Not quite Italian

I've been noticing a trend in Craigslist classified ads to declare any bike with name ending in "i" or "enze" Italian, which in most cases is akin to calling a Pontiac Lemans French. What's in a name? Well, in this vein, I finally built up the Bianchi frame that began hanging around my basement this summer. While Japanese made and therefore not as authentic as Brendan's Colon-ago, it does rate over those Craigslist beauties by actually coming from an Italian company, for what that's worth.

I think this is a pretty bicycle

Well, it seems after attempting to get the trains running on time, shouting tora, tora, tora, and generally being bombed into submission, the old Axis powers finally teamed up to produce a very nice bike. Made of a Bianchi spec'd Tange tubeset, this light blue lady sports a stretched-out, relaxed-geometry wheelbase and just plain rides nicely. After my dissatisfaction with the ill fitting Shogun, I am once again very much at peace with the world old older bikes that can be obtained on the cheap. In this case, $30 for frame, fork, headset, seatpost, and some other bits I didn't use.

Of course, for $450, I could have had a Firenze GL5000?
(Actually, I did at one point; it was rescued from a dumpster but it never stopped being complete rubbish.)