Last weekend we helped a dear friend pack up her 3000 sq.ft. house, 3 car garage and two sheds so she could move back to KC, after she moved out here in '01 to resume a relationship with her high school sweetheart. Said sweetheart was cgallagh's best friend; they spent hours hang gliding and we wimmens drove the vehicles that tracked their cross-country routes.
The last weekend of Oct. '06 Steve died in a horrible accident (flying an ultralight to pull the hang gliders up to soaring altitude). Our world, and our friend's, were shattered. (Sidebar: Get a will! Better yet, get a living trust. But get a will!)
Two years later and she's decided to sell the hang gliding business her fiance' had, and move back to be closer to her family and his. He was an electrical engineer and never threw away anything. Seriously. He was a genius and holds 3 patents that we know of, took excellent care of all his toys. We found his books and plats from his masters program. We filled a 20 cu. yd. dumpster with "stuff."
Sunday night and all the other help left, so the 3 of us were winding down and made a last trip into the garage. We found a cardboard box with the name of a bike shop on it. We opened it to find a bike box. We opened that to find a gorgeous Simonetti that had been in that box for about 10 years. While I was exclaiming (all I could say was "Oh. My. Gawd. Look at this!" about 1/2 dozen times), she gave it to me.
I was rendered virtuallly speechless.
So we finally got time to deal with it on Thursday. I took pictures, and here's the link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...3&id=522282597
I rode it briefly. It's a tad big for me. It fits cgallagh perfectly. With a new seatpost I'll be able to ride it but it won't be the fit that the Diva is...but for short rides it'll be fine. It's so pretty. The pictures don't do it justice.
Steve and I used to have spirited debates regarding the superiority of Campy v. Shimano. I can only imagine the groan from the other side when we put Ultegra pedals on the Simonetti.
