Decided to ride the Sempre in to work this morning so I could take it over to Bikes and More to have a noise checked out afterward. It took forever to leave home because I kept remembering stupid stuff I had to do like clean a litterbox and bring in the paper. Since it was Sunday morning and I was running late I couldn't resist trying to beat my fastest time to work. I got there in just under 18 minutes on the Cortina on one golden Sunday long ago on a morning that will go down in cycling history.

So I hit the stop watch and immediately realized that it had rained the night before and the Sempre obviously has no mud flaps. I was wearing my work clothes and this was going to be messy. Undeterred I rode out. I wasn't going completely bat shit insane with the pedaling but it was a good effort. The backpack felt weird since I'm used to the panniers. I had to slow down in a couple of areas but pretty much hit all green lights. I arrived at the door of Walgreens at just under 18 minutes. So pretty much the same time as my Herculean effort on the Cortina. My pants were dirty and wet and the Sempre was pretty gunked up as well.

That afternoon leaving work one of the guys that works in the store saw the bike and was really excited about it. He likes bikes and is half Italian. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was actually made in Taiwan.

So I rode over to B&M. I walked in to hear Chandler exclaim, "I just assembled a tricycle!" I didn't want to know what that was about. Thankfully Brian was there. He made some joke about how fast the Sempre was. At that point I'd had it with everyone lauding this overrated bike. I explained my theory about how when I pedal at a certain cadence with no wind or hills it goes the same speed as the Imola did. His eyes got all wide and for a second I thought he was going to say "But he did the Thriller!". Instead he started with the whole carbon frame stiffness BS.

I was like whatever let's just deal with this chain noise. So he showed me how I could make it go away by pushing the shifter in halfway. Then he dropped some bike hitch science on me.

I rode home and gave the Sempre some TLC, cleaning the dirt off the frame and chain. Then I hung it back in the shed until next time.