Brian and Craig (and others), I have to say I can admire lots of machines but somehow for me it's the Italian machines exactly as Craig described. I know I can't afford a Lancia Fulvia or other delightful car and have long thought I am not rugby league enough for a brutish Jota but my real interest got stuck firmly in late 70's Italian sports bikes. I cannot express fully how much enjoyment and how widely it enfolds me but my red Le Mans is a real bike. But once a member of the club shook the pub's window's arriving on a Hailwood Replica he'd just bought in bits on e-bay. Now on the road after about £3,800! No side stand and one piece fairing off, he held it up for me to mount for a "go". I had long wondered how similar the two bikes were. First impression was to be really high off the ground. Then the feet were really high up. Dive/fall forward to the bars and I sort of gelled with the bike. To cut a long story short. The Ducati was incredible. I returned shocked, amazed, excited, unable to speak intelligently--gobsmacked as we say. That bike is a focussed fast machine. Right from Taglioni's first Rotring pen stroke on paper it is designed to accelerate to the horizon. I returned to my horny, red, low, long, lean Guzzi and sank down onto the low plank seat. It felt now like a cafe-racer styling job on a general purpose bike! That is exactly what it is of course. But it's simple to work on, robust, can go touring, shopping, pootle along or blast, it's just noisy at all of them. The pure pedigree Ducati is simply full-on adrenaline go, go, go. I came away with the knowledge that I had found for me the ideal bike to roar across the country for a cappuccino, laze a bit and roar back again, decadently taking Supertramp's long way round! But my Le Mans suits me better. Yes the Italians make some exceptional machines and in a long line of Ducatis they've been doing the "Imola thing" for years. Now, two years on I enjoy my Guzzi fully again but for a while it had been shown up--but only at horizon chasing. Ciao Linzi.