Francesca Gatti is 29 and lives in Sant’Eusebio, a district of Genoa that runs from the shores of the Ligurian Sea to the Bisagno Valley.

So often caught in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, she struggles to find stability. But two things have come to her rescue: art (with most of her free time spent drawing and sketching) and riding her Harley-Davidson^®. When she starts the twin-cylinder, raises the jiffy stand, engages first gear and sets off, she leaves all her troubles behind.

This love of motorcycles runs in the family. Paolo, her father, started taking her along for rides when she was a child, getting her to sit behind him on every bike he owned over the years. Francesca found those seats as inspiring as they were uncomfortable! She started to see the world through new eyes, with noises muffled inside her helmet and the wind on her skin making her feel alive.

She remained a passenger for many years, her passion close to bursting forth; but before she could move into the driving seat, life dealt a cruel blow. Francesca developed anorexia, an eating disorder.

“No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modelled, built or invented except literally to get out of hell.” So wrote the French playwright Antonin Artaud, and that’s exactly what Francesca did at a key moment in her life. She started to practise drawing and painting more and more assiduously until it became a regular pastime. She studied techniques, forms, anatomy; she refined her skills by putting down in black and white the beauty that surrounded her. She always carried a notebook and a pencil with her, for moments when she became captivated by a sliver of a view at the end of a Genoa alleyway, or by the face of the person sitting opposite her on the bus. She wanted to be ready to fix her visions on paper, as a reminder of how wonderful life can be.

During this time, she became fascinated by the world of custom bikes; entranced by the bold lines and colours of chopper culture. She would constantly talk about them with her father, by now 69 years old and about to change his motorbike. She convinced him to switch to Harley-Davidson and get a Sport Glide^®, and thus the first Harley^® entered the garage of the Gatti family.

By now the temptation was too strong for Francesca. She plucked up the courage and practised on a Suzuki VanVan 125 for a couple of months. Then, one day, she picked up the phone and called her local Harley-Davidson dealership. “Do you have anything that might suit me?” Yes, they had a purple 2017 Iron 883™. An extraordinary coincidence: purple is the official colour for the campaign against eating disorders. Was it fate? Either way, she saw it as another sign that this was the right step to take.

“Now, my father and I can share this passion; it has brought us even closer together than I thought possible. Saturday nights, over dinner, we talk about the next destination. Sunday mornings we leave early. He has shown me some incredible places. We come home more tired than ever, but always very satisfied with our day.”