madpogue 

(...manages to avoid coffee spit-take, but barely.....)

USAZorro

My story built in two distinct parts. The first began when I was about 5 and my uncle (who owned a bicycle shop), gave me a used 20" red thing. I had training wheels for about 2 minutes, and I was off. I didn't ride it an awful lot, but when I got the Fireball (he was largely a Raleigh dealer) for my 7th or 8th birthday, I was off and going... until I was 11, and my family moved to the city, and I learned my first hard lesson about bike thieves. I replaced it with a unicycle, and rode that for about 3 years before getting a U-08 in 1974 (he sold some Peugeots ... and Frejus in addition to Raleighs). I rode that quite a bit, then it got stolen in late summer 1976. That got replaced the next year, and that was also stolen in late summer 1977. I was then pulled aside and told that I would have to buy my own, but that I could have it at cost... which led to my first "very nice" bike - an 1978 Raleigh Super Course.

I had that throughout my years of college and as it was my mode of transportation, I put many, many miles on it - including an epic 200 mile ride to college for the start of my Junior year. After college, had to join the military to get a job that would lead anywhere (a BA in Psychology could land you a job paying 15K a year if you were lucky enough to find one in the lingering economic trauma that was 1981). Then one day, barely a week before my reporting date, I happened upon a bike that had been stolen from my (then late) Uncle's bike shop, and made the fateful decision to lock my bike to it while I verified that it had been stolen. I returned about 5 minutes later to find both bikes gone. I was heartbroken and very angry.

The military changed my life. Got a driver's license, a car, started a family, became much more sedentary... for about 20 years, I had nothing to do with bicycles. Then, while as a part of my son's Scout Troop leadership, the chance to participate in their C&O Canal tour opened to me. I took it, and being rather clueless, went out to Target and acquired Magna MTBs. That made for such a difficult adventure, and despite being out of shape, I knew that riding wasn't supposed to be that difficult. I jumped in and started trying to locate the bike of my youth. The rest is History.

cocoabeachcrab 

bought an Austro Daimler SL in '76 when i was stationed at Pease afb in NH. traded it in for a Vent Noir and OMG, i was in love... rode sun or snow or rain … starting my tinkering then with adding tubulars and a campy bits, brooks swallow saddle. it went with me to the UK and the Philippines, and then to Edwards afb. still have that bike. we are both symbiotic old campaigners together.

easyupbug 

I was upgrading every few years, last one is the only one I kept a 1995 Trek 5500 with lovely Campagnolo build by Trek. Then bought a custom Davidson and realized steel was my thing. Never looked back. That Trek frame is collecting a lot of dust.

scarlson 

I'm holding the C&V torch after my family dropped it in the early 2000s.

My family started me riding on an old Raleigh Pro when I was 13. All Nuovo Record. I was full of hormones and felt no pain when mashing the gears - I could fly. My parents rode a Ron Cooper and a very early Trek 720. They taught me bike repair on those old machines. That was my intro. Then in '99 they bought a couple of Santana tandems and an aluminum Trek, all with STI, which they fell in love with, saying they were easy to ride. Those bikes all felt awful to me. Heavy and slow and dead. Who cares about how easy it is to shift, if you don't get joy out of it? I went on a couple of long camping tours with them in my teens, riding the family heirloom Ron Cooper while my dad heaped praise on his new Surly as he lugged it over the Swiss passes. He always told me I was faster because I was young. Fast forward another decade of education and career-building, and I was looking to take some tours of my own. I test-rode a Surly, thinking maybe my tastes had matured - and I hated it! The fork judder and dead feeling in the frame were too much. I called my dad up and he was more than happy to send me the Cooper. "What do you want with that old thing?," he asked. I just smiled to myself. And I never looked back.

My younger brother was likewise turned off by the malaise of the early 2000s. Lance and ultra-skinny tires and rigid doctrine and internet flame wars did him in. He's reborn as an ultra-endurance mountain biker. My parents are still all-in, dragging around with disc brakes and lumpy compact handlebars and no frame-flex. I offered to 650b convert mom's old Trek, and they politely declined.

I joined this forum in what, 2010? Lurked for nine years before getting serious, mainly because I felt like I was just "some kid with crummy hand-me-down bikes" until recently.

I think there's something to that. The early 2000s was sort of a malaise-era, during which the doctrine of stiffness and tiny frames and skinny tires reigned supreme. Also Lance was kind of mean-spirited, and that jock mindset pervaded the community. Taken together, I think that all this drove people away. Some of them landed here

SJX426 

I've been riding for awhile before getting into "performance" bikes. My first 10 speed was a Bridgstone that I bought when I was 13, IIRC. first with drops. The next serious bike was a Peugeot UO-08 or equivalent in 1968 while in Frankfurt Germany. I bought a pair of sew-ups to go with it thinking I would use them on special rides, which I did. I also discovered Eddy M in that time frame. Europe was all a buzz about him.
My next bike was a Motobecane Le Champion purchased in 1973 when it was year old. I remember they were $315 at the LBS back then. Campagnolo became the judging factor of a quality race bike to me. This bike was hauled around from garage to garage for 30 years, rarely ridden. the Universals sucked so they were replaced with SuperBe because they were Campagnolo knock offs and so must be good. The rear barely reached the rim. I sold the set in the box for peanuts a couple of years later.
Around the date I joined, I wanted to know if the Le Champ had any value. Not much at that time. Then in 2009 I was in an accident with it, bent to heck. Since I was already cruising this forum, like many others, I started lusting after a Colnago. found it on CL in Hood River Or. of all places. Purchased it for <$500. Incredible ride in comparison. Hooked.

MiloFrance

Although Carbon bikes that are laid up by hand and genuinely full custom are available (I know of at least one company that offers carbon custom in 1mm increments...), it's relatively recent. BITD when carbon was a new thing for the masses, only the big boys could do the R&D and production, and they were (as mentioned above) soul-less. The status of the filet brazed or lugged frame made by someone you might have met and certainly knew the name of became more and more desirable. To me that places the date somewhere in the 90s when aficionados might have tried carbon, or researched it, and largely rejected it in favour of the feel and consistency of steel.

mechanicmatt

Bike bug came in the 80's as a wee spud. My brother raced Crits in Oklahoma City and I loved the bikes (he had a purple Cannondale Crit racer, Sante Fe parts). I had Chicago era Schwinn's that I did not like, so I wanted something better. 90's, I finally afforded my first bike bought myself (Trek 930SHX, lugged, Electric Plum) and had the shop replace the Rapidfire shifters with thumb shifters. I think that was my first sign of C&V tendencies. This forum plus a large bike old bike curmudgeon community in KC helped to realize that you didn't always have to purchase the "new thing."

Darth Lefty 

My grandad was a handyman, technician, construction worker. He started his family late by accident so he was already pretty old when I was little (he was born in 1897, me in 1977). I don’t know how he got started but he always had a pile of bikes in his backyard. I feel like it was mostly 3 speeds and 10 speeds. His retirement would have roughly coincided with muscle bikes and the bike boom. He told us he’d been fixing bikes for local kids but stopped because he felt taken for granted, his hospitality exploited. He made me my first bike out of his hoard. Late in his life after his wife passed away, he lived with us in Phoenix in the winter and in Cortez, CO in the summer. He rode every day, taking off with a plastic bag hooked on his 10 speed and coming home with cans to recycle. He was knocked off his bike by a car in Cortez and died in the hospital from a clot in 1989. I remember another guy in Cortez with a backyard bike pile picked over Grandad’s stuff and took little of it.

I've sometimes wondered if anyone here might have known him. I don't remember him being involved with clubs or racing. His name was Jesse "Bud" Byram, during my life he lived in Cortez CO, and Phoenix, AZ, and before that in Shiprock, NM and various places around CA.

Slightspeed

Me and the bike sort of aged into it together. I got this Legnano Roma new in 1964, as a junior racer, commuted to college on it, did a little touring, and hung it on the garage wall for 20+ years. I got it down when I turned 50, in 2000, and realized that we were both classic and vintage. I've got a couple of newish carbon bikes, and acquired a few old steel rides too, but the old Legnano is still my first love.


Me, on the right, and the Legnano, new in '64.

The two of us at Eroica last year, still rolling, but now C & V.

SurferRosa

The first week I moved to Seattle, I bought a new $1000 mountain bike. I quickly realized I'd need to drive it into the Cascades to use it.

One day, a friend let me ride his old Peugeot road bike. I fell in love. I quickly bought a Grand Record on ebay. My uncle then gave me his old road bike and I started buying more lightweights and rebuilding them...

In place of my former love of golf, this hobby/sport pays for itself and provides me more satisfaction when I restore all the former glory...

They're works of art. And I love art. Like music. Always have.

T-Mar

There's always been a small collector market for C&V bicycles. However, my observations are that things really started to pick up right around 2000. This was also the first year of a mini-boom in new bicycle sales in the USA. Much of the interest in cycling during this period can be attributed to the success of American competitive cyclists at the time. In addition to new sales, this resurgence sparked renewed interest for a large sector of former cyclists from the early 1970s boom era, who were now middle aged with sufficient discretionary income to obtain the grail bicycles that they could not afford in their youth. At least that how it panned out in my area. The boomers got back into cycling and started collecting their grail bicycles, then it started to trickle into other age groups.

BFisher

In around 2002-2003, I bought my first ever road bike. It was a 2001 Fuji Ace. I didn't ride it much as I got caught up in work, family growth, hunting for a while, and so on. In around 2013 I saw a pearl orange Schwinn Le Tour III for sale at an antique shop. I bought it for $60. When I started looking for information on it, I was really surprised how much was out there. Between this site, Sheldon's, Velobase, and others, so many people have documented so much of this stuff. It's really incredible how much knowledge has been shared, and I am appreciative of that.

So, I think of when those databases were started. The classic Fuji site, Classic Rendezvous, the classic Peugeot site, Velobase, Sheldon, etc. Documentation is a big part of a hobby like this. When people start amassing that kind of data, through so many different outlets, that's when it becomes more than just a casual pursuit among enthusiasts.

ThermionicScott 

C&V itself probably dates back to old-timers who didn't want to give up their ordinaries when the new-fangled safety bikes started coming out.

gugie 

Married, check. House, check. Kids nearly all growed up, check. Money saved for retirement, check. Always wanted a place to work on bikes that looked and felt like a bike shop, with lots of hooks to fill, yeah baby!

Blast from a past post: (courtesy of johnnyace ) : "...it was funny when one older gentleman looked at us and said, "Looks like you guys decided to pull the vintage bikes out of the garage!" Well yeah, because that's all we've got! As Andy ( Andy_K ) put it, "Otherwise known as 'the bikes.'"

Same. That and I don't know how to work on all this modern crap. Why should I need batteries to shift?

When I wondered off and bought a carbon fiber Allez, after 2 years of riding it I was going crazy trying to diagnose a clicking sound from my bottom bracket. Turns out it was separating from the downtube. Steel, baby, steel.

RobbieTunes

It was a dark and stormy night; I was looking for porn and typed in "leather saddles..."

RobbieTunes

Count me as one who just didn't know any better.

From my Free Spirit Bicentennial Edition, to my Varsity, and then a Trek 510, never thought anything was C&V. Couldn't afford an Ironman, spent more on music. Broke 2 friends' aluminum frames, lost interest. Didn't like the shorts or the helmets.

Life and 20 later, bought an Ironman from eBay for $135. Couldn't get it to shift, took it to a shop and she explained "brifters." Sold it for $300.

Saddles, helmets and shorts got better. Wrenching is not rocket science. Carbon feels funny. I just prefer some things to others, and steel frames are among that preference.

Besides , I can hide here from alien probes.

madpogue 

First brifter-cycle I got, the seller needed to show me how they worked.

Says who?

cadillacmike68

Oh man, Not going there.

But when I saw a 68 DeVile Convertible, arctic blue with white top and dark blue leather seats, I did take my wife out the second day to look at it. She liked it (I had a 1970 Fleetwood Brougham when we first got married - really large back seat.. (wink) ) and it brought back memories. That was almost 22 years ago. Still have her and the Cadillac.

repechage

When we got married she owned a '62 Chevy II 2 door, with a 327 transplanted by her father and an updated transmission in Bright Red no less. Badges were for the original 6.
She sold it, if we had kept it, it really needed front discs and a dual master cylinder. Too much engine and not enough brake. Did have stout antisway bars.

When I was a kid my father bought a string of Coupe de villes, interrupted by an XKE one year and one Riviera. No house, but always fresh iron.
I bought a house and drive 20 year old cars. The pendulum swings.

iab

I think people have been collecting crap since Grok sold his vintage marble wheel to Kron when he upgraded to the new-fangled granite wheel. Kron was looking to get back to the plush ride marble gives over granite. Plus the aesthetics of marble can't be matched.

I would also say the internet entirely changed every collectable market on earth. It provided access to everything everywhere.

satbuilder 

I got the bug in 1970, and it hasn’t left. Bikes have come and gone, sometimes life experiences necessitate their being passed on.
Different hobbies have also come along, fishing, bamboo rod making, trap, skeet, but the bikes always seem to win out.

The 80’s and early ‘90’s was a great time to pick up vintage bikes. I still kick myself for not grabbing the Confente that was advertised for either $3 or 4K. That was in 99 or 2000.

P!N20

I caught the fixie wave back in the late noughts (I'm still riding it, but it has been reduced to a ripple.) While it wasn't too hard to buy one off the shelf, the 'legit' fixie riders had steel track bikes from the 80's. My first restoration was an '82 track bike. When I decided some extra gears might make the long rides more enjoyable, it had to be 80's steel - probably triggering memories of my dad's road bike when I was bashing around on BMX's.

cocoabeachcrab 

i used to be an aircraft mechanic, (F-4's, T-33s, F-111's, C-130 "A" models), and i like older machinery. a bit of actual force to move gears, cables, mechanical parts... and a bit of elegance in their design. Bikes from the 70's and 80's (or before) have that feel for me.

clubman 

Dad had a heart attack just before I re-started college in 1980. They told him to ride a bike daily but his legs started to fail on him. He was then diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's so I got his contemporary Raleigh Lenton 5 speed. I broke the rear chainstay bouncing over a curb and bought a Superbe 3 speed and the rest is history.