De-rattle and roll!
A good friend I went to school with, Pat Vincent has long suffered from Italian-bike-itis.
The symptoms of this unfortunate ailment are an inability to see imperfections in any motorcycles created in Italy. The only ‘Japanese’ bike he has is a YB11, which is basically a Thunderace made uncomfortable and impractical by the spaghetti munchers at Bimota. I have ridden it once and found it to be unsuitable for the road. I’m sure it’s handling would be great on the track where you don’t need or even want to know what’s behind you. I never did ride his MV F4, but I doubt that was any more suitable for the roads of today. He does, however, own a rather lovely 180° Laverda Jota that I do have a soft spot for.
Laverda started out in 1873 with an agricultural engine business in S Giorgio di Perlena in the province of Vicenza. In 1905 the company moved to
