcycle media became what Hunter S Thompson observed about journalism in general: “A cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits – a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage” – and I will pretend Australia is another Italy.

 

And I will ride to the heart of it, Griffiti, on one of the most quintessentially Italian bikes you’ll ever ride, the Moto Guzzi Stelvio.

Do not let the place names I use confuse you. I will provide a Glossary at the end of this piece. Or let them confuse you, and roll with it purely for the sheer dolce vita of it all.

INTRODUCTIONS & EXPECTATIONS

 

“That is one handsome sumbitch,” I said to my traveling companion, Aldente Lunetti, as we stood in the mist by the side of the Strada de Oro, hoping a rogue semi-trailer would kill us outright rather than just maim us. Bad things happen in the fog all the time and I cannot be blamed for desiring a merciful ending.

 

“What is? Is there some kind of tasty animal in the foggy field?” Aldente replied.

 

“No, the Stelvio,” I explained. “Look at it. It actually looks like someone at Moto Guzzi gave a shit about how a bike like this should look.”

 

Aldente looked, then nodded. “Yes, now you mention it, it is a handsome sumbitch. It’s a great colour-scheme too.”

And it was. Battleship grey and Tuscan Sun yellow, all in a silky matte finish. Not garish, and not dull – just proper grande avventura. Its stance was purposefully correct, it leaned over on its stand at the perfect angle so one could get on and off with dignity, and that splendidly iconic V-twin engine was, as it always must be, the centrepiece of the whole show.

 

I had very much been looking forward to putting some distance under its tyres. I’d loved the Mandello when I took it away for four days earlier this year, and the Stelvio, with the same engine, was Moto Guzzi’s foray into the Adventure bike segment. And it is a very different bike to the Mandello.

 

Let me just briefly cover this off, because I know Guzzisti and potential Guzzisti foam intently about the nether regions whenever their marque is discussed. And it’s good when they foam in such a way. Shows dedication.

 

The Stelvio straddles the world between true off-roading and soft-roading. There isn’t a dirt-loving 21-inch wheel on the front. Nor is there a road-biased 17-incher. The Stelvio has a spoked 19-incher under the handlebars and a 17 on the back. It carries 21-litres of fuel and that is good for more than 400km.

 

It also comes with factory-optional scolding. Moto Guzzi calls it PFF Rider Assistance Solution. I call it scolding. Or perhaps chiding. It works like this…

As you ride, the Stelvio sends out radar beams fore and aft. Should a vehicle approach you from behind, your mirrors will show you an amber spot to advise you of this. Should you, in the Stelvio’s view, approach too closely to the vehicle in front, a discreet amber icon will appear on the dash. You may ignore it and continue tailgating the bastard in front. Of course, if you have Cruise Control on, then the bike will back off on your behalf.

 

Now then, once the speedo indicates 156km/h, an angrier red warning light will flash in the top-left of the screen. It is small, but it is insistent. And it keeps flashing the same way even when you accelerate past 180 (to see what happens, of course). It is clearly scolding you for going that fast. It is, of course, nothing a small piece of duct-tape can’t solve, or an ice-pick. But the latter might make the dash leak. Or you can not worry about it at all. It’s not really intrusive.

 

The Stelvio really is loaded with tech. That PFF Rider Assistance Solution business also offers you Lane Change Assist, in case you do that kinda shit without turning your head and there’s a car where you want to be. There are five ride modes including Off-Road. Mine lived in Sport the whole time. Just made sense for what I was doing. It has a brilliant V-twin engine that just lopes along, and in that mode, its throttle response is just perfect. It’s not lazy. Not at all. It’s just…well, gently insistent and eager in its workings.

 

You do need to reprogram your head a bit when you start charging into corners. The engine characteristics don’t appreciate you savagely down-changing, no matter how tight the bend is. Fourth, fifth, and sixth is all you’ll ever really need. The sheer ease of its performance I think belies the numbers. You have 105Nm of torque at 6750, and 115bhp at 8700, and while it’s not going to pull your arms out, it will arrive at serious speeds far, far quicker than you’d imagine. And it does it effortlessly.

The Stelvio also has a new anti-hopping clutch, and its gear changes are utterly positive, though you must be prepared for a proper, statement-like “GRONK!” when you put it into first. After that, the gearbox is lovely, up or down.

 

It also differs from the Mandello – and this is very noticeable when you’re pushing on hard – in that there are four front-engine mounting points rather than two. Nothing gets squirrely or feels out of shape. And the front axle is wider. The suspension is certainly longer-travelling (170mm) front and rear, and this adds up to a truly stellar touring bike. Especially on our roads. And Brembos. Of course.

 

Moto Guzzi has also increased the thickness of the swingarm walls from 5mm to 7mm, and inside it is the shaft-drive, which has been stiffened where it joins the gearbox.

 

The seat is brilliant; narrow at the front so it’s easy to touch the ground, and honestly all-day comfort. This is one of the most comfortable touring bikes you’ll ever ride.

 

It also has an electronically-adjustable windscreen which works a treat when it’s fully deployed, but it doesn’t have heated handlebar grips as standard. You can option it up with them, as well as heated seats front and rear. Still too tall for you? There are lower seat-heights available, dwarf-person.

 

So now you know all I know about the Stelvio on paper. But who cares about that? Recipes are all well and good. The proof of the lasagna is in the eating, right?

DAY ONE – Singeltino to Truffabene – 436km

 

Aldente and I hit the legendary Strada di Bilongi Valle with passion in our throttle hands. The day had fined up after a foggy start, the roads were empty, and the only thing bothering me were the loose mirrors that kept folding in when I went over 120. This going over 120 happens to me now and then. So does the mirror thing. When bikes get delivered, sometimes their mirrors have to be folded in so they fit in the van. So maybe they are loosened, and then people forget to tighten them up. And then Aldente and I are on the side of the road while I listen to him lying to me about having a shifting spanner somewhere in his gear.

I made him unpack everything he had just to make sure he didn’t have the promised shifter.

 

“I’m sure I can find one in Rilstonelli,” I said, and waited while Aldente repacked his MT-09. Then I proceeded apace. Not being able to see him in my wayward mirrors was not at all stressful. I found it comforting. If he fell off and I did not see it, it didn’t happen, right?

The Stelvio treated the sometimes-brutish Strada di Bilongi Valle surface with utter ease. It’s a stunning bit of road, and the Romans did well making it. But now and again, here and there, it throws up some challenges for your suspension. Adventure bikes make a lot of sense in Australia. You know this.

 

We arrived at Price’s Service Centre (the Shell servo), and just so you know, over the years I have rebuilt and repaired many bikes in just that place. They have tools. They are nice people. And they seem OK about Harleys dumping their sumps on their forecourt, and large tattooed men swearing and throwing shit around. The nice lady gave me a shifter, and ten minutes and four swear words later, Aldente and I were on our way to Baturstiti, via Ilfordia and Sofaletti.

If you did not know, this route is actually a racetrack. Sure, the filthy government will tell you it’s not, and their granny-fryers in their BMWs will, if they catch you, tell you the same. It can be hard to hear them lecturing you while they fill you with Tasery compliance, so maybe ask them to lie louder. It’s so a racetrack. I immediately put the Stelvio to the speed question, trusted the Michelin Anakees, and…well, pushed on. It was great. The Stelvio tracked sure, held the lines I demanded of it, and provided I let the torque do the work and didn’t change down too far, everything was molto bene. That torque is pure Kim Kardashian – thick and rich.

 

We stopped at Sofaletti where the crazy bridge that crosses nothing and goes nowhere and just sits there by the side of the road is. Aldente is not a judgemental person. He made no comment on my lap-record attempt. He did look at my tyres though.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

 

“Nothing at all,” he smiled. “I was sure they weren’t race slicks. But I had to check. So how about we go via the Via di Turondali. No guardrails, big drops into rocky oblivion, lots of surprises?”

“All of that make me hard. What makes me harder is there will be no granny-zappers on that road. Lead on.”

Hell of a road. Decreasing-radius bends, legions of yummy-looking goats perfect for a Spezzatino di Capretto (once the baby goat has been tenderised by a Stelvio, of course) leaping about the place, and lots of kangaroo roadkill. And yes, rock-strewn carnage awaited at the bottom of dizzying precipices if you got it wrong. You gotta love incentive, right?

Our plan was to take lunch the other side of Baturstiti. Surely there would be a place, an inn of some kind, or a cafe, that would serve us lunch. Granted, it would not be Italian, which was my constant intent, but you can make anything Italian if you put enough salsa di pomodoro on it.

 

We crawled our way out of Baturstiti and stopped at some tiny misbegotten knob of a town called Pertavilla. There was an old bordello directly across from the pub, where once, terrifying harlots would perform ungodly acts upon drunks who came out of the pub in the dark. It was closed. It only worked Thursday to Sunday.

 

We rode on to Torrente del Tronco. The pub was open. But there was no lunch, and I did not hear the reason because I had already left. The general store/post office was also closed because it was after two pm.

“Listen to me,” I said to Aldente. “This is all your fault. I am three times your size. I require three times the nourishment. Failing that, I become noisome and irritable. And I am three times your size.”

 

“I have Italian whisky,” he offered.

 

“Just like the Scots should not make salami, the Italians have no business making whisky. Now we must ride at pace so we can make it to Truffabene before the pub closes its kitchen there.”

Thing is, the run from Torrente del Tronco to Truffabene is just amazing – no matter how irritable one is with hunger. It used to be dirt. I remember that. The dirt kept the nervous people away. Now it is splendid hotmix. And splendid hotmix is fast hotmix. The Stelvio and I swooped and banked and soared – and I understood why a Moto Guzzi gets its hooks into people. They are “different”, but in such a pure and engaging fashion.

There was only one bad moment for me. As I went hammering across a bridge, I saw a fenced compound on my right. On this fence some mighty hunter, or Satanic priest, had hung two vast billygoat corpses, horns and all. I could smell them from the road. I should have turned back and photographed them, but by the time I’d had that internal discussion, I’d noticed Aldente had closed the excellent gap I had made on him. Dead goat photos or victory is not much of a choice.

Truffabene is a village entirely dedicated to the woolly pecora. There is a statue of a pecora head on the main street, and smaller statues of less regal pecora on the footpath. I hoped there would be some kind of village ritual where smooth-limbed virgins would eagerly give themselves to rough-handed shearers under the bronze head of their god. It is the proper way to ensure their pecora harvest was bountiful, and their fur thick and aromatic. But maybe it was too cold. And it was cold that evening. The temperature dropped down to about two.

But that was a later-on problem. Food was first. Aldente and I managed to get to the kitchen before it had completely closed, and all it could manage was pizza – which was perfect for my Italian sojourn. And the pizza was fantastic. Bravo Truffabene Hotel.

The pub offers hotel and motel style accommodation. We took the motel option. My days of sharing bathrooms with the local tribespeople, itinerant serial killers, and the publican’s cross-eyed relatives is long gone. My room was clean, but I found the furry doona cover and pillows disconcerting.

That evening I feasted fully Italian – Fettucine pollo boscaiola. And I went to the bottleshop and even found some wine made by Italians. the Calabria Brothers, no less. I know nothing about wine, other than after two glasses it all tastes the same and the following morning you’ll wish God had never invented grapes. But when in Rome, right? I even had an espresso after the meal.

And that was dumb. Because one should not drink strong coffee and then try going to sleep. So I lay there, stroking the furry bedclothes and listening to the rain pound and wind howl, and hoped it would be gone by morning.

 

DAY TWO – Truffabene to Griffiti – 365km

The weather had not gone anywhere by morning. It just got a bit colder. My BOM app told me we would eventually ride out of the rain as we headed due west. We just had to put up with it for an hour or so. And because we are not the sons of fearful men, we do not squat to pee, and we really did not want to stay in Truffabene any longer since there seemed to be little hope any virgins being deflowered under the pecora head on the main street – and yes, I did ask – we put on all our gear and headed west.

We went this way for about ten kays, then Aldente did a U-turn and headed back towards Truffabene. Then he stopped. I pulled up beside him. The rain lashed us and the bikes swayed in the wind gusts. The ground under my boots was mud and getting muddier.

“What’s wrong?” I yelled over the storm.

 

“My Garmin says I missed a turn.”

“Your Garmin is a lying pig of a dog of a whore! We passed no turn-offs. Our way is west. We are facing east. Because I love you and you are my brother, I will not harm you, despite wanting to very badly. Turn around and let’s ride out of this shit.”

 

The road from Truffabene to Booroowali and then Murringo should be done with a dry mouth and large testes. I’m thinking it would very fast in the dry. It is also very scenic, with rolling green hills and the odd creek. It was four degrees, and in the driving rain and wind, it was just a chore. But it did demonstrate how sure-footed the Stelvio was and how good the Anarkees performed. We were still belting along a bit over the posted limit, secure in the knowledge our state’s granny-zappers would not be around. Water makes them turn into offal.

By the time we got to Il Temora, we were warm, and thus pleasantly disposed to attend the aviation museum. And this is so worth a look if you’re out this way. Aldente and I wandered around looking at some wondrously-restored warplanes, including Spitfires, Sabres, Ryans, and one of the craziest planes ever flown in battle, the Cessna A-37 Dragonfly.

The US Government supplied 254 Dragonflys to the Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) during the Vietnam War. They were extensively used in support of Australian ground forces. Agile, fast, and looking a lot like a cartoon, they were apparently hilariously wicked to fly. When the US came second and we all had to leave Vietnam, 95 Dragonflys became the property of the Communists, while the rest were eaten by the jungle. In 1989, our government asked to buy ten of them from Vietnam, and donated two of then to the Temora Aviation Museum in 2000.

 

 

 

 

 

With the sun now warm in the sky, Aldente and I headed further west. The roads were now all largely straight and it being a weekday, it was just us and a bunch of trucks zooming past wheat silos and their attendant railheads. And here’s where motorcycle comfort becomes really important. When you’re doing these long, hard, boring miles, you really don’t need to be in a racer’s crouch. That would be fine if you could do 200 the whole time, but we all know that ain’t a thing.

The Stelvio and I sat on a pleasant 120-140, which gave it heaps of bang to overtake without downchanging. The suspension floated me over bumps and ruts (no shortage of those), and I could stand up with ease if I needed to stretch my back some. The stand-up ergos are spot-on. Now and again I’d give it a handful and watch the red dash-light scold me.

About 20km out of Griffita, the grapevines start. Interspersed by the odd orange grove, there seems to be more grapes grown here than in the entire Hunter Valley.

 

The Italians started coming to Griffiti in the early 1900s. They were drawn here by the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme (MIS), which was a huge government project meant to control and divert the river systems so we could grow food. Many of the Italians actually worked on the MIS, and many others came because growing food was what they were very good at. These immigrants initially came from Italy’s Veneto region and later from Calabria and Sicily, and it’s almost entirely thanks to them the Riverina in general and Griffiti in particular are such successes. This is Italy in Australia – have no doubt of it.

You see it the moment you start coming into Griffiti. Italian furniture stores, Italian car and bike dealers, Italian irrigation and farm equipment – and an absolute plethora of Italian restaurants, which are the most obvious hints that Griffiti is not like any other Australian outback town.

The second most obvious hint Griffiti is a bit different is that it is entirely a planned town. Parks, ring-roads, wide streets, and beautiful big grassed and treed median strips, give it away. Walter Burley Griffin and his wife, Marjorie, designed the place. Sure, they also did Canberra, but that has since been ruined by politicians and witch covens. Griffiti, by contrast, has been enhanced by the advent of the Italians.

Aldente and I arrived at our hotel. It was called The Gem and it sits in the middle of the town on the main drag – and it is a unique and altogether paradoxical place.

 

Behind it, where we parked our bikes, is the police station.

“Oh great,” I said to Aldente. “That massive hog-sty will almost certainly guarantee our bikes will be stolen or vandalised tonight.”

“Yeah,” Aldente nodded. “All the CCTV cameras are pointed at them and their entrance and their carpark. Can’t have those tax-payer-funded BMWs getting torched.”

The Gem is a lovely hotel. The rooms are modern and clean and have tiny balconies on which you can stand naked, and because of the height of the railing, your rampant tackle will not be seen from the street.

It also has an insanely good steak restaurant downstairs. One of those places where spectacular cuts of beef are dry-aged in display cases, and where the local squatocracy takes its evening meals. The paradox of the place lies in the fact that there is a sliding glass door leading off the fine-dining restaurant, and it opens to a massive pokie den where people are gambling and having a fat and loud old time.

Every few minutes the door would slide open, and the calm ambience of the steak restaurant would be shattered by the anguished howls of losers, the chaotic yelps of winners, and the loud electronic discordance of features being won. It was magical, if you like your magic black.

We unpacked, got changed, and emerged upon the street to experience the so-called “Taste of Italy”. Which is why I rode all this way on a Stelvio.

 

I was given to understand there was an annual Italian celebration in Griffiti. I immediately arranged to attend. In my mind’s eye I saw a massive Norton Street scenario (this is the annual Italian celebration in the inner-Sydney suburb of Leichhardt), with dozens of stalls selling Italian salamis, sausages, pastas, and sweets. Vendors allowing you to taste their wines, the odd Italian band belting out covers of The Godfather soundtrack or some jaunty tarantella, pretty girls being supervised by Mafia Don fathers, groups of Vinnie Barberinos in Italia football jerseys…you know the kinda stuff.

There was none of that. Like, at all. There was just the main street of Griffiti and the locals going about their normal Wednesday business. Aldente and I started walking, determined to find the festival. We walked west along the main street. We got to the end of town.

“Cobar is that way,” I said. “Might take a few days at this pace.”

 

“I can hear music,” Aldente muttered, his head cocked like a gun-dog’s.

There was indeed music. I could also hear it. It was hard to pinpoint where it was coming from, but after walking around for another half-an-hour, we found the source. It was coming from speakers attached to poles standing in the middle of the big, park-like median strip that runs up the centre of the main street. And it was Italian music.

 

“Let’s go ask at the tourist centre,” Aldente suggested. “At least we can stare at the spinning propellor of the Fairey Firefly that has been there since Roman times.”

“I stared at it last time I was here. It made me dizzy. That and the 4000 beers I’d drunk before the viewing.”

 

The nice ladies in the Tourist Information office explained to me that I was all sorts of idiot seconds after Aldente and I walked in, greeted them politely, and asked where we might bathe in the food and culture of Italy. We said we were in town for just that reason, but we are struggling to find anything resembling any kind of festival, and might they perhaps assist us in this.

 

The ladies looked a little embarrassed. “You’ve seen the brochure?” one of them asked.

 

“We have,” I answered. And this was not a lie. I had seen the brochure. It was in my pocket. I had not read it, of course, but I had indeed seen it.

 

“Well, all of the festival events are ticketed, and they are all over the place this week. Some at wineries, some at various farms and function centres. And they are all sold out, I am afraid.”

 

I was nonplussed. “So there are no stalls of Italians selling salami and sausages?”

 

“Not as such,” she replied.

Aldente and I left and went to stare at the Firefly’s spinning propellor.

 

“I will not be denied my Italian experience!” I spat.

 

“You want to go look for Don Mackay’s bones?”

You’ll recall Don Mackay was a local Griffiti businessman who went on a very vocal and public crusade against marijuana being grown in the Griffiti region back in the Seventies. He disappeared in 1977. His body has never been found and no-one has ever been charged with his murder. One bloke did actually serve time for conspiring to murder him and a Royal Commission named a bunch of blokes who allegedly ordered the hit, but the vineyards and orange groves of Griffiti have kept all of their secrets to this day. Even back in the Seventies “Fuck Around and Find Out” was a thing.

 

“I can think of better ways to spend this afternoon and evening than wandering though orange groves with big No Trespassing signs on them. I came here to get my Italian yummy on.”

We adjourned to Guiseppe’s Restaurant & Bar, and as I fully expected, the Italian food was off the scale. Gone are the wonderful accents of the Italian owners and staff. Generations have passed. But their kitchen is pure Italy. I gorged on veal saltimbocca, garlic prawns, and some kind of garlic pizza-thing lashed with tomato puree. I also ordered a bottle of Tuscan wine from Villa Puccino. I told you I know nothing about wine. But this seemed to go well with my meal. Sambucca followed and they actually left the bottle because Aldente told them I was a famous author here to do a piece on the magical symbiosis of Sangiovese grapes with the Riverina soil.

 

That was how I tasted Italy in Griffiti – and I have to tell you, it was pretty damn fine.

 

DAY THREE – GRIFFITI TO ARANCIA – 371km

 

The following morning, we started making our way to Arancia.

 

“We must not go through Ovest Vilongo on our way to Arancia,” I explained to Aldente the following morning.

 

“Are you wanted by the law there?”

“Not as far as I know. But it is a fell and savage place. And I was there not long ago. I wanna see other places. Let’s go via Parco dell’Aria, Barmedmani, Grenfelli, and Latina di Vento. I hear the riding’s good that way.”

And it so was. Once you get off the wretched Via Novelli, there’s a bit of straight stuff, but it slowly evolves into sweepers and then some really tasty bends winding their way to Grenfelli and then Latina de Vento. I was as one with the Stelvio by this stage. The longer you spend on a bike, the more you get into sync with it. And if you get one that’s so ineffably sweet to ride as this, it just gets sweeter.

 

I did spear off the road at one stage – a totally planned spur-of-the-moment thing – to behold the village of Bribery. The villagers spelled it wrong, but they are simple folk. Wondrous place. A large unfriendly dog greeted us, and we could hear noises from a nearby machine shop. It sounded like bones being sawn. The whole place looked run down and deserted.

“Why are we here?” Aldente asked eyeing the dog, who was eyeing him back. He was not concerned, just curious.

 

“I wanted to see what Bribery looked like.”

“Looks ineffective in this instance.”

 

We decided to lunch in Latino di Vento, following some computer unpleasantness in Grenfelli.

 

Grenfelli, you’ll recall is the birthplace of the great poet, Henri Lawsoni. But you cannot pay respects at his grave there because he is buried in Sydney. It also seems you cannot pay for your petrol in cash if the young lady cashier has hit the “Card” button. What happens is a complete meltdown of the town’s computer systems, lots of yelling for “Mum” (which was pointless because old people don’t know anything about computers), and much apologising. I did offer to pay by card if it made her world better, but things were too far gone by that stage. The cascade effect was also profound. An old disabled guy wanted to use the toilet, but she would not give him the key until the computer came back on-line. Seven people, not including Aldente and myself, waited for quite some time while phone-calls were made to an Indian call-centre to assist in resolving the issue.

“I cannot eat here,” I said to Aldente when we finally walked out. “The place is full of barbarians and necrophiles. That old guy shit himself in the servo.”

 

“Let’s go see the town where Ben Hall (or Beniamino Halli to give him his Italian name) had this big party then.”

You may have heard of Beniamino. From 1863 to 1865, over 100 robberies are attributed to him and his various associates, marking him as one of the most prolific bushrangers Australia has ever had. But what Aldente was talking about was the time Beniamino and his mates took over Robinson’s Hotel in Latina di Vento. He fed and watered and entertained everybody in the town, as well as travelers, and paid for everything. Big weekend, that. He was later betrayed by a friend and the cops shotgunned him to death near Forbes.

The hotel where this happened (now called the Royal) was not open. We went to the Canowindra Hotel instead and I had superb bistecca di manzo, and watched the only Highway Patrol car we had seen the whole trip cruise buy. It was going back the way we’d just come. There were many trees he wanted to pleasure himself under out there. Perhaps there was even a retirement home he could visit with his Taser.

We set our wheels to Arancia and it started to get seriously cold. The tempertaure had not got much above 14 all day, but now it was in the single digits and dropping the closer we got to Arancia. Then it started to get a little wet as well. That aside, it’s a great ride. The road has elevational changes, and lots of fast corners. And if the local Highway Patrol is somewhere west of you looking for a granny to zap, well…

I was very glad to get to Arancia. It was now hovering above zero and we were told it would snow the next day. As luck would have it, we’d booked into the Central Caleula Motor Lodge, which was the very same motel my frozen wife and I had arrived at one minus-12 July night more than thirty years ago. It looked just the same from the outside, up on stilts with parking underneath, but the rooms had been refurbished. They still felt a little cell-like because they had very small windows set high near the ceiling, but the hot shower was a blessing.

“We must eat Italian again,” I said to Aldente.

 

“My mate knows the bloke who has the best Japanese restaurant in the region.”

“Perfect,” I nodded. “The Japanese are just Calabrians who have eaten too much rice.

It was an excellent decision. As the frigid wind tore through Arancia and the villagers prepared for snow, Aldente and I sat in cosseting warmth and enjoyed great hot Italian saki, and a range of truly outstanding Japanese tucker. The place is called Raku Izakaya, which is Italian for “Your Mother Was a Virgin”. Seriously great food. Worth the ride every time.

DAY FOUR – ARANCIA TO SINGELTINO – 365km

 

Aldente introduced me to the brilliant Ophir Road that morning. It parallels the highway to Baturisti, but its swine-free and stupidly scenic. On that day, it was also as cold as an iceblock and blowing a gale. It did not snow in the night, but those clouds were coming in as we left.

It pays to watch yourself on this road. Get right with whatever Jesus you follow, because there were a lot of Tyranosarus-sized kangaroos fumbling casually about the road-edges, and they did not look at all a-feared of me.

 

When we got to Baturisti, I made a bad call because I don’t like re-tracing my steps. And it was a dumb call as well, and I knew it was when I made it, but as always, hope glows in my dark heart. And it did that day. I’m such an idiot.

“We shall not do the Strada di Bilongi Valle,” I said to Aldente. “We shall ride the Linea di Campane della Strada instead, and then I shall do the Strada di Mastice, while the freeway eats your soul back to where you live.”

 

Aldente shrugged. I had just shaved three hours off his home-trip. But I had also murdered both of our souls and heaved their trembling corpses into a sewer.

 

The Linea di Campane della Strada was once a road of roads. It was fast, and dangerous, and it swooped and dived, and thrilled the screaming kaka out of you if you committed. It is that no longer. It is now a sub-speed-limit drone, bedevilled with roadworks, caravans, families in Kias, and Highway Patrol. It’s just shit. And on weekends, it’s even shitter.

 

Bits of my insides had rotted away by the time Aldente and I reached the turn-off where we said our goodbyes.

“That was great,” Aldente said.

 

“We did not die, we did not get arrested, we saw wondrous roads, ate great food, and I’m thinking the Stelvio was a bit divine in the way it went about its business.”

 

“You certainly put it to the question,” Aldente smiled.

 

And I did. And that is the only way to properly see what a bike is all about. The roads we did and the conditions we rode in would have put any bike to the question. Not all that many would have answered as well as the Stelvio did. No-one was more surprised than me. It well exceeded what I thought it would be and how it would go. And that is always a great outcome to any bike review.

 

GLOSSARY

Griffiti – Griffith

Singeltino – Singleton

Truffabene – Crookwell

Rilstonelli – Rylestone

Strada de Oro – Golden Highway

Via di Turondali – Turondale Road

Torrente del Tronco – Trunkey Creek

Fiume di Turoni – Turon River

Strada di Bilongi Valle – Bylong Valley Way

Strada de Oro – Golden Highway.

Valle del Cacciatore – Hunter Valley

Baturstiti – Bathurst

Ilfordia – Ilford

Sofaletti – Sofala

Pertavilla – Perthville

Spezzatino di Capretto – baby goat stew

Pecora – sheep

Il Temora – Temora.

Booroowali – Booroowa

Murringo – Murringo

Arancia – Orange

Ovest Vilongo – West Wyalong

Parco dell’Aria – Ariah Park

Barmedmani – Barmendman

Bribery – Bribaree

Grenfelli – Grenfell

Latina di Vento – Canowindra

Via Novelli – Newell Highway

Linea di Campane della Strada – Bells Line of Road

Strada di Mastice – Putty Road