Luca and Ted

A couple of weeks ago my boss told me that a good friend of him was heading to Italy from the US and he was going to have dinner with him: “Luca” he said, “why don’t you join us for dinner, this guy has a lot of stories to tell, you’ll be surprised”.
OK, let’s see here… a guy from the US with a lot of stories to tell… (not to mention that we were going to have dinner in one of the most exclusive restaurants in Milan)… “sure! Count me in”

Last night with my friend (and colleague) Stefano I walk into the restaurant, and I see my boss sitting at the table with a middle-age, curly grey hair man, enjoying a glass of Prosecco, laughing and patting on each others backs.
Just outside the restaurant a BMW motorcycle, one of those beamers which tires you can tell at a glance that rolled around half of the globe…

I remember that when I first started to work at Ceita, my boss told me a story about a friend of him, a journalist from London, that one day woke up and realized that writing for the Daily Mirror wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do for the rest of his life; he decided that he had to do something unusual, something that gives you a story to tell to the generations to come and gives you the possibility of making money at the same time.
THE IDEA: he went to a motorcycle dealer, bought a Triumph and set out to a four-and-a-half years journey around the world (at the time he was 42).

Ted Simon wrote a book about his amazing journey through 48 countries that sold hundred of thousands of copies around the world.

But one day he decided that even that wasn’t enough for him, so he made a promise to himself: to repeat the same journey at the age of 70 to see how the world changed in almost 30 years.

So here I am, a 34 years old guy with a passion for motorcycles sitting at a table with a man who with a motorcycle circumnavigated the world twice. Can you imagine a better situation? I know, I know, some of you might be thinking that yes, there is a couple, but not for me, not last night.

It was only late in the night when I let the guy go, and before leaving he gave me a signed copy of his last book “Dreaming of Jupiter” (Jupiter is the nickname he was given in India) where he wrote: “To Luca, the world is changing fast, better hurry… good luck, Ted”

These are a few quotes from the prologue of the book:
In March of 1973 I decided to travel around the world on a motorcycle. The idea came, you could say, out of the blue, although it was a rather grey day on the south coast of England. I chose the motorcycle for two main reasons: first, it seemed like the most versatile vehicle to use. Second, because I didn’t think anyone had ever done it on a bike, and being the first to do it would make it for a good book.
I was a writer, not a rider. Although I had admired motorcycles since childhood, I knew nothing about them, but that didn’t bother me. Millions rode them, why shouldn’t I? I was 42 years old. Some people said, “Surely you’re too old for this kind of thing!” But that didn’t bother me either, in fact turned out to be a good age.

Remember that commercial that goes like “impossible is nothing”? Maybe the guy who invented that spot rode one of Ted’s books…

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