Tell us about your ride: Mother and daughter share a thing for minimalist motorcycles

WEIRS BEACH — When it comes to the Varricchio family of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, it’s like mother, like daughter.

Tina Varricchio has been riding motorcycles since 1996, and coming to Laconia Motorcycle Week since 2004.

In recent years, Varricchio made the trip on a Triumph Speed Triple. This year, though, she was on something even faster – a Ducati Monster 1200.

“That’s my first Ducati,” Varricchio said. “I like it. It’s more powerful.”

She’s still getting to know her new bike, as it had only about 600 miles on it when she pulled into Weirs Beach – meaning most of that was the drive from home to Laconia.

Her early impressions are good, though.

“Riding up here, it’s nice on the highway,” she said.

Tagging along with Varricchio was her daughter, Mia.

Mia, now 17, has been riding since she was legally able to do so. Her mother had a lot to do with it, even purchasing her first bike, a Honda CBR 500.

“I liked that bike,” said Mia, but then she saw a KTM Duke 790, which was what she used to keep up with her mother enroute to Motorcycle Week.

The KTM and the Ducati have a lot in common. Both are from manufacturers with views of the Alps – the Ducati is Italian, the KTM Austrian. And both the Monster and the Duke are considered “naked” motorcycles – no fairings to hide the machinery, nor windshields to push the air aside, styled to look like super bikes for the street.

Mia said that, before she turned 16, she was happy enough to go for motorcycle rides as a passenger. Once she was old enough, though, her mother made it clear that she had outgrown the back seat.

“It was like kicking a little bird out of the nest,” to teach it to fly on her own, Mia said. She was nervous at first, but grew more comfortable after taking a course.

“I wanted her to ride, I didn’t want her to sit on the back,” Tina said.