Italian stool

My (David's) coworker, being the ethnicity-boasting 20th generation American that he is, constantly plays up his Italian heritage. Of course, in doing so, he constantly boasts about the superiority of Italian bicycles. This faux nationalism on his part, combined with his preference to shun all things practical and utilitarian (especially if they're inexpensive) has led him to believe that apparently the more affordable British made Raleighs and American made Schwinns have a tendency to fall apart in a hefty head wind... this from a man who has managed to collapse his share of expensive Bianchis. In fact, this coworker has gone to such extremes as to correct my pronunciation of the word "green". To Bianchi aficionados and other crazy people, the proper way to say green is Celeste.

Now even though this coworker of mine is usually incorrect when it comes to just about everything, I began to think that maybe this one time he was partially correct, and that Bianchis were not entirely useless. So I decided to put my new theory to test. As it turns out, he was partially correct. I took an old Bianchi that the Super Rookie (soon to have his own blog) had left in my garage several years ago, and I made a couple of modifications so as to improve its overall utility.

As you can see from the photos below, the modified Bianchi now offers almost as much practical utility as some of my other bicycles. I can't wait to let my coworker know that he was actually correct for a change. I'm sure he'll be overjoyed with the news.