Heed 505

Greetings all, it’s full-on Valentino Rossi madness here in Italy, as the country is seemingly on a national holiday after their boy just won his ninth roadracing Grand Prix title. Every newspaper you pickup has literally eight and sometimes ten full pages dedicated to the man from Tavullia. It’s absolutely fascinating how serious Italians take their motorbike racing. Imagine newly crowned 2009 World Superbike champ Ben Spies receiving that kind of coverage in the L.A. Times.
 
The reason we’re here however, is for the introduction of the 2010 Aprilia RSV4R held at the beyond epic Mugello racing circuit near Florence. For more information on the RSV4R, check out our First Look here. The weather here is basically indian summer-like with warm, sunny conditions and zero chance of rain.
 
On the way here, we bumped into Marco Simoncelli and some of the other MotoGP regulars as they returned home from the GP race in Sepang. Simoncelli was pretty bummed that he got third place to Barbera in the 250cc class considering that they literally finished the race side-by-side. He said the official gave second place to Barbera because he set a faster time in the race. He’s looking to finish out the season with a win in Valencia even though the 250 championship is pretty much out of reach. Who knows though, maybe his chief competitor Hiroshi Aoyama will have some bad luck? You never know in motorcycle racing.
 
That’s it from Valentino land. Stay tuned for an initial RSV4R riding impression from Italy tomorrow and the full first ride review next week…