As a semi-professional bike blogger and the Old Crap Test Pilot, I am in the privileged position of receiving all manner of exotic bicycles for my delectation:Ive really been enjoying this bike, and I suspect Paul takes great satisfaction in having turned me into a full-on wool-clad vintage Campy-shifting retrogrouch, only to send me an over-the-top crabo-tanium STI-equipped wondersled that has me questioning my values and everything I thought I stood for.Yesterday however I was in the novel position of receiving a classic bike from someone else.It all started last November, and heres the grossly oversimplified story: basically someone emailed me and said, Do you want my old bike? So I said, Yes! Then some time went by, during which I decided to get rid of a bunch of bikes instead of acquiring more. So I emailed him back and said, I changed my mind, no thanks! And that was thatuntil last week when he said, Oops, its coming anyway!, and yesterday it arrived via a Bikeflights/UPS collabo.Please note that I in no way mean to sound ungrateful, and there are way, way worse problems to have than people sending you bicycles. The bike was packed a little morecasually than Im used to, and if Im to be totally honest I admit I was half-expecting a cat to leap out:Fortunately there were no cats inside, or if there were they hadnt survived the journey and posed no immediate danger:All of this is to say opening a box of newspaper containing a grimy bike was a lot different from receiving a pristine museum piece from Classic Cycle, though its probably pretty close to the way Paul feels when he receives a bike back from me.And heres that bike:It needs work, but its got very good bones:Shifters are the pointy-topped Campagnolo Chorus:While the newer Campagnolo Ergo levers look like Cthulhu, the older ones look more like a friendly elephant:The hoods are in tatters, but the mechanisms appear to be functional:The rest of the drivetrain is a mix of Chorus and bits from other groups:And the gearing is what youd expect from a race bike this era:Hey, it may seem high now, but that 39-tooth small ring is luxurious compared to a 42.Wheels seem to be true, if grimy:And while the finish has its share of chips and scrapes and sort of evokes mildew in hew its obviously a very fine frame:Heres the Columbus sticker for you Tubing Freds:Insert your princess-and-the-pea, highly-attuned-scranus description of the ride attributes of this particular tubeset here:But I know you will anyway.And no, while the bracket and sensor are there, it did not come with the Sigma computer:Though I should probably check to make sure its not buried under that newspaper.In any case, its clearly a project, and one I dont really have time for:Though Ill make time for it anyway, at least get it rideable, and see where things go from there:Ill keep you posted.