Leadership comes from the quality of men.

Whenever I am asked to write about motorbikes I feel a kind of worry, but, at the same time, I feel like taking up the gauntlet.
The truth is that even the opinion of layman can find its space, if it’s expressed in a knowingly and intellectually honest way, but you try your hand at a conversation with some wizards with this kind of learning!
This weekend’s heat and busy traffic convinced me to stay home on my couch and watch TV. So I had the chance to see the umpteenth success of Valentino Rossi. My suspicion is that behind his skill lies the latest secret technical discovery that can change a motorbike into a motorboat. Rossi’s theatrical final gesture that mimes a violin solo reminds me that I’m an advertising agent. Intense speaking icons drill the brains and print lasting messages. This is one of the most emotionally meaningful: even a motorbike race, with its smells and deafening noises, can sound like a melody!

Thinking of the meeting I was having the following day with the technicians of the “Special Products” department at Paioli Meccanica, this image added a touch of wishful thinking to the unbalanced meeting.
I was showed to the office (so to say) of the “special products”. This room makes you think of anything but an office!
Distracted by the many things that are on, near and under the monitors of the computers, my eyes caught a melted lower fork leg in a corner of the room, as if it had been left there by mistake. Nothing to do with the so to say modern sculpture that towers over one of the desks: “shaped solid Ergal”. It’s not a finished work because the bottom part still shows its original cube shape.
From the music of Valentino Rossi I move on to consider the plastic art that moves bewitching and, for me, mysterious technological steps starting from these objects. Designed by men and moulded with maniac precision by one of the many transfers who are often here.
The arrival of my counterparts takes my mind off these thoughts and the tension inside turns into curiosity. I know some of them.
I often had dealings with Pier Paolo Santovito. He is the boss. I exchanged a few emails with Franco Testa for work reasons. He and Pier Paolo have been friends since their childhood and presently he is the technical coordinator of this office. Here comes Francesco Frontali: he’s one of those who consider their job like a mission. Federico Crugnola shows up as well. He is an engineer at Research and frequents this office, but he’s just too busy to stop and talk with us. I intend to get the best of his experiences as soon as I can.
This is a very special and qualified team that intimidates. You can feel the personality of Daniele Fiorenzi, who they all consider the fork guru, behind them.
I have prepared a set of questions. You never know! What if I get mixed up?

I take the long way; I know I should talk about technology, but I’m also aware of the conditioning of the present economical situation.
I’m wrong, because I can’t feel any “accountant’s anxiety”. These people, who should be giving me first hand information, show no sign of worry.
I start asking the questions I had prepared:
- Frame, engine, tyres, breaks, What’s the relationship with the front fork?
Frontali starts squirting on his chair, but he’s too polite to say I’m an idiot.
- Wrong words, talking to technicians. I realize and I say: “Maybe the trim of a motorbike should not be split up, but I would like to understand the various stages of the design process and which aspects of your job are most important to you”.
The three men look one at the other as if to say: who goes first?
The boss starts with a dissertation on the needs that come from the world of competition, the role of efficiency that does not sacrifice safety. Ideas and principles that read like the ones of a knight of the Round Table.
You can imagine them dodging the traffic and speeding on the highway dressed in their modern armours and their coloured fibreglass helmets. Monsters, Martians, modern bikers that ride at 200 ks per hour.

Even I know that Cross and Road motorbikes have a very different trim. But even staying within the defined limit of a discipline I’m interested in asking about the relationship there is between a rider and his motorbike. No one is wrong-footed, although, at last, eyes light up and I can see a sign of appreciation dawning. I hit the nail on the head. They explain with words and concepts I can’t report.
The secret is to make a damper unit (in this case) in which the various elements it is made of are not only correctly assembled and serving the purpose, but that can also be adapted to the temperament of the different bikers. They are quite ironic when they say they calibrate the suspension because they can’t calibrate the rider.

They let me admire a series of range finder surveys that show the result that is reached whenever a notch varies. I get lost among steering stoppers, cartridges, thin plates, radial coupling , springs and force tubes.
The melted lower fork leg, worked just enough to fit in a few bolts, is still over there in the corner. Forget it! Technology of the past, a lame duck in a world of flying swans.
I get back into my car and while I’m driving home I think of the conversation I just had. I met people that create within an industry that produces. The “Special Products” department deserves a different name. What’s special is the human quality, the technical preparation and the enthusiasm of those who work there. These qualities all in all are underestimated, often mistaken for slyness and improvisation, but they are the engine of the products made in Italy.
Behind them there is a Company: Finance, Structure, Research. And also the produce of intelligence, systems and worldwide contacts with those who work in the same field.

The international exhibition on bikes and motorbikes, EICMA, will be held in Milan. Paioli Meccanica will present its innovations, the fruits ripened in that strange department, and they will be sensational. I’m only looking at the aesthetics, because the outcome is beautiful.
The bottom line is that leadership comes from the quality of men.