Via Gardone 22, Milan · Ground floor, inside Motosplash
A doctor does not choose his patients
The workshop is an operating theatre and the bike is the patient: you open it, you look, you work out what is wrong, and then you put it back together. A mechanic is a mechanic — you do not pick a make or a type of bike, the way a doctor does not pick his patients.
Totò Le Motò, who came here to write about it, described it like this: bikes of every era, half stripped and polished up, scattered around the place like pieces of furniture.
Every part, photographed
The same thing comes up again and again in the reviews: photographs of every part replaced, sent to the owner, with the bolts marked and torqued. You see the work while it happens, not only when you collect the bike.
Respect the person who drew it
A modified bike has to stay the bike its designer had in mind: you touch what can be touched without betraying it. And it has to keep going, not just be looked at.
English is spoken
Bikes and owners come from outside Italy: from Germany, from Ireland. One of them, after the service, rode home to Ireland.
Totò Le Motò · 2016
A hundred and thirty thousand kilometres, and the engine opened on the bench
In 2016 Antonio Femia came back to Italy on his Yamaha Ténéré 660 after fifty-five thousand kilometres on the road, and brought it here. The bike had a hundred and thirty thousand on it, and plenty of people were telling him to give up on it. The account of that job is on Totò Le Motò: it is the only job in this workshop documented step by step by someone other than the workshop.
How it came in
- a litre of oil every eight hundred kilometres
- third and fourth gear jumping out constantly
- a general drop in power
“Why, do you usually see surgeons walking around Milan covered in blood?”Gianpaolo Serrao D'Aquino, to Totò Le Motò — to an officer who had told him his hands were too clean for a mechanic's
The engine out of the frame
Bike on the ramp, engine stripped and every part washed before looking inside it.
Piston rings and main bearings
The Minarelli single needed nothing else: that is where the oil consumption came from, and the main bearings were done while the engine was open anyway.
The PAIR system removed
Secondary air injection to the exhaust taken out, and the engine came out smoother for it.
Electrics lightened
Heated grips removed, halogen spotlights replaced with LEDs.
The photographs of the opened engine belong to Totò Le Motò and live on their site, not on this one.
Archive
The bikes that came through here
BMW R90 S
Shaded Arancio Daytona, standard cockpit fairing, “BMW R 90 S” and “900cc” badges on the side panels.
9 photographs →
Honda 500 Four
Seventies inline four, gold tank with a black band and white pinstripe, “500 Four” badge on the side panels.
7 photographs →
Honda 750 Four
Candy red with gold pinstriping, four headers and four chrome silencers, chrome mudguards and spoked rims.
10 photographs →
Honda Gold Wing
Metallic bordeaux with gold pinstriping and lettering, “Gold Wing” on the side panel.
6 photographs →
Moto Guzzi Stornello 125
Red frame and white tank with the “stornello 125” emblem, polished engine and casings, chrome exhaust…
7 photographs →
Moto Guzzi Airone 250
Horizontal single, external flywheel, foot gearchange: the Guzzi as it was built in the post-war years.
6 photographs →Address
Bring it here
The fastest way is the phone — English is spoken. On WhatsApp you can send photos of the bike, which usually say more than a description.
The workshop is on the ground floor, inside Motosplash: that is the sign you see from the street.
- Via Gardone 22, 20139 MilanGround floor · Motosplash
- +39 340 318 4417
- WhatsApp +39 340 318 4417
- info@serraodaquino.com
Opening hours
| Monday | 10:00 – 19:00 |
| Tuesday | 10:00 – 19:00 |
| Wednesday | 10:00 – 19:00 |
| Thursday | 10:00 – 19:00 |
| Friday | 10:00 – 19:00 |
| Saturday | 10:00 – 19:00 |
| Sunday | Closed |