VERONA MOTORBIKE EXPO

 A few weeks ago, I was an invited guest of the Federation of Italian Customizers at the largest bike show in Europe. It’s called the Motorbike Expo & it’s held in Verona, Italy. I was there representing the IMBBA – International Master Bike Builders Association. There were a few other Americans over there with me…Arlen & Cory Ness, Jesse James, Russell Mitchell & Mondo.  This was my first opportunity to attend a bike show outside of the USA. It was an amazing experience to attend a bike show like this. I have been to hundreds of bike shows all over the USA & even one in Canada, but I have never been to one that was anything like this. A well attended, 3 day bike show in the USA gets 15,000 to 20,000 people, this show in Italy had 120,000 people in attendance! WOW! The show opened at 9am on Friday morning & when I got there at 8am there were over 1000 already lined up waiting for the doors to open. And, they had to run them out of there when the show closed at 7pm on Sunday night. In between open & close, it was wall to wall people. The only hard part was that most of them did not speak English. They gave me a couple of translators that were great to look at but the girls really didn’t speak too good of English, either. We did meet a lovely lady from Ft. Wayne, Indiana who is married to an Italian & living there which, that was a great help. My big shot lawyer brother Randy, went with me. After the show we got to play some golf in the Italian Alps. It was beautiful! It’s tough when you don’t speak the language & it has made me more tolerant of foreigners. Ya know how sometimes we see a foreigner over here & we think, look at this idiot, what’s he doing over here? Well, over there we are the foreigners! All in all it was a swell trip & I am glad I got to experience it with my brother.

More Pictures from Rick's Italy Trip: