Originally Posted by
JulesCW
V-O can be a good source for classic-ish bits and bobs sometimes. When it comes to frames and bikes it seems to me that they are trend followers -- look to see what Rivendell or Crust are doing and then a year later V-O will do their riff on it. In the past their quality control was pretty spotty, but I've not heard that's an issue now. I'm glad they are in the market, but not too much from them gets me going, but realistically virtually nothing at my LBS speaks to me, so I'm hardly an arbiter of current taste nor a bellwether of commercial success.
Yeah, years ago VO was more actively involved with road, commuter and touring bike rallies and what are now known as vintage bikes. Shimano greatly changed that scene beginning in the later 1980s when it introduced groupsets which eventually wiped out "mixing and matching" components, no more Frankenbike gear trains, for instance, and focused much more on MTB and various off road bikes, great for those into them but road/commuter/touring bikes got sidelined. And so to stay in business VO had to go with the flow.
But I have scored a few of VO's 126mm Dia-Compe freewheel hubs, very nice, and as you said there are some other tidbits too. Part of that has to do with Dia-Compe, of which VO is a D-C dealer and which does produce a broad selection of vintage-type components but D-C only sells its components in 100-unit wholesale quantities and it could be asking way too much to have VO stock all of the various components vintage-type bikes would need, so we get only a very limited selection.