Meneghina Express’ numbers:

12379 Kilometers in 44 days

350 hours riding

297 batteries recharged

12 countries

4500Kg Co2 reduced vs. gas

Day -1 - China flag - June 9

We are ready!

It’s hard to think that the jet leg, after six days we arrived to China, can still play tricks. But tonight we did not sleep a lot. Perhaps due to some mosquitoes, perhaps - the most likely hypothesis - because the next day, that means today, we would have had the last twenty-four hours before our departure to make everything all right, in addition to the Meneghina Express's official event, that would have taken place in the city center of Shanghai, in the presence of the authorities and the journalists. Especially, in the presence of our fears and our most intimate desires... We will try to cross half of the world, with two electric motorbikes and two pick-up and we will try to do it with the lowest environmental impact. No one has dared to do it before today, not in this way, without any assistance of "professional" staff, who do this as a job, not with two electric motorbikes which must be driven for 13,000 Km investigating the eating habits of the people and cultures that we will meet from China to Russia, from Mongolia to Serbia.

From this morning until early afternoon, we continued work on the web site and on the blog. And while I'm pressing the buttons on my computer to let you know these words, someone is still under the rain carefully checking that everything is working in the right way. This is not a last time work, but rather the unstoppable desire, expressed through the constant attention to detail and to the realization that by tomorrow morning at five o'clock there will be no more open shops to stop in time to purchase neither a missing piece nor good plates of pasta prepared by Valentina...

Today was epic: our party was a great success, even though Meneghina Express comes from the idea of people who have never been event organizers. There were friends and various authorities, including the Italian Consul in Shanghai, representatives of citizens and national TV and newspapers and a lot of curious people who watched our pick-up and motorbikes parked in front of Restaurant Tavola - placed on the east part of Pu River.

We did all it ourselves; no help arrived for the event. We loaded the motorbikes on the back of our pick-up at Nicola's home, we arrived at the destination we climbed to fix the banners and we assembled and placed the flags. We also had one of those panels that are often showed at major sporting events, with all the sponsors names printed, in front of which we have marched - in a genuine way, with "our own style" - on providing our statements in front of Enrico's camera.

Alternate toast, with explanations to those who wished to know about our route, the duration of battery life of the bikes, who we are and what we think we'll become, after crossing deserts, steppes, plains and hills, rivers, seas and mountains.

Right now we're recharging the bike's batteries; we are going to close our personal luggage and boxes with electronic accessories. Our thought is devoted to family, to close friends, to who is following us from home. Those who have followed us until now already know, but we want to repeat it: our name is Nicola, Valerio, Enrico, Flavio, Giorgio, Mirco (and with us there is also Carlo), our project is named Meneghina Express and we need your support!

Stay tuned on our frequencies, we will do everything to deliver the best feelings!

See you soon!

Path traveled today