To be honest, on this particular trip we were were gagging to get away from Milan. Mid-July Tuscan temperatures of 40C and 85% humidity had even the locals fleeing for the Alps just for a good night's sleep, let alone riding a Benelli Tornado in full leathers.

Two girls we met said they'd spent the last 3 weekends flying to Stanstead on Ryan air just to go clubbing and cool down...

Kicking at the Mondial R&D workshop, just west of Monza, the 36C sun was still beating down on mine and Jim's necks at 11.00am as we collected the ZX-12R and the GSX1300R where we'd left them in the company's lock-up while we'd been further south playing on the Piega and 999, and considered the conundrum of what we were going to wear in the heat.

Full leathers for the silliness that was likely to ensue up the German motorway, or simply jacket and jeans so that we didn't evaporate on our way out of Milan?

We opted for jeans and a T-shirt actually, if only because continental cognescenti or not, this was one direction out of Milan I'd never taken before and, with the clock ticking, I didn't want to lose the first half hour getting all hot and bothered looking for the Tangenziale or, most probably, going the wrong way round it.

As luck would have it, the motorway was actually very well indicated, though it's always tricky to read signs when the fairing is up near your face, and to be honest it would have been rude not to have been hoisting wheelies everywhere on two bikes as potent as this in a country hooked on horsepower.

To be honest, in Italy you're more likely to be arrested for not pulling a wheelie... Make sure you're on the ZX-12R for maximum pose, though, as this mid balanced bike comes up as easily as the Busa doesn't, the latter's fast forward weight distribution and surfeit of power meaning that unless you really make the effort it's just going to snake up the road under wheelspin. The Kwak, on the other hand, is almost better balanced on one wheel than two, and its loping first gear and seamless outpouring means that it snicks well before, or smack on the balance point - the choice is yours. Naturally, down the motorway it comes up just as easily in second, though the extra 50kgs means that whatever the horsepower, it won't compete with the likes of the Gixxer 1000 by hoisting them in 3rd.

Anyway, within 30 mins of leaving the Mondial factory we were heading anti-clockwise on the Tangenziale and then onto the A8 towards Como and the Swiss border. I always love that last bit of Italian motorway facing the Alps and in particular Monte Rosa. You really feel like you're making progress out of the grime and sweat of the Italian mainland and, of course, the light here is the best in the whole of Europe, so that the surrounding fields of corn are always bathed in a rich, warm, yellow glow.

With the sun moving round behind, you come down this last fast stretch of two-lane dual carriageway which dips into a valley full of speeding Ferraris on the way back to their tax-exempt homes in Locarno, but not one of them was a match for the indicated 310kph the Busa was registering...

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