RCMoeur 

This reminds me of the snotty kids I used to race against years ago whose mommies and daddies bought them full Super-Record Olmos, Rossins, and Colnagos who would scoff and snicker at my old beat-up Suntour-equipped Raleigh. Felt good to beat them every so often.

FBinNY 

I'm with you here. BITD we used to call those folks the "bike of the month club" (you probably need to be over 40 to get the reference). Bicycling has undergone a major cultural shift since the sixties when I started riding. Back then the bike crowd was distinct from the golf, ski, tennis crowd, and our sport attracted blue collar types who wanted easily serviced bikes that lasted.

Sometime in the late seventies or a bit later, bicycling became trendy and started attracting folks with more dough, and more interest in having the latest and greatest. Sometimes our worlds overlap, and someone with a pretty CF bike will ask me how old my Ti/Chorus 10s ride is. When I say 23 years, they'll look down their nose and say, "looks it" not grasping that I consider that a complement, considering the 40,000 miles it took to get it that way.

pdlamb

Not that I'm into reverse snobbery or anything, but...

It just hit me that there may be a few orders of magnitude separating various classes of bicycles. Your big-box BSO may hit 400 miles before it's left to rust in the garage. Your high-falutin' carbon bike might hit 4,000 miles before it's sold or traded. And then there are bikes like mine and yours, the bikes that have hit 40,000 miles and are still going. (Albeit with some parts replacements?)

OK, maybe I am a reverse snob. So sue me.

FBinNY 

You're only a snob if you project that onto others. One of the nice things about riding well worn, older bikes is that they act as sort of a filter, sorting the strangers who might stop to chat.

smd4

Was your Suntour-equipped Raleigh crap, or just old and beat up?

Are your going to tell us you were like Beng1, and beat everyone on your Varsity with the cables flapping in the wind and no bar tape?

People who think this is an inexpensive pastime amuse me. Even my son's entry-level bike cost $700.

FBinNY 

You need a sense of history. Back in 1967 before biking was chic, a top end Campagnolo Record/Reynolds 531 road bike (Shimano wasnt doing high end yet) would set you back $165 ($1,600 2024 dollars). You could spend a bit, but not much, more for custom built Paramount, Cinelli, or British bike.

Those bikes were easy and cheap to service and had staggering service lives.

As I said, the culture changed, and the industry went where the money is.

RCMoeur 

*plonk*

Rick_D

Can confirm. Had saddle failures two ways: mounting bolt failure and fracture of tension slides on early model Selle Anatomicas. Transition from seated to no-seat is surprising (TBF the SA doesn't technically leave the cycle).

TLit

I'm not a big bike rider these days, but back in the 80s I road everywhere with my Univega touring bike which was perfect for me. I'm quite content with my Centurion Le Mans, and get out as much as I can with it.

Sadly I've seen the sort of insecurity and grasping for every more impressive equipment in other hobbies like astronomy which they call aperture envy. If I have a lot of spare extra money I'd rather give to a good charity than feed my insecurities which never seems to make me happy or more sociable.

smd4

Luckily I'm quite secure in my equipment, which is ancient and not impressive by most standards here. My bike may even be as old as yours. But I'm not about to waste time (and money) trying to fix things that are essentially unfixable, when buying a new part for $15 bucks would solve the problem. Which I will note is the conclusion you also came to.

TLit

The seat must have come off when I put it in the back of my car, was not conscious of what was happening.

veganbikes

The saddle probably had been broken for a while and finally gave up the ghost. It has seen a long hard life and now needs to go to its final resting place. I understand that want to save certain things but a cheap saddle that I can easily replace and isn't worth the time and effort it would take to maybe extend the life for a short period is just not worth it.

grumpus

I used to ride into work on a faded and scratched old tourer, and regularly enjoyed passing the guy who worked in the other bike shop, grinding his shiny Colnago up the big hill.

grumpus

I enjoy my crap bikes and don't feel any need for shiny modern stuff.

smd4

Same here.

Vintage_Cyclist

Probably a Vetta saddle. Plenty of good used Vetta saddles on eBay at reasonable prices.

If you're dead set on Rube Goldberging that seat back together, perhaps you could stitch the seat fabric around the rails somehow. I'd still throw a foot or two of rolled-up duct tape in the saddle bag though, just in case there was a catastrophic seat failure and you need to duct tape your junk back to your body.

alcjphil

Sometimes, you have to know when to give up

gearbasher

But the modern stuff isn't shiny. It's mostly flat black carbon fiber. Nothing is as pretty as a lugged, steel frame.

Trakhak

It all depends on what you imprinted on when you were young. There's nothing inherently beautiful about a bunch of gas-pipe-diameter pipes stuck together at awkward angles. Modern bikes are modern art. Not everyone has to like modern art, of course.

That said, I've spent a lot of time sitting around admiring my beautiful bikes over the decades, starting with my Reynolds 531 Helyett Speciale track bike in 1964.