Citta di Castello - Rimini: Route 46

The stay in Citta di Castello was uneventful and despite ominous clouds overhead, the journey to Rimini promised to be interesting because it offered winding roads through a couple of mountain ranges.

In addition to the scenic route, the trip also offered a stop (after a bit of a detour) in Tavullia, Italy, home of Valentino Rossi, who is touted to be the greatest motorcycle racer of all time. The motorcycle geek in me couldn't resist this chance.

Here is the route:

The decision process that led me to make the detour to Italy is probably the most uninteresting thing that I've ever tried to write about. The fact that it's not here is tribute to my promise to keep things 50% more interesting.

Suffice it to say that the inhabitants of Tavullia take fanaticism to a new level. For example, in most of rural Italy, the speed limit is somewhere between 50 and 70 KPH (kilometers per hour). In Tavullia, all of Tavullia, the speed limit is 46 KPH because Signore Rossi races under number 46. Also, as you can't see in the pictures below, much of the town is covered in the fluorescent yellow that Rossi wears on his leathers and helmet.

The aforementioned ominous clouds aren't quite obvious in the photos above. Also not clear is how hard it rained that day. In fact, this day may have been the wettest of the entire trip. Riding in the rain is about as uncomfortable as you can imagine. The part that is the most uncomfortable and most surprising is the crotch water, because it's a creeper.

What's crotch water? Oh, I'm glad you asked. While riding a motorcycle in a rainstorm, the rain accumulates on the tank and aerodynamic forces gradually push it back along the length of the bike. The majority of the water slides along the take and under the seat and, during a small storm, will never make it to the crotch. However, under heavy precipitation conditions, the water reaches a point of critical mass at which it no longer slides under the seat. Instead, the whole of the fuel tank becomes a waterfall and the seat becomes the basin down which a tsunami of water pummels the crotch.

Being the well prepared motorcyclist that I am, I make sure to wear "water resistant" pants. Unfortunately, the resistance of the pants to the water have a threshold at which they no longer resist water. Instead, the water passes through the pants like it had backstage passes to see Justin Beiber watching a sneak preview of the last installment of the Twilight Saga.

The amount of time that it takes for the water to build up on the tank and pass through the pants is exactly the amount of time that it takes for one to become accustomed to the rain in the first place. The bottom line is that immediately after being lulled in to a sense of comfort with the wet weather conditions, the crotch water tsunami comes out of nowhere and life gets all uncomfortable again.

If I haven't thanked you for reading, let me do that now. Thanks; I can't wait to dump more of my mindless drivel on you. In the next update, you'll see how one spends the weekend on the Italian Riviera.

Bonus pictures from this route!

[caption id="attachment_1079" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Lake In the Distance"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1080" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Panoramic Mountain Photo"][/caption]