On a cold January morning in 2013, smelling of petrol and still with the taste of the last beer he had drunk, Paco González was sitting in his garage at home with an iPad in his hand, looking for a pair of carbon fiber slip-ons for his Yamaha R1 as he wanted to replace the ones that came as standard on the bike, which were made of titanium. In the spring he was going to go to the Albacete circuit with his friend José Miguel, and of course, he wanted to use them for the first time there. He found a wide variety of models on European websites, but a much wider range on North American ones, with the added attraction that prices were close to 50% cheaper. Obviously, he opted for a model he found on a North American website, but when he went to buy them, he was unable to do so for different reasons.