Old, but still going strong

Here's a shot of a bike of unknown make or vintage. It was given to me by the family of Heather's colleague when I saw it in the corner of a shed at their "country house" back in November. We could not rent the place because of lack of internet availablity but they said I could have the bike anyway. It was supposedly used by the father or grandfather to haul his fruit and vegetables to market in Viterbo. The dusty relic needed a fair amount of work though it was supposedly restored -- paintwork looks like it was done with a brush! But just like the battered and tattered Fiat 500's trundling around the streets of Italy, this bike deserved to be used again. Once we arrived this month and still had the car, we retrieved it from the shed and dropped it off at "Tomi" the local shop (this will be another story for later) for repairs. It needed a new rear wheel, new hand grips, tires-tubes-rim strips and some general cleaning and oiling to run again. Larry's always loved the simplicity of these single-speed, rod-braked bikes and plans to restore this one a bit more (perhaps making the lights work again?) when/if we move to Italy for good. For now it's chained up outside our apartment, ready for when he needs to venture outside the medieval walls for something that can't be found inside. Yesterday that was a computer USB cable so off he went to the commercial center -- it's sort of fun jousting with the auto traffic as none of it goes very fast around the congested streets and most motorists share the road pretty well -- it IS Italy after all! Whether the poor thing will be stolen or vandalized while locked up in this location is another story, but only time will tell.