Old Irons 2019 - a report.

Every year, during the last weekend in July, the Campo Imperatore plateau hosts the Old Irons rally with no promotion other than having a fixed date, just like Christmas.

This time I rode the Sportster and had a great time of it all.

I met up with Massimo on Saturday morning and we rode along my new preferred route to get to the Roma-L'Aquila autostrada, or the Tiburtina as an alternative. It makes for a ~70km warm-up that's far more enjoyable than going along the GRA, not to mention it saves a considerable amount of autostrada time/money/tedium.

We took our time and stopped along the way to fill up and get a coffee in the lovely little town of Capranica Prenestina; then we continued towards Vicovaro and cruised along the autostrada until the Torninparte exit. We have now made a habit of stopping at this wooden shack that sells all kinds of local specialties. It's a brief stretch of road from the exit, but you're treated to spectacular high-altitude views.

Uncle Fester and his gang were already enjoying some downtime and we joined right in; the remainder of the way up to the rally was easy and very pleasant, so we reached the gathering sometime in the afternoon - were greeted with an ice-cold beer as per tradition - and went about setting up the tents.

As in the past, the sight of motorcycles (mostly Harley-Davidson) and tents all huddled up in what is an otherwise stark landscape is impressive, and the atmosphere is that of a quintessential biker rally, albeit a very relaxed one (and everyone was on their best behavior).

One of the best things about this event is running into friends you haven't seen in a while (sometimes even from the year before!), all in one place. It creates this sort of "time bubble" where you can exist from year to year, almost like a pause button for everything else, if only for a short while.

This is a tough place to be if you're vegetarian, and pretty much off limits to vegans: it's grilled meat all day!

People enjoy food and drink all day long, and the rickety little shop makes good business; there is a near endless line though, so it pays to be organized as much as possible, to avoid repeat trips to the counter, and it's not a bad idea to bring as much as possible from home, certainly water and something for the following day's breakfast. I've brought a camping stove a couple of years ago but didn't find it all that useful, I think what works best for me is water and sandwiches (and a flask of genziana, of course), then a proper coffee somewhere along the way home.

So the afternoon was a really enjoyable stretch of undefined hours spent hanging out with friends and checking out motorcycles: surely one of the best ways to spend time on this earth.

Above: a very clean interpretation of an '86-'03 Sportster (a.k.a. the best ones). 

Above: variations on a theme, this one very fun and nicely thought out.
Below: the Sturgis Shovelhead; all muscle, no nonsense.

Above: I remember riding this flat track-inspired Sportster some years ago and being surprised by how agile and lithe that handlebar made the bike. Buckets of fun.

Above: a delightful modern chopper with an impressive custom made front fork, and an ancient Hindu symbol cut into the steering neck reinforcement.
Also note the Ural sidecar, very suited to the terrain.

Above: opinions were divided on this dressed up Pantah...

Above: good to see Captain America watching over us all. But what's that behind it? It looks like a late '50s Sportster... Let's take a closer look, shall we kids?

This is in fact a 2003 Sportster (identifiable by the special medallion cast into the crankcase, at the bottom of the front cylinder), which makes it a centenary edition, and it has been restyled with a much older set of matching fenders and gas tank, as well as control levers, handlebar and other details for a masterfully executed custom machine.

A band started playing "the classics" after sunset and it made for a nice conclusion to the day; standout effort on Creedence, ZZ Top, and Led Zeppelin songs.

il nome della Rosa?

By this point the wind had started picking up, and by the time people zipped up their sleeping bags it was obvious this would be no clear night: the wind blew stronger and brought a massive thunderstorm, heavy rain punctuated by lightning that lit up the plain as bright as day, and thunder pummeling the side of the mountain and bouncing off it back to us.

This was no summer shower, it was really heavy rain and I'm sure more than a few people were not fully ready for it. This is the sort of place where you have to know what you're doing when it comes to setting up a tent: you need stakes and guy lines everywhere, and you need good sleeping gear if you want to stay warm and dry. I did most of the above and I have to say I did spend a very comfortable night, cozy dry and warm. What I didn't do was protect important stuff (cellphone, jacket, helmet...) from the little bit of water that did make its way into the tent, and so my phone drowned, and most of my clothes ended up a bit damp.

Daybreak brought very little light, and the sight emerging from the tents was really striking:

A lot of people had left in the early hours, and I can only assume that they must have been so wet and cold that the prospect of packing up in the rain, in the dark, and riding down off the mountain didn't seem that bad.
We ourselves were somewhat luckier in that we caught a little break from the rain, long enough to pack. After that it started coming down again, hard, and everyone put on their rain gear, while some addressed water damage on a couple of motorcycles.

Eventually we left, nice and slow, and made our way towards l'Aquila; as that comes into view, framed by the storm clouds, it basically looked like Minas Tirith.

What is usually a really tedious ride back to Rome on the autostrada turned into a stressful and challenging task, not devoid of risk. Men and machines managed just fine, if a little soggy by the time we all got home.

All in all this was probably the best time I've ever had at the Old Irons rally, and I look forward to the next one.

Oh! And always bring extra fuel: