By a great stroke of luck (and charity) a friend of mine offered to sell me a couple of his bikes. He hadn't ridden them in years and decided to stop "kidding himself," and sell them to me at a charitable price.

Since I had essentially been N-1 since giving my daughter my old Schwinn Fastback to ride to work (yay!), there was room in the stable, so I took him up on the offer.

One of the bikes is a 1996 Colnago Decor with Dura Ace components. What a wild color scheme! Silver with purple, magenta, and charteuse highlights. And of all things, BLUE tires.

I found out pretty quickly that the 1996 Dura Ace drivetrain components are an odd animal ... an 8-speed system that is completely incompatible with anything that came before or afterwards. So much for changing the drivetrain for components that give me lower gears than currently (38/26).

I ride a lot in the mountains, but the 38/26 works fine. It just means I need to stand up more and focus on my pedaling technique.

What has amazed me about the bike are the number of compliments I get on it. I've received more compliments on that bike in 4 weeks than I have received about all of my other bikes combined in 20+ years. This weekend, a guy even asked to take a picture of it. I asked why, and was told "It's not something you see everyday."

True enough. I guess it does stand out, even in a cloud of carbon fiber superbikes. I've always liked classic bikes, but had no idea so many other people did.

So anyway, here she is in all her glory. I'm ditching the blue tires in favor of silver/gray ones and getting a different seat bag.