One Day in Milan pt1.

2.40am: Last Thursday morning leaving home for Luton Airport.4.20am: Parked up at Luton airport. My loaner Triumph's twin brother was there. It turned out to be Mark's from the Ace Cafe.
6.40am: cheap flights are early flights.
9.20am: bus straight from the airport to EICMA, the biggest and most important (to the industry), bike show in the world.
10:20am. Everything I shot at EICMA will be on another post (at some point).
20.50: That night, Riders magazine and our friends at Officine Mermaid had organised a huge party, open to anyone who wanted to visit. The street was full of championship winning Yamaha GP bikes. Rossi's was on the counter in Mermaid.
20.55. Zaeta x Sideburn
20.57: Jeff Decker turned up.
21.01: Officine Mermaid's glass floor. Two Deus bikes parked below.
21.07: Two doors down from Mermaid, a new shop is opening selling tasty old bikes and related stuff. The idea is to turn the street into a bike street.
21.15: The party was in a two storey building on Mermaid's street, Via Genova Thaon di Revel. Italians like to smoke so the courtyard was packed, but the upstairs wasn't.
21.16 (and 21.31, 21. 52. 22.07, etc) Bacardi were handing out free bottles of Mojito and Cuba Libre all night. It didn't run out.
22:00: Mr and Mrs Belli
22:08: Riders is a very classy motorcycle/lifestyle magazine. They'd put art up on the bare walls and set up a photo booth to photograph anyone who turned up. They'll print the photos later. Carlos Checa and Giacomo Agostini both attended.
22:11: Bike crowd, no hassle.
Loads of interesting bikes. Mutant BMW.Old Hinckley triple. I think this is an ex-Carlo Talamo bike.
Mermaid Sportster Street Scrambler.

How often can you get this close to a MotoGP bike? I went back for another look. These are iPhone snaps, not long lens stuff.
Carbon brakes. My beer.
23.20The Anvil Motorcycles crew.

I said there were Yamaha GP bikes in shops up and down the street. Bill Ivy's machine was in the jewellery shop.
Saarinen 350 (I think) in the dry cleaners.
It's a 500 in the restaurant.
KR's OW48 was in the nail bar.
Carlos Lavado's bike was in the cookery school.
Rossi M1 in the furniture shop.
Rainey YZR500 in the children's clothes shop.

I can't even remember whose this was. It had been a long day by this point.

00.12: In Mermaid's workshop. Toto (in hoodie): Guido, the Italian MotoGP presenter (brown leather); Paolo Zaeta (yellow leather).
00.25: Pietro from TPR.
The morning after. A few million euros worth of Yamaha waiting to be collected.