The Dutch magazine STRADA (nowadays the most important specialized illustrated publication in the world devoted to Ducati subjects along with Ducati Redline) publishes in its number of July 2020 the article " Ducati 916 Massimo Tamburini Prototype " with text and photographs by José Manuel Serrano Esparza,
something that hugely satisfies us, obviously not because of us (we are a modest blog featuring a bit eclectic nature and always working with very few means, sweating buckets and passion), but because of Massimo Tamburini and the landmark significance of his greatest masterpiece, a full-fledged myth of motorcycling design and technology at its best, which in mid nineties pioneered a number of revolutionary concepts greatly foreseeing the future of racing bikes in XXI century and the need of boosting the World SBK Championship to the utmost, both regarding the quantity of spectators attending to every circuit and the broadcast of each competition by the most important TV channels.
That´s why we´re exceedingly thankful to the Ducati Club Nederland (founded in 1978, the year of the well-known comeback and triumph of Mike Hailwood in the Formula One TT Isle of Man with a Ducati 900 Super Sport highly optimized by NCR and tuned by the outstanding British mechanic Steve Wynnes, and the largest Desmo Owners Club in the World, with more than 4,000 members), to its chairman Erik Hak, to its vice president Petra Poppeliers and to Tom Bertrand, who made a superb and pretty commendable translation of the article into Dutch.
It must be also highlighted the fabulous photographic printing quality, layout and paper grammage of the highest level of STRADA magazine, truly a reference-class international motorcycling publication featuring a 29,5 cm x 21 cm large format size, 72 pages and manufactured in an utterly handcrafted way throughout 42 years, with tons of love, thoroughness, painstaking attention to detail and unsweving passion for the legendary Italian motorcycling firm that has racked up 14 World SBK titles and one MotoGP World Championship hitherto.
This humble article was fruit of many hours of toil inside the Ducati Museum at Borgo Panigale (Bolonia, Italy), sancta sanctorum of world motorcycling, on January 10 and 11 of 2019, and above all thanks to the trust of some persons who overestimated us and to whom we´re fairly grateful, without forgetting the absolutely key role performed by Simona Tamburini, daughter of Massimo Tamburini (the greatest design genius in the whole History of Motorcycling), who kindly lent to Ducati Museum the prototype she inherited from the Michelangelo of Bikes and which was displayed during 2019 and until January 15, 2020 to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Ducati 916, deemed the most beautiful motorcycle ever made.
Whatever it may be, if we have been able to do our bit to help spread the praiseworthy design beauty and truly breakthrough technological innovations trailblazed by this Ducati 916 prototype built during thousands of hours of work and strenuous effort by Massimo Tamburini between 1988 (year in which he made the first sketches) and 1994, we´ll be satisfied, because from its very launching into market in 1995, the main merit making this wonderful bike known was fulfilled by the great pundits on it like Ian Falloon, Bruno de Prato, Vicki Smith, Alan Cathcart, Phil Schilling, Cook Neilson, Livio Lodi (Curator of the Ducati Museum, probably the greatest expert in the world on Ducati History and its huge cultural and technological significance), John Urry, Brian Catterson, Brenda Buttner, Jim Calandro, Clyde Romero, Bob Lattanzi, Terry Wise, John M. Rossi, Pepe Burgaleta, Ken Wootton, Jeremy Bowdler, Don Canet, Ian Gowanloch, Ángel de la Maza and others, along with the exhaustive tests carried out by specialized magazines like Cycle World, Motociclismo, Motorrad, Motorcycle Sport, On Two Wheels, Desmo Leanings, Motorcycle Mechanics, etc, without forgetting the excellent pictures made of it by recognized motorcycling photographers like James Mann, Phil Aynsley, Mark Wernham, Chris Wimpey, Guy Spangenberg, Kirk Willis and others.
On the other hand, we are unutterably thrilled because of the fact that such a top-notch level Dutch motorcycling magazine decided to publish the article, because Netherlands has always been a very important country in the building up of the two wheels sport all over the world, with legendary figures like Jan de Vries (50 cc World Champion in 1971 and 1973 with Kreidler), Kork Ballington (250 cc World Champion in 1978 and 1979 with Kawasaki), Jan Thiel (the greatest genius builder and tuner of 2T engines in the History of Motorcycling, cofounder of Jamathi with Martin Mijwaart and winner of twenty-four world championships between 1977 and late nineties, 4 with Bultaco in 50 cc, two with Minarelli in 125 cc, eight with Garelli in 125 cc, four with Aprilia in 125 cc and six in 250 cc), Martin Mijwaart (one of the three best designers of racing motorcycles in history), Harm Heuvelman (one of the greatest experts in the world on bevel gear Ducatis, and driving force of the first-class Back to Classics workshop in Bergambacht, Holland) and other ones, without forgetting the extraordinary relevance of the Assen Circuit, which has been deemed the Cathedral of World Motorcycling for many decades.
