CREPALDI

Photographer and businessman.
Born in Milan in 1957, he has spent his life involved with three passions: his family, motorbikes and photography. Every so often, he succeeds in combining all three. Three children, some motorbikes and thousands of photographs have made his life rich and full of meaning.
He deems himself lucky for having found many interesting companions along the way who have enriched his need to share ups and downs.

​

   Giorgio, Robbi, Roberto.
   I delayed drafting these notes until the last moment, so as to keep them in my head and guts as long as possible. Such was the emotion of transcribing some sensations to paper. I though about what I would like to see on the web-site for a motorbike like “this”: as the VUN is today.
I know that for reasons of uniformity we have to (but are we really obliged to?) keep to layouts to which the market has accustomed us. History, Mission, The bike, Who we are, Merchandising, Technical.
I’m little accustomed and not at all keen on keeping to layouts, and I find myself  mixing in all these ingredients in a big pot, together with other paragraphs called The road, Sleepless nights, the Wind on the Chott, Mountain passes, Realised dreams, the Satisfaction of the almost 50-year-old biker, What I would like to wear, How much I feel this motorbike to be “mine”, Companions of serious fun. I sometimes remember a restaurant in Switzerland (it was a few years ago now), after some comment along the lines of “It would be fantastic to have a Norton Manx for the road to have some serious fun on these bends”. This idea became a sketch scribbled on a napkin, then a roughed-out prototype made in an English workshop, and then a modern motorbike in its own right. Perhaps that’s not enough: someone reading this might want to know more. So I say that some things only happen in clearly determined moments of our lives when a whole series of facts, however we may call them, converge and expand so that a sketch becomes an exciting motorbike, one different to all the others on the road: humble if that’s how you want it, essential extraordinary.
Things of this sort only spring from a fundamental combination of Passion, Mechanics, Experience, Sacrifice.
If we add the kilometres we have done on the road up to now on a bike, I think we would be astonished. How we travelled them also counts for much and with what vehicle: from a Ciao to the Britten, which might be a summary encompassing all two-wheelers. From Africa to Cusano Milanino, the West Ring-road around Milan as a late-night escapade for 20-year-olds and the illegal races in South Dakota to feel like pioneers. A gamebag of bends and asphalt, a sample-book of landscapes, mountain meadows, dirt roads, coastal roads, infinite deserts before our eyes with the sound-track of one, two, three, four or six cylinders modulating symphonies and swelling the breast. If I’m here to write these things here now, it means that all of the above has happened and the VUN is the pleasing, tangible result. A concentration which I would like 50/100 bikers a year to feel so that the dream can go on and becomes their reality also.
I know that this isn’t thinking “big”. Perhaps it’s merely being realist, convinced as I am that we are all a little victims of an ideological flattening which aims more at the financial result than a poetic and ethical advance in our life.
But they will come, you’ll see. How they’ll appear, I don’t know but they’ll be people who think a little like us. They’ll pop out from some little hut at the top of a mountain pass, from a Grand Complication four-cylinder bike, from a raid with too much luggage strapped on.
This is what I wanted to tell you, and what I would like everyone to read; those, that is, who can read not only between the lines, but well beyond them.
With my heartfelt thanks to all three of you and to the following.
Happy adventures,
Giovanni

Born in Milan in 1960.
Since 1972, when he was still a student, he began to spend his spare time helping his father in his workshop as “jack of all trades”. His father was Giuseppe “Peppino” Pattoni, or “Pep” to his friends, who since 1958 was building (yes, building !) grand prix motorbikes under the “Paton” brand. Since then, Roberto’s life has been indissolubly associated with that of the Paton marque.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Patons were the sole real alternative to the British single-cylinder bikes for a private racer. The only possibility for a “private” individual to figure in the stakes against the over-weaning muscle of the “Houses” and their “official” bikes. In those years, riders such as Hailwood, Bergamonti, Duff, Nelson, Gallina, Ferrari cut their teeth on Paton bikes. In 1974, Roberto took part in his first Grand Prix with the Paton Team: Imola, with Virginio Ferrari riding the two-cylinder Paton/Bimota 500, the latest Paton with a four-stroke engine. Between 1975 and 2001, Paton participated uninterruptedly in the 500 world championship with two-stroke, four-cylinder bikes. In those years, Paton was frequently the only Italian bike on the starting line in the queen class. Roberto was constantly at his father’s side until 1999, when the latter died, and he became personally responsible for running the company and continuing the marque’s reputation for excellence. With the birth of the new “MotoGP” class, open only to 1000cc, 4-stroke prototypes, Roberto was no longer able to justify the budget required to participate in the World Championship. Wisely, he diversified his activity, putting to use the experience and tradition of 30 years of work in the motorbike engineering sector. “Original replicas” of the Paton 500 GP twin-cylinder 4-stroke of 1968 were made for sale, some riders in the “supersport” class Italian championship were backed and, finally, a research and development sector was started focusing on the design and production of motorbikes and parts. With its single-cylinder road-bike project CR&S was the first customer of this new initiative. It worked so well that in 2004, Roberto accepted to become a partner in CR&S with responsibility for technical management, whilst still maintaining control of the family marque.

PATTONI

   As a lad, when I was working as an apprentice in my father’s workshop, perhaps to copy the championship riders who used to come to Paton, I liked going off on a bike and “opening up”. I had a Moto Morini 125 “H” with 6 gears when I was 16 and used to ride it inconsiderately. Then my father’s chromosomes probably got the upper hand because the pleasure of “making” motorbikes totally overwhelmed the pleasure of riding them. Since then, the greatest satisfaction I have had was in hearing a racing biker say: “Roberto, my bike’s fine!” The sensitivity required to transfer a racing biker’s requests to a sophisticated machine like a GP bike has been a constant injection of trust and a fundamental motivation for my professional life. It’s like a sculptor being able to extract a finished form from inert matter: he knows what’s inside the block of marble, and has only to free it from the useless rock. Today, I want to apply this attitude to realise a road bike that can transmit positive sensations to the rider on the basis of the indications received from those who “commissioned” the work from me. I must succeed in being the “instrument” to transfer the riding characteristics requested by the patron. A new challenge in which the gauge of my skills will be not the “stop-watch” but the “market”. A new challenge I have accepted.