I don't know if any of you have been following Davide's Wall Of Death journey here on this blog? It's an amazing story so far although I'm not going to tell it again. Best go do a search of the blog and find the earlier posts, it's well worth it. So, here we are as of today. Davide has now managed to get all the pieces back to his home town in northern Italy after many road trips to Austria and back in a borrowed truck. He has been piecing part of the wall's history together too. It was built in Holland in 1940. The Dutch troupe then went on tour with it to Russia. After a show in Gorky Park the Russian army confiscated it at gun point and kicked the Dutch team out of the country. The Russian's trained some riders and the whole show went on the road again but this time behind the iron curtain, making appearances all over the 'mother' country of course, along with Cuba and Columbia (??) amongst others. Decades later it somehow reappeared in Austria where Davide found it. Back to Italy now and his dad knows a lot of people and managed to get a mate to hand over a sort of three sided building out the back of a factory where Davide could build the wall up and get some practice in. After some head scratching and studying of old photos, with the help of 3 really good friends, he got the main wall up. It still doesn't have the marquee top, stairs, 3 tired balcony etc fitted. Mainly because there is no space and of course he won't need it just for practice. The roof of the building leaked badly so he spent many a morning on his way to work fixing the holes with fibreglass and resin. Standing in the bottom of the wall is quite something. It's bloody huge. It's touching the roof for fucks sake. Standing in there looking around I realised one thing, there is no way in a million years you would get me riding a bike on those vertical walls, no bloody way. Anyway, our hero bought a cheap 100 Euro Cagiva dirt bike that he messed around with so it looks more the part for all those practice laps. Sometime very soon he will start going to the wall 3 times a week at 6am, get a few laps in, change his clothes and then head into Milan for work by 10. Along with Sundays as well he should be up and running in no time???!!! The 2 Indians are almost there. His plan is not to mess with the patina of the bikes and in fact the wall itself, at all. Just fresh motors and that's it. The magneto's arrived the other day so he is well on his way, money permitting of course. He hopes to do his first show in Italy in September and then go on the road proper next year. Amazing right?! this man is such an inspiration. Davide used to say to me at least once a day while I was staying there "Matt, you got to believe me when I say "Life is beautiful" fratello". You are so right my friend.
