No, I’ve not finally flipped over into full on senility, nor discovered the secret to time travel, but went to the Milan one. 
Cheaper to get to from Sarf Lundun than the NEC thanks to the wonders of an Easyjet day-return & a significantly better experience too.
Main impression is that this show is hooooouuuuge, it makes the NEC one look like a village fete ! 
There’s 8 halls full of exhibitors & a number of outside tracks for moto-X, test circuits for various manufacturers & a stunt display area - you could easily fit the whole NEC show into just a couple of halls ! :crazy:
And it’s all exhibitors (importers, manufacturers & distributors), not loads of retailers all trying to flog off the same old tired end of line Oxford or FT stuff. Hardly anyone selling anything - all I bought was a couple of T-shirts & they were from the Brits on the Death Industries stand !
Only downside is that although we arrived there @ 10am & other than a quick stop for a beer & a pannini (approx £4.50 for a 0.5L beer & large cheese & ham pannini - how much would that lot cost at the NEC ?), we spent all day wandering through the stands & still ended up missing a whole hall !
Obviously all the Italian manufacturers were making their best efforts to present themselves on home turf, the Ducati stand in particular was well busy- Stoners bike, the Desmosedici being major draws & with the new 848 on display it appears that white is the new red ! Looks good though
Bit dissapointed that Aprilia didn’t have the new V4 on display, but great to see a Bimota stand - god the quality of the craftsmanship on the Tesi 3D in particular is amazing - pure biking porn ! Think I may sell the tele & buy one for the lounge, it’d make much better viewing, don’t think I could ever get tired at looking at it. 
I’ve also seen the future of biking…
… and it’s Chinese !
Forget everything you think about them just churning out cheap crap peds/scooters/commuters, they’re taking this whole thing very seriously, so much so that there were enough Chinese stands there to fill the NEC show 1.5-2 times over ! :w00t:
From full bikes to parts & accessories, clothing, helmets etc. they’re going after the full market & some of the samples of stuff they had on show was up there with the Jap & European stuff. Even if you reckon now you’ll never buy a Chinese bike (like all those die-hard fans of Brit bikes in the 60s & 70s who’d never touch Jap-crap :P) in a few years I guarantee that a large portion of your Suyamahondkawatriumducaprilliabeem will consist of Chinese parts.
For added value, the entry ticket - £12, also covered admission to the 2007 pushbike show which was on in a couple of adjacent halls, if it’s your thing, I was planning on having a look around before I realised the scale of the bike one.
Got to hand it to the Italians, they certainly know how to put on a show, good quality, well run & fairly priced - wonder how much will the NEC be charging for crufts left-overs in a bun this year ? ) I could even understand some of what the locals were saying…
I really also like the positive approach they always seem to adopt in order to make my visits to their country as pleasurable as possible, by making all the fat &/or ugly girls stay at home & indoors whilst I’m there 
:hehe: 