Per Tutto Rejoice!- A Short story

[bikeguy joe]

per tutto rejoice Copy right, Jon J. Heald 9/15/2004



per tutto rejoice!

That’s what I kept yelling at the top of my lungs.
I’m pretty sure the old guy sitting on his porch thought I was crazy, but then again he had a look on his face like everyone was crazy. Alright I guess I’ll stop yelling for a minute.

per tutto rejoice!

O.K. then again maybe I won’t. I really didn’t care who heard me, I wouldn’t be around a whole lot longer for them to hear anyhow. I took a few breaths to regain my composure, then -

per tutto rejoice!


It doesn‘t exactly roll off your tongue, especially when your a guy from Ohio who doesn‘t speak a word of Italian.
“Alright knock it off” I thought, “you sound like an idiot.”
Yes, an idiot I was for sure. The bike had made me that way. I had worked on it for hours and hours, and in fact I’d taken the transmission apart forty, count ‘em forty times, and finally the thing worked right.

This wasn’t the first time I was an idiot on a motorcycle, I’d crashed the first road bike I ever borrowed from my best old ex friend Steve, broken my neck in three places on a Suzuki after an all night pool tournament at the Satellite Bar and grille, and fallen asleep while riding through the mountains on a brand new BMW. It wasn’t new when I got done, and neither was I.
This was a little different though, I was a happy idiot this time, and I wasn’t hurting myself or anyone else.

Let me start at the top.

I bought this bike, a 1961 Capriolo from a guy across town. Waay across town. He had it in the paper as a “1965 Capriolo 100, made by Ducati ”- 500 dollars o.b.o.
“Oh boy, a Ducati for 500 bucks,” “I bet it’s a bevel drive, I bet it’s some rare model, and the guy doesn’t have a clue” “Oh boy Oh boy.”
Not that I’m the excitable type, well …..yes I am.

I went to look at the bike, and when I got there I felt immediate disappointment. “It’s some kind of friggin’ two stroke.” “Man I wish people would at least have a clue when they put an ad in the paper.”
I got out of the truck anyhow to have a look, and that’s when “Deitrich” came out of the house. “That’s the bike” he said, as if I thought the bike with the for sale sign on it was not the one for sale. “Yeah” I said dryly “that’s the bike”. It was, indeed “the bike”- oh how little did I really know.
“It’s a 1965 Capriolo, made by Ducati” he said repeating the info that was in the ad. I was waiting for him to say “500 dollars” but he didn’t.
I didn’t see “Ducati” anywhere on it, and I wasn’t sure WHAT it was really.
“Made by Ducati, huh?”
“Uh yeah, see the tank?”
Yes, I saw the tank, and as previously stated it didn’t say “Ducati” anywhere on it.
“It’s one of them ‘jelly bowl’ tanks.”
O.K. I was starting to get the picture. This guy didn’t know his rear from a bobo pipe, and he was just parroting information he’d heard from somewhere, even though he wasn’t exactly right.
“Jelly mould” I said. He responded with a blank look. “Jelly mould is what they’re called, ‘cause they look like some kind of jelly mould”, I was trying to act like I was interested, and not upset that I’d driven 90 miles to look at a “Ducati” that wasn’t, being sold by a guy who really had no clue.

“Why they make ‘em look like that?” he asked.
I was trying to be patient, “’cause it’s easier to lay down when your going fast.”
“Huh? Why you wanna -” I cut him off with my best bargaining chip “How much would you be comfortable taking for it?” “Ho Ho, man it’s a DUCATI.” he said weakly, “and besides, it’s not really mine it’s, I mean, I’m selling it for a friend of mine, and well, I” his voice was starting to trail off, maybe because I was giving him the hairy eyeball treatment in hopes of taking home a bike I didn’t know anything about for a reasonable price. Maybe because he didn’t really have a clue. “Come on, yer killin’ me here….” I could tell he wasn’t sure what he was selling “for his friend”, and though I didn’t know what he was selling either, I was gaining on him.
He stood silent as I gave the bike the once over, and started pointing out the battery that had long since frozen and cracked into a million pieces inside the side cover, the fact that the transmission lever was limp and didn’t do anything to the transmission, and neither did the kickstarter for that matter.
“Does it run?” I asked.
“Well…, it used to run.” “I mean, it ran… last time .…uh, well, no.”
“How do you know it’s a Ducati?” “Well the tank is a jell-” Oh boy, never mind.
“Will you take 300 for it?” “Yeah.” He said with a bit of defeat in his voice.

Victory was mine!
“I’ll get the title.” he said. And then, “Oh yeah, about the title, it’s a Pennsylvania title.”
By now my “I just got another bike” adrenaline was kicking in, and I’d already had it half lifted into the truck. Yeah Yeah, O.K. yeah that’s alright, can you get it notarized?” I asked. “Yeah” was all he said. “O.K. then here’s your 300.” The bike was loaded and ready to go when he came out of the house.
“One more thing.” he said. “The title is in my friends name, so if it’s O.K., I’ll get your address, and send it to you in a day or two.”
Great.

Fast forward a week, I’d gotten the bike to fire up, but hadn’t gotten it to do much else, except go into 1st gear. The good news was it didn’t need the exploded battery to run, or the key, or anything but a working tail light bulb. You see, as is customary for a lot of older Italian bikes it needed a good bulb in the tail light socket for the ignition circuit to be completed. I’d learned this from working on an old Sears 106 I had once upon a time. I told you this was not the first time I was an idiot on a motorcycle.

“Hey honey, I think you got your title.” It was my lovely wife from the front yard, she had a knack for knowing these things for some reason. Maybe it was because she was sick of hearing me whine for a week each time the mailbox came up empty when I went to check for the title that was promised “in a couple of days”. I acted like I didn’t hear her the first time, just to hear her sweet voice say those words one more time. “I think it’s your title.” She handed me an envelope with a Parma, Ohio address on it.
“Well that’s gotta be it.” I opened the envelope, and with the title was a scribbled note- “Joe, James is dead, I’m sorry that he can’t sign the title over to you, as he is dead. You can fake his signature if you want.- Dietrich.” It also contained the owners manual, AND the original bill of sale from Metro Motors, famous importers of all kinds of goodies since the 50’s. They were still in business too.

With mixed emotions at the good luck/bad luck thing, I thought, “great, I bought a fake Ducati, from a guy who was selling it “for a friend”, who wasn‘t even alive, anymore. Too bad he didn’t say “for his friend, who wasn‘t alive anymore.”
“Well it was only 300 dollars honey.” It was the songbird like voice of my eternal optimist wife again. “And besides that, you got it running too.”
Yes, yes-I-did.

Fast forward again two more weeks.
I was in my makeshift tent/garage/sanctuary, with the rain pouring down so hard I couldn’t hear the radio, or myself think, taking the transmission apart for the 20th time.
I’m kind of obsessive/compulsive when it come to these things, and just because it was an old Italian motorcycle, I thought I’d keep track of how many times I’d have to take the transmission apart before I got it working.
The above is a statement of old Italian motorcycle transmissions, or, maybe my ability and confidence level when working on the same.

Fast forward yet again to two more weeks later.
Now it was an obsessive obsession. I was going on 30+ times of “the procedure”.
1.) Take off side cover, (I’d even taken to counting how many turns each Allen head screw took to remove, and the fact that for no reason whatsoever, one was longer than the rest, even though it didn’t matter where it went back it, it fit.)
2.) Look dumbfounded into the “works” that they called a “shift mechanism”. (I won’t go into minute detail, but let’s just say it was all on the outside of the tranny, so each and every bit of road crud flung off the chain went directly into “the mechanism”, and therefore cause a great gnashing of teeth, springs, ratchets, rods, and other sundry items that were supposed to make it shift.) It all appears to have been made of some type of “special metal” which was really a type of “special play dough”, and about as hard.
3.) Make a small adjustment to one of several dozen adjustable parts.
4.) Put back all the little parts, ect. And put the cover back on.
5.) Try the shifter, to find that I hadn’t done/learned anything, and finally,
6.) Cry like a whipped pup.
FINALLY at what must be a magic number in the minds of the sadistic Italian motorcycle transmission Gods, No. 40, I put it back together, and when I tried to go from 1st to 2nd gear, IT WORKED! (I’ll spare you the dreadful details, but the problem was due to the “special metal” that the shift ratchet teeth were made of.

Fast forward for the last time in this story to a crazy guy riding down the road yelling-

per tutto rejoice! per tutto rejoice!

It was a beautiful fall day, in North East Ohio, and I was riding the Capriolo on the back roads of Ashtabula county, with the transmission working perfectly, and to prove it, I would stop, shift up through all four gears, ride a bit, and slow down, and start it all over again. I was riding the bike sans proper license plate/title/registration, and not caring one bit. (I know bad dog, bad, bad dog! I’ll feel the shame later.)

By the way, the “Capriolo” turns out to be more specifically, a Capriolo “Bondone” or “sport model” 100cc, model name “Gazzele” It’s the only one in original running condition known to exist…….priceless, to me at least. Know anyone else who has one?

So James, if you can hear my words out there in the great after ride, at first I had my doubts, and never even knew what a Capriolo was, and now that I do, I’d like to say ……….

FOR EVERYTHING REJOICE!

[DivideOverflow]

That is a nice story. Im glad you got it working! Too bad about the title though, not sure how one would go about acquiring one from a dead person...

[bikeguy joe]

Well..... it's about impossible to get a legal title for it, but I do take it out for clandestine missions on the back roads on occasions such as this story was written.

I wrote the story after a ride one day because I was riding it thinking "this ride is just like life, I can enjoy it minute by minute for what it is and not wonder or worry about how or when the ride will end, or I can keep looking back and not enjoying the ride for the worry of everything that could go wrong."

[High_Side]

Great story Joe!

[boingk]

awesome work Joe! good to hear it, not too bad of a story at all... theres always something better about bike/car/whatever that you repair/modify/whatever yourself i think, even if it is only something that seems minor at the outset. pity about the title tho..i wonder if you could get it rego'd or something eventually. thatd be cool!