When is a bicycle considered "vintage"?
 

And what factors are considered -

Age?
Design parameters?
Frame and component materials?
Other?

Just curious.

Thanks in advance,
Rick

Steel with downtube shifter bosses built before '91

The problem is the Cannondale, which is vintage, but not "vintage". Alan and Vitus classics goof that up as well.

I think Cannondale and Vitus ushered in the new era with the big tube and glued carbon fiber. I have yet to ride a carbon fiber bike incidentally.

For me, a bike that is 25 years old qualifies as vintage.

Ask 10 people, get 20 opinions.

When someone is willing to pay more than you think the bike is worth.

Hahaha!

25 years according to the automobile industry..................... when you go to register that is.


IMO....it's anything up to 1980 :)

There is no answer one to this question.

Here on Bike Forums we're a pretty inclusive bunch. Post up pics of what you have.

For me it's when mainstream manufacturers switched over from lugged steel for their high-end bikes to aluminum frames.
Depending on the sort of bike and manufacturer that can be as late as 1997 as can be seen in this timeline animation I made from the Koga-Miyata brochures for the SilverAce.

And even then it can be fun to see that some manufacturers continued to make aluminum frames with steel forks up until 2004.

https://i.imgur.com/Gq5zXAV.gif

When it’s old.

Nice slideshow JaccoW !

If I like it it's "Classic."
If it's older than my daughter it's "vintage."
If it's older than me it's "antique."

All moving targets.
Brent

When it's old & red. https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3cd4f960bd.jpg

When it looks like this....
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...9ebb2e752.jpeg

We already decided the cutoff is 1988.

I don't accept a date that is barely a year after I was born. At the very least let me get some bikes in from my youth. ;)

You're too young to know what vintage is. :50:

I agree with this. "Vintage" specifies an age, not a criteria of someone's opinion about it's build, materials, or componentry.

"We"? Who is we?

The collective "c&v we." I'll try to pull up the thread where we all decided this very democratically and judiciously, but it may have been permanently removed to protect voter anonymity. Several votes didn't count for a host of serious issues, including lack of voting rights, gross lack of experience, and improper stable. You may have fallen in one of those categories or were out of town. The next vote on this topic is planned for 2032, so be sure to participate in accordance with our bylaws. Thank you.

I think this is the point where I say: #OkBoomer :P

There's a certain smell.

Hard to describe, but you know it when it hits you.

Hey, I'm not quite that old though (I'm Gen X)! :p I would agree with your timeline on vintage bikes though. That would cover the bikes I was riding when I was in my teens/early 20s (and that I traded for a 15" delta thicknessing planer during a period when I wasn't riding :cry:).

Vintage = When bikes were lugged steel. Better ones were butted CrMo. End of discussion.

So what you are tounge-in-cheek saying is, some members of BF C&V simply weren't smart enough, or privileged enough, or qualified enough to know how to vote on the issue? Interesting. Maybe we need a suffrage movement... :)