High school best friends. Two states apart. One shared obsession.

We grew up together, then life did what life does. One of us went to Ohio and built companies. The other went to Florida and built motorcycles. Years later the thing that pulled us back into the same garage was the thing we had always circled: Ducatis. Not the new ones. The rare ones, the hand-built ones, the ones someone made fifty of, or one of.

In 2026 we bought a bike together, number 12 of 50, and realized we had never stopped being a team. Forgiati is what happened next.

Aaron is the designer. Akron, Ohio. By day he founds and runs software companies; the rest of the time he draws. Liveries, silhouettes, color stories, the brief that says why a bike should exist before anyone touches a wrench. Belta and Fiera, beauty and the beast, were his idea: one motor, two expressions, a sea-green frame as the only color in a black field. He writes the story first and then holds the build to it.

Phil is the builder. Daytona, Florida. A Ducati mechanic who has built more bikes than he will admit to, a vintage roadracer with AHRMA, and the man who knows which painter, which fabricator, which race shop to call. Where Aaron sees a line, Phil sees the bracket that has to hold it at 120 miles an hour. Engines out, frames bare, parts lists, fitment, the thousand decisions between a rendering and a running motorcycle. He is also why there is gold on this site. Phil likes gold on black. He is right.

Forgiati is Italian. The plural of forgiato, forged. Said on its own it means the forged ones. Every Forgiati leaves as a numbered one-off, signed on the tank by both of us, which is the whole point of the autographs on the front page. Two people keep signing the same bike.

We design. We build. We collect. We ride. Nothing here is for sale, and nothing here is finished.