How the athletic and physical work of the riders has changed and is carried out during the long break in the calendar and the revolution of the great Ago, the first champion who took great care of physical preparation even in the months of the championship break
– Milano
As in the days of the Naja, the conscripts made the “cue”, ticking off on a piece of paper the days left to leave (in jargon “how many days until dawn”), even today, after Christmas and Boxing Day, the hard core of fans, the countdown begins in view of the first MotoGP tests. The Shakedown of 5-7 February in Sepang and the first tests on the same Malaysian circuit on 10-12 February will effectively open the new 2023 season. Following this, more tests in Portimao on 11-12 March where on the same circuit, on 26 March , the first round of the championship is scheduled.
how many toasts
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December has now passed between one party and another, confirming that motorcycling, ailments aside, enjoys strong popularity. Among the festivities, the FIM Awards ceremony on 3 December at the Palacongressi in Rimini should be remembered with the awards ceremony for the protagonists of the 2022 world championships and the MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3 world champions. Then on 15 December the great Ducati evening-show in Piazza Maggiore in Bologna with the presence of world champions Pecco Bagnaia (MotoGP) and Alvaro Bautista (Superbike) together with the other riders and architects of the Borgo Panigale triumph. Three days later, on 18 December, in Chivasso, the birthplace of Pecco Bagnaia, a tribute to his MotoGP world champion. Surprise party, then, for Enea Bastianini, in the crowded evening of Friday 23 December (his same race number) at Podere Lesignano in San Marino to close his season on the Team Gresini Ducati topped off with four victories, a third place in the World Championship, behind Bagnaia and Quartararo, and the promotion on the official red in 2023. Other celebrations, not only in Italy, involved the protagonists of motorcycling, then the Christmas break and, immediately after the Epiphany, the resumption of the first training sessions for get back in physical shape and head for the first sessions on the track.
the break in the time of the ‘days of courage’
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Was it like this also in the motorcycling of the “Days of Courage”? In past decades, the world championship season ended in September (Monza) and the international one on the first Sunday of October (Sanremo-Ospedaletti) to then resume on March 19 with the international tricolor race in Modena (the world championship started on May 1 in Austria at the Salzburgring ). At the time, in the months of November and December, it was all a flourishing of parties, inside and outside the Moto Clubs. In the long winter period only the racing departments of the great Italian manufacturers – until 1957 Guzzi, Gilera, Mondial then MV Agusta, Benelli, Bianchi, Morini, Ducati, Aermacchi up to Garelli, Morbidelli, Aprilia as well as the European and Japanese manufacturers – remained in business. The motorbikes of the private racers ended up under a tarp in the workshop, hibernating for five months or more. The vast majority of private riders dedicated themselves to their work activities outside the races, while the very few “official” riders began their physical preparation only after New Year’s Eve, mostly riding standard bikes on roads open to traffic and with gym sessions .
agostini, the first ‘winter champion’
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Giacomo Agostini was the first driver to face the winter period as a professional with constant and specific physical and mental preparation, so much so that he was defined by Doctor Costa, the creator of the Clinica Mobile, “winter champion”. Ago says: “To be successful in motorcycling you need above all the gift of nature, but talent alone is not enough, it must be helped. I was a professional, I wanted the perfect bike, but I was perfect too, in terms of body care, nutrition, concentration. I have always been very fussy, I have been attentive to everything, I have left nothing to chance”. Yes, 15 world titles are not won by grace received.
detailed preparation
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Today all the riders in the world championship, especially those in the MotoGP, loosen up their preparation only in December: the forcing of psycho-physical training already begins in early January in view of the first tests on the circuit. It is a preparation where nothing is left to chance, following detailed and intense programs with the help of professionals and dedicated structures. For at least thirty years (1949-1979) the pilots who trained in a “programmed” way in the gym during the winter could be counted on the fingers of one hand. An exception came from Pesaro: the official Benelli riders could use the facilities and staff of the “Scuderia Benelli Boxe”, a team at the top of national and international boxing. The riders of the time thought more about their bike than about their physique. Most traveled kilometers not to stay fit, but to look for a bike to race with. Weather permitting, already at the end of January and the beginning of February the more daring and less penniless were looking for a circuit to get rid of the winter rust or, more spartanly, looking for a piece of road, usually open to traffic, to get on the saddle. In Italy, there were only three permanent racetracks: Monza, Modena, Vallelunga. Imola was not usable outside the titled races; Enna was too dilapidated and distant; the Misano and Mugello circuits did not exist. The climate made the great Brianza racetrack unusable throughout the winter and the low temperatures and fog in the Po valley made the Emilian Ghirlandina circuit unusable in the same months. Scarcely used, except by the (few) home drivers, is the facility in Rome, low on maintenance and at high risk (guard-rail, Rome curve, etc.). So?
it also turned on the A-14…
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In the winter mists, MV Agusta launched its racing cars behind its factories in Cascina Costa, on the straights adjacent to Malpensa airport. Benelli moved to the asphalted strip of Pozzo Basso, a flat agricultural area between Pesaro and Urbino, letting its riders try out the racing bikes in the middle of the traffic, which was scarce at the time, and above all in the midst of a swarm of fearless and thrilled fans. The Casa del Leone, with Silvio Grassetti, Tarquinio Provini and Renzo Pasolini, also used sections of the A-14 motorway at the time under construction and before each exit it warmed up its prototypes on the mini internal city track of Viale Mameli also equipped with a raised curve. There was a lot of risk: Grassetti and Pasolini (in 67-68 Benelli official riders) were waiting for the rain for a tirade with their heavy (English!) twin-cylinder bikes in the zig-zag ups and downs of the “99” Km (Pesaro-Urbino-Fano-Pesaro ) and on the Apennine passes of Bocca Trabaria, Scheggia, Monte Nerone. To understand what it was, just think that they were called: “Loops”. Paso tried hours with a special MotoBI on the cross field of Vallugola, near Gabicce Monte, until he destroyed it. Many accidents, some even fatal. However, each manufacturer and each driver had “his” kilometer to try out the latest modification before the races. Great passion and great risks were the constants of that motorcycling epic of “Days of Courage”, definitively consigned to history. There is no going back and there is no need to go back. However, a mental dive into that motorcycling of high risks and strong passions wouldn’t hurt the riders and the entire Circus today, as well as the enthusiasts. If only for a bath of realism and also of humility.
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