I think I had a thread about karma once before and it struck again. I had an older woman(mid/late 60s) that I worked with numerous times and eventually purchased a bike from the shop I work at. She hadn't rode a bike since the mid 80's so she was a bit apprehensive and frail as she was sick for quite awhile. She must of weighed about 90 lbs soaking wet but I always enjoyed working with her.
So I hadn't seen her over winter or spring and just happened to run into her at the grocery store down the street from me and chatted for awhile. She begin telling me how she was sick and hadn't even rode her new carbon Trek Domane though she was feeling better but still leary of riding. I told her to call me anytime she wanted help on trying ride. A week went by and then she gave me a call on Saturday saying she was ready to try it out finally. She only lived a few minutes from me so it was pretty convenient.
So we started out just coasting with one foot on the pedal and dangling above the ground for safety. Mind you also that there isn't much flat ground in her neighborhood so it going from friction shifters on her Fuso to Ultegra 11spd on her Domane was a learning experience. Being her size she had really small hands and was really reaching for the levers even with the thickest spacer inserted.
Though once we got going and got her more familiar with the shifters we rode about two miles and called it a day. No crashes which was awesome and we talked about quite a bit besides just biking.
Now comes the karma part...She said she had a gift for me for helping her ride again that used to belong to her late husband and had no use for it. She told me to hold on for a second as she had to grab something from behind the house. She said he was one of those guys that liked to have the best of everything no matter how involved he was into stuff.
It nearly took my breath away as I was not expecting something like this.
Then gave me another set of wheels because she was going to toss them otherwise because she had no use for them. A set of Campag Record low flange with Ambrosio Synthesis Super Professional tubular rims.
The cool thing about her was that she wanted to learn more about cycling so I convinced her to take the beginners mechanics course at UBI. Funny thing is that one of our old employees is a instructor at the school and had her in class and said she asked the most questions throughout the entire class. lol. I told her that anytime she'd like to ride to give me a call and she'd have a riding partner.
This is my first Cinelli and never really looked into them much being I never expected to own one. It uses a 26.2 seatpost and has the three holes in the head lugs. Rear dropouts has Portacatena mounts and the rear derailleur was built in 81. The strange thing is it has a pedal with one ti and steel spindle. The serial is G 80254. I'm guessing built in 1980 and then it's a 54cm? Does the "G" stand for anything? Is this a Super Corse or something thing else? Also I'm planning on give it a OA bath since there's quite a bit of rust pitting on the lugs and fork crown not to mention any steel parts on the components. It's originally this pearl color but since it's been sitting in the barn so long the dust has also infused with the paint. I even tried a buffing compound and polish and the buffing compound almost soaked into the paint in a lot of the area and was a nightmare to get out.
But in the end I'm still amazed she gave this to me for helping her out and never expected something like this.