mstateglfr 

Yeah...I'm not one to rip on others for wanting to ride tires wider than 23 or wanting gearing that is appropriate for 'the rest of us'.
Its 2 things I do to every c&v frame I have- put quality wider tires on and adjust gearing to suit my riding. Old sakae and Sugino triple cranks make for excellent modern compact ratios. 50/34 or 48/34. Inexpensive, still looks the part, and allows me to use the bike on more than just flat paved trails.

I am 39. Not sure if that is new generation, but I would argue it isnt, yet I want what you claim they want. Point is- itnisnt just them.

mstateglfr 

always great to see a black mountain frame! Looks good- plush, fun, and fast.

Andy_K 

I'm a numbers geek, so I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of how much I spend on bikes and how many miles I've ridden them. My most expensive bike (not vintage, FWIW) I've spent over $2500 on between what I paid for it and what I've spent on upgraded parts. Right now, that works out to 34 cents per mile that I've ridden it. I could give it away and I wouldn't have "lost" money in any meaningful sense. My vintage bikes get a lower share of ,my total mileage and so most of them have a higher per mile cost. My Stella, for example, currently sits at a whopping $5.62 per mile that I've ridden it. I don't have a good formula for the cost per times that it has made me smile just looking at it. On the other hand, riding the shorter "Piedras Blancas" route at Eroica last year cost me around $4.50 per mile and I don't expect to get that back in some way by selling the experience.

All this is to say that the only relevance to me as to whether the C&V market goes up or down is that it changes which bikes I'll be willing to buy. I'm pretty confident that I'll be about to find new owners for any of my bikes when I decide I don't want them anymore. For people who like to restore bikes and pay for their hobby (or even make a few bucks) by flipping them, I can understand that this works out differently.

HTupolev

I'm not just talking about the 19th century. You said 23-25mm: until tire clearances started crunching down through the 1980s, bicycles outside of road racing models usually came with tires 28mm or wider (including recreational road bikes, where sizes like 27 x 1 1/4 reigned).

Rolling behavior is a bit more complicated. The wider the tire, the less deformation occurs from a given amount of vertical deflection. The 25mm tires on my Emonda would feel extremely mushy if I rode them at 40r/35f, but the 2.1" tires on my gravel bike feel quite firm at those pressures with respect to pedaling and paved cornering, while still providing better compliance than I'd tend to get from a skinny-tired road setup at adequate inflation. Many wide tires exhibit very high rolling resistance on pavement, but that's in larger part because most wide tires are beefy and/or knobby than because they're wide.

At speed it's easy to feel big changes in the rotational momentum of the wheels in the bike's handling, but the actual performance effects are fairly subtle: mass at the rim creates the same gravitational resistance as mass anywhere else, and although the impact on acceleration is doubled, a couple hundred grams at the rim will still typically only increase an average bike+rider's resistance to acceleration by 1% or so (and you're still fighting other sources of drag, so even during accelerations, the impact on required power would be a smaller percentage).

I'm surprised you didn't mention aerodynamic drag, because it's usually the largest intrinsic cost of going to wider tires. (And if we're considering aero builds, there's also some opportunity cost, since very little aero equipment exists for super-wide tires.)

At any rate, I'm not saying that super-wide tires give up nothing to skinny tires on good roads. I just think it's not unreasonable for people to want wider than 25mm, that there are a lot of potential benefits, and that the drawbacks to erring wider are less extreme than usually made out. Even with the extreme 2.1" tires on my gravel bike, I sometimes take it on spirited road rides for variety's sake, and I'm mostly able to hang with pacelines of similar composition. (And it's certainly faster than a few of my friends' beefy-tired rain road bikes.)

Maybe we're looking at different demographics or maybe your area is just different. A little bit ago I met up with a 30-person casual road meetup that sampled a pretty wide breadth of sorts of cyclists. Looking through the photos I'm seeing two fat-tired gravel bikes (which their riders definitely also use for gravel) and one fat-tired commuter e-bike, and otherwise the tires all look like they're probably in the 23-32mm realm. People who went ultra-wide just to go ultra-wide definitely exist, but it seems like a small minority.

I agree about the merits of triples, and that 50-34 cranks often result in recreational riders getting caught "between the chainrings", but 53-39 seems like a silly solution to this problem. If you're setting up a bike for flatland riding and you spend a lot of time cruising in the 39-15, you're essentially never going to have much use for the higher gears on the 53T chainring. And if you're setting up a bike for mountainous riding, the 39T chainring won't provide decent climbing gears unless you're okay with a very wide-spaced cassette. In either case, the 53-39 is at best a weird compromise solution, and for many people in such situations something like a subcompact (to use as 1x-plus-granny) or a triple would be preferable (or just a 1x for the flatland person who needs very few ratios anyway).

Lazyass

Just because someone doesn't live in the mountains with HC climbs doesn't mean they live in the flatlands, and I don't lol. There's plenty of climbs where I live that get the heart rate up. But I'm not a weak rider and rarely even go into my biggest cog. I climb them on my 48x18 single speed which is actually the bike I ride the most, but I did just go to a 46 so I can keep the RPM's I like. I'm in the big ring a lot and on my A group rides I'm in it most of the time. Though I have no problem with a 50T big ring. A 50/39 would be great and would shift faster as well.

big chainring 

Interesting analogy. A revolutionary change in technology. Same goes for the bicycle. Very few poeople who take up cycling as a serious pursuit have any knowlege of bicycles from 30-40 years ago. Those bikes are, and I've heard the word used many times, obsolete. A lot of what were considered valuable collectibles and antiques have lost their value in the last twenty years. Bicycles fit in with that as well. The times they are a changin.

joesch

RE: don't have a good formula for the cost per times that it has made me smile just looking at it.

I consider my bikes pieces of art and do use them all.
For example, my Colnago C40 Art Deco paint job is in my living room along with my other pictures. I look at this bike more than all the other beautiful pictures and always think about my rides and next rides on it.

J.Higgins 

I can so relate to this. I'm still searching for my grail bike, and when I get it, it will never be ridden as long as I own it. It was Norman Maclean who said, “To him, all good things - trout as well as eternal salvation - came by grace; and grace comes by art; and art does not come easy.” I think of bikes in the same way. I'm not fanatical or evangelical about them, but I revere all things mechanical. Any bike is a work of art. Some more so than others, surely.

TugaDude

I might be in the minority but I like threads that are like trees. It doesn't bother me when they branch out. So long as you eventually return to the roots, all is good.

What I don't care for is when it gets personal. For the most part folks in the C&V area of the forum play nicely.

I loved seeing Nlerner's new ride. It is probably the epitome of the current do-it-all, practical bike. There is a lot to like.

I appreciated many of the comments but the opinions that hit a chord with me are that the "typical buyers" of vintage road bikes are getting older and they are not really in the market anymore and the fact that demand for vintage bikes seems to have shifted to vintage MTB's.
I have noticed pricing on my local CL jumping up on MTB's while road bikes seem to languish for months, even at low prices.

sheddle

since the secret with vintage MTBs is out (just like what happened to Japanese road bikes), the new value segment is 15-year-old hybrids. Anyone want a Trek FX 7.2 for $500 :V


(actually one of the *best* value segments is aluminum road bikes in that 10-15 year old range. local shop with a used section was selling an old Giant OCR with 105 for super cheap and I always think that would be a fantastic way for someone interested in road cycling to get started, even if it's not "classic")

HTupolev

I wasn't saying you were, that's why I described a couple of cases.

I also wasn't saying you're a "weak" rider: I think that the vast majority of people on road bikes have relatively little use for the top-end on a 53T chainring on a modern road bike, and that's actually my point. And you're sort of implying this as well by acting like everyone should be okay with vintage road doubles, since they typically had 13-tooth or 14-tooth small cogs: a 52-13 is the same ratio as a 44-11, and a 52-14 is roughly the same ratio as a 41-11.

Biketiger

I'm the OP and I learned so much from your guys' responses. From details to the damaged stay I would not have observed to the many comments and ideas about a changing market. Interesting parallel to vintage mtb bikes being in demand and the reasons - wider tires are popular on all types of bikes - a limitation with some older frames. If technology is a factor, and I think it is - a racing bike may be especially vulnerable to being overlooked - look at the racing bikes today! People with multiple racing bikes have carbon, titanium, custom...If they have a vintage one at all there may be only room in the stable for one - not the way it was 10, 20 years ago.

Another huge factor is the buyers age. A guy who's 35 today was 15 in the year 2000. STI shifters had been out for a decade by then - since our guy was a toddler. Going back beyond that is a generation gap and these folks are getting older. I also agree that sites like ebay, craiglist and social media listings have flooded the market with all sorts of bikes and instruments that used to be hidden away. If you're in the market for vintage whatever - these are good times to look.

clubman 

30 year old hybrids are even better. There's a pristine Miyata Quickcross locked up in a snowbank downtown here that's making me crazy. It was a 9.5 out of 10 before the snow. I'll hate to see it in the spring.

RiddleOfSteel

The longer you stick around, the more you'll find that we're a lively and opinionated bunch.

I exactly resemble the 35 year old guy, though my first foray into grown up bikes was, well, perhaps a 26" Royce Union MTB when I was a teen or just before. Or really a 1985 Schwinn World Sport that was way too small for me. Stem shifters, baby! I'll ride down tube, bar-end, or STI shifters. Depends on the build. I appreciate them all for lots of reasons.

Interesting to hear that vintage MTBs continue to really take off. I've known for a little bit that they make excellent (city) commuters as they are rugged, stable, have tons of tire + fender clearance, and dirt cheap. Add in some super sweet paint jobs and a 'customer' base that cares not too much for lugs vs. welds (like, to the high degree that us vintage roadies do), and the world is one's oyster. That makes it a bummer for the vintage road bikes in some ways, but then...eh, what are we going to do? I'm at the point that vintage frames get built with STI/Ergos and priced decently because 1) It's a built bike 2) it functions in a modern, appealing fashion 3) yet is still classy and affordable. The market for complete vintage 63cm+ bikes is small. The market for that size of frameset to buy and build is even smaller. There are what, a couple dozen of us total? Hahaha.

ctak

On the topic of the parabolic fat tire freak fest and the sorry state of public infrastructure: FLUNK for the next ASCE study? The last report card's D+ rating: https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/
The trend is your friend

ctak

Love me some Miyata 90s x. Some guy went to town on his sportcross

sheddle

That Miyata is spicy hot

The reverse of putting flat bars on a RB frame isn't exactly uncommon but I swear to god I saw someone here parked with cruiser bars on an old Kestrel monocoque frame and I wish I had taken a picture because it was the best bike I've ever seen

himespau 

I never understood why the early 90's iteration of the Specialized Sequoia never took of. They basically took a Rockhopper (I think, pretty sure it wasn't a Stumpjumber) frame, moved the canti posts to accomodate 700c tires, and added a braze on to the seat tube to so you could control a Union generator light. Sturdy tubing, lots of clearance (well, relatively, I think you could only fit 700c x 38 if you used fenders, lots of braze ons, it seemed like a great idea. If only the frame I have in my basement were ~5cm larger than the 58cm it is, I'd have built it up long ago. I keep thinking about doing it with a long seatpost and a big stem, but then I think about the other frames I have to build up first and it keeps getting put off.
I'm with you completely on that. As someone who is 40 and grew up with a mtb that had SIS shifting, I can appreciate downtube/bar end shifters (and have been known to use them in friction on a commuter that I didn't care if it got banged around), but I just don't have the nostalgia factor for someone who grew up with those.
Yeah, the limited market for our sized frames has led me down the dark path of buying things too small and trying to make them fit. On the other hand, once I got rid of those, my stable is much smaller than that of many of the people here, and my wife appreciates that (or she would if she knew what I wish I had).

joesch

I found it interesting looking at the Bicycling 1994 specs for the road racing bikes.
Most of the bikes in the $400 to $900 had Shimano RX1000 or 105 components and were CroMo or Alu.
The bikes over $1000 starting offering Campy Veloce or Shimano STi / Ultegra with Columbus, TT, 6061 and some Carbon when the prices got closeer to $1500.
The bikes over 2K were providing Campy Chorus, Record and Dura-Ace with some of the lighter steels like MAX, TSX, EL OS, Genius, Ti, and higher end Reynolds 753, 653, 731. The high end listing were 5K .. 6+K and Campy Record, Mavic Zap, and Dura Ace with some of the nice Ti tubing. Many of the famous make Italian bikes were not included like Colnago. Some interesting list price memories.

Manu431

There are two sorts of people looking for vintage bike in my opinion.

People like me in their 50's , who had such a bike younger, and other people following the "vintage" trend and or people wanting to speculate.
Same phenomenon with cars.

There is always an history behind a purchase and or renovation, not just a price.
I will probably never trade my "cheap" gitane bike even for a "better" one, just because this is the bike I had for christmas as a young boy. There is an history behind and I like it like it is, even without fancy campagnolo etc...
and I don't really consider to upgrade it. It is like it is.

I am also ready to invest some money in a bike which will remember me for example some moment I had with my parents waiting for the Tour de france passing by at the end of the 70's / 80's
I remember clearly these great racers passing by, Thevenet, Hinault, .......and so many others.
I always go to the tour de france from time to time, but it is not the same anymore. Not the same feeling, to much pro.

I admit I had almost no interest for riding racing bike during about the last 25 years (made a lot of XC moutain bike instead in the 90's), but now it is growing on me.
Maybe because i am a father myself and I want my son to know a little these bikes now that he is 15 years old now.
It is important to me that we do that together, and that he knows that it is a nice and rewarding experience to put an old bike on the road again.

As I am working on rebuilding my gitane, i have seen the interest of my son. I already know he will ride it more than me, because he LOVES bicycles.
And I already purchased a Mercier we will do for him, (and that should be a better bike as my Gitane)

RiddleOfSteel

@joesch Thank you for those photos! Man, $1049 for a Shimano 105 bike? Over $1800 now, which, compared to the level of bike gets for $1000-1100 now, we really do have it good today.

Wileyone 

We had it good before too.

Chombi1 

Heck!, I just noticed a lot of French C&V components being priced crazy high again after they went a bit down for a while. I dunno what's causing this price blip.....

RiddleOfSteel

Yup, and I ride those frames!

bark_eater 

I'm hitting a saturation point for picking up potential projects and realizing that its the loss of time to sell stuff or fix up to flip is more significant than market fluxuations. The oportunity to master another dead trade still has value. About the Miyata, I was measurring up a Triple Cross I pulled out of the scrap yard, and If fixed it up for myself the seat post would be almost as high as this one, and Im just getting to where I'm comfortable with some handle bar drop. Is the super extended seat post a style thing? Does the bike get my time to find out if its rideable, or do I evential drop it off at the co-op?...thats my addition to thread drift......