eja_ bottecchia

He is just not getting it, period.

eja_ bottecchia

I agree 100%.

People’s memories of what the good old days were like are often clouded by the fog of nostalgia.

As much as I loved my 1967 250SE, I prefer my current Cabrio.

During a collision I prefer to be surrounded by a sea of marshmallow-like air bags, than to be shoved into a hard steering column or have my head bounce against the windows or windshield.

Charliekeet

Ok, so there are definitely aspects of (insert your term of choice here) workmanship, quality, high-end materials, assembly methods, etc. which have slipped in top of the line automobiles, whether it be comparing the use of triple-paned glass and the like, or dashboard and switchgear robustness on a 1989 Merc S-class vs. one from the early 2000s.........

or craftsmanship in framebuilding and top-notch component choices in old Colnagos vs. this new déclassé one

but that’s a different argument to whether the new stuff is better overall. Of course it is! We just may appreciate the older ways more in some cases.

Reynolds 

This?



or this?

xiaoman1 

On this one, I prefer the first, in some instances, I am still a "luddite"
Best, Ben

HTupolev

I'd prefer the best of both.

I want a frame handmade by a cyborg!

BFisher

@Reynolds, Why either or?

I can appreciate hand-made craftsmanship as much as anyone. But legitimate criticism can go either way.

It's great to have the option to order a custom-made frame from a master builder.

It's also great to be able to buy a mass-produced bike that can tick every box that the purchaser has.

I mean, hand-made products can and do suffer from quality issues just like mass-produced products can.

See this article for the causes of the 7-Eleven team bike failures. Would anyone not call Serotta a master?

The cycling world is huge, and I think it's a good thing that it is as accessible to as many people as possible.

Ride on.

iab

False dichotomy.

And most people cannot afford your first option.

Chombi1 

You should have included a pic of a Chinese factory worker pulling a modern monocoque CF frame out of a vacuum oven. Point is, even the old C&V lugged CF frames required quite a bit more involvement/attention from a builder than what is being produced today......

Last ride 76 

The Duke was cool, but Jacques Anquetilwas faster, drank champagne , smoked Gaulois and won five tours.

rhm

Oh, I guess I misunderstood. I thought you were riding a Colnago....

pachyderm56

they may have had electric bikes figured out but the maginot line was kind of a failure

crank_addict

Like them or not, read about Trek and carbon frame production. 🏁

Link will not directly go to the article but when in the search, enter Trek factory visit.

BikeWonder

Meh. Basic laws of supply and demand at work and consumer interest.
Crazy how you can buy a factory/stock 700HP SUV from Jeep.

Or buy a middle class sedan by Mercedes.

Nothing is really novelty anymore, even with bikes.

Instead of "How the Mighty Have Fallen," it's more like "Where's the money at, yo"

Darth Lefty 

The constructeurs secretly made e-bikes for the Resistance that allowed them to easily outpace the Germans on their overweight, under-geared fallsturmjagerfahrrads. In an effort to save weight, hide their true nature, and retain a whippy feel, the frame was made entirely of batteries.

greenspark

Oops you have shifted the debate from bicycles to cars... dangerous ground. Recently, when my wife was in Europe for a month, I was driving our Toyota Ractis, purchased a year ago, and realised I could not stand it. Tinny with a CV transmission that was continually changing rpm. So I went on the hunt and found a Mercedes B180, also with CV but a world of difference. Quiet, smooth, almost as economical, sporty, huge hauling room for a small footprint and no door sill. The finish is pleasant and it cost me NZ$2,000 difference once I flogged off the Ractis which was four years older, but about the same miles. I bought my first Benz 33 years ago, a 1986 e-class, the last "real" Benz, and frankly find this B180 to be a better ride. I also own a SLK and a 82 G-wagon and find each to be a brilliant design fit for purpose. Haul 2 tons of marble in the back, take the G (rated for 850kg). Beautiful day, drop the steel top on the SLK. Go shopping, the B180 does the job. Go racing? Well, the 1969 boattail Alfa Spider needs to be put back together, which I hope to do before they ban internal combustion engines.

Now back to bicycles. When your only tool is a hammer, everything gets hammered. It generally is better to understand the job at hand and then seek out a tool maker who makes the right tool.

I discovered a three-person factory near Milan that makes bicycle frames using lightweight (as well as conventional) bike tubing. They have been doing so for over 50 years. I commissioned a one-off with no badge and no decals since they are a factory not a brand. I had hoped to set up a direct mail order for them, but global shipping costs more than the bike. Nice idea, but it's time has not yet come. When Amazon offers cheap shipping in Italy, then it will be a nice solution-provider for those who know what they want, and will ensure small businesses in Italy survive the onslaught of Chinese mass production.

Bikes are made for intended purpose, at least in Europe. City bikes absorb shock, ride upright so you can see and be seen (social not safety). Try to load too much on the back of an Italian city bike and the frame waggle is downright dangerous. Road racing bikes are face down, so even if you ride from Paris to Milan, mostly what you will see is pavement. Courier and long-haul bikes are stiff and heavier, and now are transitioning to ebikes, as are city bikes that are allowing older riders to not give up their utility in hilly or windy regions.

Then you have America. Americans can be divided into people who have no clue about bike intent and buy whatever the store sells them, and ultra-aficionados who become precious about bikes. For the former, it usually ends up being a spontaneous buy that soon is left in the garage gathering dust. For the latter, it becomes a sacred object, admired, discussed at parties and taken out in full regalia to impress others in the tribe and snear at mere mortals in their stinking cars trying to pass three-abreast riders asserting their road rights. More recently, the road warriors have been joined by the MTB clan. These emerged from the youth market where boys who grew muscles but never grew up found their kids bike needed more strength to crash down California mountains and not break. Soon the trend-setters found their bikes copied by Chinese firms with stickers warning the MTB should not be used offroad. Enter the clueless shopper who previously was seated on a road racer now being sold a "hybrid" MTB which means it looks like one, but, like too many SUVs will never be used off road... or for that matter used much at all, since it's not that much fun except when used to crash down mountains.

Next, one has the collector. When new bikes become old, some end up in garage sales where one in a hundred turns out to have been a brilliantly engineered tool selling for the same $10 Kmart bike next to it. Snapped up, lovingly restored and reported on bikeforums.net, it becomes an object of tribal identity, with a mix of love of excellence (a good trait) and measurement of the size of ones appendage (a bit primitive).

Finally, one has the businessman (yes very few are female). The businessman recognises that brands can have value, so he buys a premium brand that fell on hard times, and slaps it on a made-in-China bike where cost cutting was paramount. Collectors moan, clueless buy and we repeat the same cycle, pardon the pun.

Me? I have three Bella Ciao bikes whose frames are made in that Italian factory, as well as one frame made for me by them but without the Bella Ciao label for a lot less money. All of them have ebike kit motors attached, since we have killer hills and I am interested in transport, not purity with pain. I have a Velorbis with ebike kit when I plan to bring back a bag of cement on the ferry. I also have two cheap $45 garage sale aluminium frame bikes with ebike kits on them for our HelpX workers. My other experiments in retrofitting, like a 1951 Raleigh DL-1 have been retired as too much trouble and my 1972 Peugeot PX10 remains hanging from the ceiling, with perhaps 10 miles on it since I bought it new - a testimony to the clueless being sold a bike that was not fit for purpose. Oh, and I sold my Gary Fisher MTB that I bought in 1996 in 2013, again with about ten miles on it. I am a slow learner.

yukiinu

A, this is a bicycle blog and not a car blog, right?