After jumping for three months with Paolo, I was able to pull off a few tricks but then my grandfather passed away. I was so mad with grief that I stopped riding for a year. I acted stupid, bought myself a Mini Cooper and spent my weekends in the city showing off like a jerk. I was not myself anymore. Eventually, at the end of the year, I got a phone call from Jader Toninello urging me to take up riding again. Can you believe that? Jader? Calling me! The guy was a myth to me, together with Bianconcini, Monti and Alvaro. In no time I started practising again and a few months later the Daboot team took me on. From then on, I have never stopped doing Freestyle Motocross.
Once again, let me thank all the wonderful people who have supported and helped me all the way!!!!!!!
But let me tell you just one last story about my family.
My cousin Gigliola Guerinoni – nicknamed The Mantis – spent ten years in prison and another ten years in a convent after being involved in the bloody murder of a man believed to be her lover. No one will ever know what happened exactly but axes covered in blood and corpses were found. The only thing we know is that she ended up in jail to cover somebody who would have killed her if she had not.
That is why, with so many stories going round in my head, I sometimes find it difficult to focus when I try to pull off a backflip.
Now I tour Italy and Europe, doing shows with my KTM. However, when I go back home, I enjoy every minute of it, getting drunk with my old friends at the Beer Room, riding pit bikes in the woods, doing bike jumps from a burning ramp into the lake or just fishing in the torrent.
Not long ago, I bought a huge old house that my brother is currently renovating. There are ten hectares of land, meadows and oak woods. I am going to build my own park in the middle of that earthly heaven – ramps, dirt landings, ‘North Shore’ mountain bike bridges, Pit Bike tracks, etc.
When I am on the road, I am always surrounded with crowds of people: at jumping shows, parties, night clubs, film sets – doing stunts in a Rocco Siffredi movie at his Budapest palace. Yet, when I come home, I feel an urge for solitude, intimacy and warmth that are always here for me to find.
To relax, what I like doing most is working with rough chestnut wood, making myself a bed or some piece of furniture. I love doing things with that ancient, strong, honest, wise wood that grows without asking anyone for anything and gives you so much. It warms up your body and soul and reminds me so much of my grandpa that I could never be far away from him even if I wanted to.
I wish a safe trip to you all and to my grandfather Giovanni in particular: he has travelled further than anyone else and keeps travelling on.
