kunsunoke 

Look for bikes with beautiful lugs (Nirvex, Bocama, Cinelli, Capella, etc), made from top-end tubing sets (Columbus SL, Nivacrom, Brain, TSX; Tange #1, #2, Prestige; Vitus 981; Reynolds 531, 631, 753; Ishiwata 022, EX) by people and organizations that cared about what they were building.

Start here - Classic Rendezvous

You can install modern indexed shifters and still retain that C and V feel, particularly if the shifters are bar-ends or down-tube mounted. 8-speed Campagnolo Ergopower also works. Vintage rims can be equipped with modern hubs in the same spoke counts. The advent of tubular mounting tape removes the single biggest obstacle to using classic tubular/sprint tires - which have rides superior to clinchers and are much safer.

Modern cranksets and high-profile carbon wheelsets look ugly and out of place on vintage bikes, though.

smd4

Didn’t quote the full post to save bandwidth, but all excellent advice.

genejockey 

I agree with this, in fact that's what I've done for several bikes.

One is a 1995 Ritchey Road Logic, which I bought new in 1997. It came with the 7410 8 speed Dura Ace, right as the 7700 groupset was coming out (so I got it for a bargain). I kept it with all the original components till 39x25 got to be too tall a gear for the local hills on my aging legs, but all I did was to replace the STIs, the RD, and the cassette with 7800 to give me more, and smaller gears.

Another is an early 90s Battaglin frame made of Columbus MAX tubing, which I bought in 2007, repainted, and built up with 10 speed Chorus - the last of the bright alloy Chorus. That build is now 14 years old, so I guess it's getting to be C&V itself, rather than retro-modern!

Most recently, I bought a 1995 Litespeed Ultimate with worn out components, but a solid frame and fork. I build that up with r8000 Ultegra two years ago.

So, a bike from that era can be either kept with the original components which may include brifters and 8+ speeds, or it can be rebuilt with modern components pretty easily.

miamijim

Campagnolo Record components
Italian frames

Stay away from anything that’s not listed above.

The Golden Boy 

IMO/IME- Read, look at pictures, see what actually trips your trigger. Daydream about it. Read more. Learn parts. Learn what parts do, when they were made, and their reputation for how well they work and how reliable they are.

There's a lot of people here that get dozens of bikes in and out the door- I would so much rather get what I like and go from there. The people that go through lots of bike know a lot more about a lot more different things than I do but I've dumped a lot of money into bikes and things that I was actually interested in- I can't imagine the financial hemorrhage just buying bikes scattershot.

I'm the "legacy" type person- I have old guitars, old stereos, old computers... and I tend to get obsessive about my interest in my interests. I took up biking when I quit smoking, my bike happened to be the bike I got when I got out of the Army- and it just had been sitting at my parents' house for 15 years. I thought it looked cool, and I started learning about it- and that's a lot of what formed my taste in bikes. There was probably a good 5 years of figuring out what made "my bike" cool to me, and deciding what I liked and didn't like about it- and then translating that to a bike that had the properties I liked of my bike, and didn't have the things I didn't like.

As far as modern parts on an old bike. To me the frame is the important thing, there's bazillions of parts to hang on it... but when you find the frame that has what you want- then you can think about parts. IMO- there's parts that all work together with most everything, there's parts that only work with things they're designed to work with- and then there's parts that work great AND have the proper aesthetic. Some people believe a vintage bike should only be built with what came from the factory. There's some people that'll put "working parts" on a bike to get it going. There's some people that build up old bikes with modern black carbon swoopy parts. There are 'modern' parts with modern functionality that are shiny silver and actually look good on old bikes.

The long and the short of it is- I think you should figure out what you like instead of just blindly going "Bianchi! Campagnolo!"

I guess the other basic thing is, put aside a "bike fund." Put it somewhere safe that you won't pilfer from it, but easy enough to get to when you need it when THE bike pops up. There's nothing like the heartache of seeing your DREAM BIKE listed locally for a realistically attainable price, and you don't have the liquid cash to get it.

Good luck!!!

nlerner

Buy high, sell low! It’s the C&V way.

52telecaster

It's all about the education, which isn't free. Such a blast figuring stuff out though!