cudak888 

Depends. Suntour V/Vx/VG-T's are entry-level parts, but the fact everyone talked them up over the last 10 years have unreasonably increased the perception of their value. Too many idiots asking big money for them, and even bigger idiots are paying north of $40 for them, even though they shouldn't bring a penny over $20.

-Kurt

mhespenheide 

I don't pay too close attention to the C&V market, but what I do pay attention to has (nice steel frames, mid-level or better parts) drifted down in the last year. To my eye, prices climbed sharply in the first few years of Eroica California as it spiked general interest in the genre. Prices started to drift downwards as those buyers picked up the one or two frames that they wanted and no new demand stepped in after that. Prices stabilized or even climbed slightly at the beginning of the pandemic as no new bikes were available. Now those prices are falling again.

lasauge 

As a younger person with an interest in C&V bikes, I'd add to this conversation that a large part of what initially drew me to them about 10-15 years ago was the reality that nice older bikes were practically all I could afford back when I was a college student living with parents and working various jobs in addition to attending classes. Sure, I like/liked the aesthetics and learning about the history, but I don't think I'd have gotten into vintage bikes if I'd had more money or didn't live in a place where it was relatively easy to find them on Craigslist and go to swap meets. So as time passes and good bikes from before the 1990's become scarcer and scarcer, it only stands to reason that fewer people will find themselves in circumstances that attract them to this niche of the cycling community and it will shrink as current members age out.

And to speak frankly, though I still enjoy reading the C&V forum, I don't really ride C&V anymore. I still have one bike that qualifies and 2 retro mods, but the overwhelming majority of my riding is done on fancy new bikes with better brakes and wider gearing.

mstateglfr 

I took his rant about disc brakes to be a dislike for current tech trends. The poster also cried about pressfit, internal routing, carbon, thru axles, and more- all that was, to me, just complaining about how it isn't easy to work on bikes now. C&v bikes can't take any of those things, nor do they need to.
So from that perspective, the complaining about disc brakes is just the rants of someone who simply dislikes change.
That poster, to me, clearly doesn't want to use modern euipment at all.


Now from an updating perspectice, I agree it's frustrating to see options dwindling. I posted about how less than 105 will be required moving forward and that is lame.
Maybe I will use Microshift 11sp for the next build.

nlerner

It can, indeed: https://archercomponents.com

merziac

Ingrid is pretty cool, not really in my wheelhouse or budget but pretty cool for sure.

guy1138

Truth. I have only stripped and sold like three low end, vertical dropout frames in the past few years. And I live in a hipster town, where people are still riding fixed. But bike theft is terrible here, so they also make good single speed beaters for someone willing to do a swap meet/co-op build.

Here they've exploded, and not just the high end. 26" is back, and anything with cool paint sells very, very quickly. People realize they make great all-around bikes. It's especially popular to build them up into 1x rigs with used 10speed parts. I've done great with the old 700c flatbar "cross" bikes too, since they make great gravel bikes.

I do pretty good with mixtes on the low end. Mid level is good too, as long as it's the "right" brand. Miyata, Bianchi, Bridgestone, Centurion do great. Trek is good too. Schwinn is OK. Specialized & Cannondale are tough because sellers want too much for them.

I lucked out though, I bought bulk housing and cables about 2 years ago, so my margins are a bit better. I was hurting for chains and tubes, though. Lots of chains in evaporust and tubes with multiple patches.

merziac

My interest does and will continue to be unwavering, regardless of all else.

Cold, dead hands and all that.

I have enough crap, stuff, gems, jewels, oddities and beauties to keep me busy for another whole lifetime, which I do not have.

I will be the diminishing returns part of the equation.

And FWIW, I think there are two very disparate schools of thought here.

Buying, fixing and selling is a completely different thing from buying, futzing, collecting (hording), swapping and drinking Kool-Aid for fun and enjoyment.

I almost never sell anything, hence a big pile and no money, fine by me, I can build most bikes from stock on hand unless I want a really cool obscure part I don't have in stock so then I break down and buy it.

I have stepped up when needed plenty of times and gotten many smokin deals as well so the ledger is what it is, nothing I can't live with.

I realize many here have and do pay for this foolishness with buying and selling and its fine by, but not for me, don't have the time, energy or inclination for any but my own for the most part.

So while the question covers both schools, the buyers and sellers are the ones truly in the mix at the crux of it, IMO.

RiddleOfSteel

FYI: Shimano makes 36H hubs for the now-nearly-currrent R7000 generation of 105. I seen it with my own eyes in a bike shop!

zastolj

I do know pressfit bb:s have technically been around for a long time. And I know and admit we have had many bb threaded standards over a longer period, ITA, French, Swiss, English to mention examples. French have made up their own standards on everything seemingly just for the sake of it. But nationalities are no longer a part of this picture. Big global companies are protecting their own interests with patents and their marketing departments with the only incentive being money. My point is; we could have settled on a international standard or two. Is that not how development should occur that in the end we find the ultimate universal solution? But instead we have developed dozens of new standards and made everything worse for the end consumer and people who buy used bikes and there is just no end in sight. I think, or rather I hope this is not what we the consumers wanted.. It´s the companies that have invented the needs. They are replacing old problems with different ones. I really think the industry is moving towards the Apple way like you described, in fact why would they not.

El Chaba

To add a few more points to the discussion…..Bikes were infinitely more easily serviced in the past. When I first got interested as a teen in the mid 70s, all of the cyclists that I met did their own work, save for some things like pressing in headset cups, building wheels or the like. It continues to amaze me how much work you could do on a Campy equipped bike from that period with a T wrench, an L wrench, a peanut butter wrench, and a small flat bladed screwdriver. The bike industry has moved from having standards based on country of origin to complete disdain for any standards at all. Yes, there were multiple standards in the day, but there were three, easily recognized. In the US, there has always been a hatred toward the French standard, but stems mostly from it becoming the odd man out with the wave of Japanese brands from the mid 70s onward. The irony is that the French standard was the ONLY zone truly based on the metric system as the rest really were bastard combinations. Once dominated at the top end ( mentioned as that is where the trends were set) by craftsmen and small craft oriented companies, the industry is now dominated by large corporations. The balance has shifted from providing the market with what it demands to having marketing departments to create demand. Prior to the pandemic, sales of quality bikes had been flat or declining for more than a decade. The industry shifted to being a “new product” industry to prop up slow sales. That is they continuously introduced new “innovations” to sell more product to the same people involved in the sport. The cynic might refer to these “innovations” as planned obsolescence. The last real meaningful improvements, IMHO, were clipless pedals, integrated shifting, and light and strong aerodynamic wheels.

cudak888 

I wish some of those posting in this thread would remember that there are standards for using paragraphs. I'm glazing over just trying to read some of this.

They did it BITD too, they were called Simplex Prestige and Shimano Positron.

Make no mistake, I fully agree with your position on planned obsolescence, but so long as there is a workable way to service a new design, I'm not against innovation either.

Mind, I said innovation. Things like manual electronic shifting aren't innovations that make bicycles better, in my book; it's one of the most pretentiously precious things ever added to an analog bike. Added weight, more e-waste potential, the need to charge the darn thing, and compatibility all piled on just because someone would rather push a button than press a lever? Oy.

Until you have to service a bottom bracket. I'm not talking about thread standards either, I'm talking about how many variations of left-hand cup adjustments one could find, even back in the 1960's and 1970's: Pin spanners, double flats, hex heads of various sizes, slotted, etc. Then there's the different wrench flats sizes one might find on the right-hand cup, most requiring a dedicated wrench, if not an entire puller tool just to keep pressure on the cup so the tool won't slip.

-Kurt

mstateglfr 

Complaining about company standards and being accepting of nationality standards = a distinction without a difference. You could easily substitute 'country' for 'company' in your complaint.

There are many BB standards right now because many brands are trying to come up with what they think is the best for their product. Seems quite fine to me.
I dont hear anyone complain when a Honda part doesnt fit in a Ford vehicle. Yet there are complaints when a Trek spec'd Bottom Bracket doesnt fit in a Canyon frame. Thats just goofy.

smd4

I find it interesting that more than a few posters said they got into C&V because it was cheaper.

I got into C&V mostly because I never left it. I built my bike 20 years ago with a combo of Ultegra and 7700 Dura Ace, along with lesser, sometimes nameless parts like seat post and stem. Spent a lot of the past two decades just upgrading parts (Titanium rear axle; upgraded DA parts to replace the Ultegra; better saddle). This certainly wasn't the cheap way to do C&V.

Glad I went this route though. Back in the shop in 1987, CF bikes with electronic shifting was the stuff of our dreams; now that the realty is upon us, I'm less than impressed. Today's bikes, while futuristic, incredibly light and with amazing features, to me are ugly; mobile eyesores that lack all sense of style, grace and poetry.

The impressionist painter Renoir famously stated, “Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in life as it is without creating still more of them.” Clearly today's bike and parts manufactures have never asked such a question about their own often unpleasant-looking wares.

SirMike1983 

Bikes:
-BMX and early high-end mountain bikes seem strong to me. The prices are pretty high and steady. Quality parts for these are also going strong.High-end, vintage balloon tire bikes are steady. Some of the rare, pre-war stuff has gone up a little. Post war is good ballooners are steady.
-High-end, post-war middleweights have come up a bit. The lower-end middleweights are still pretty low.
-High-end and custom built road bikes are steady, maybe going up a little in some cases. The mass-produced/low-end stuff is down and much of it back at yard sale levels.
-Low-end utility bikes are down and at yard sale levels. High-end and rare utility bikes are steady.

Cars: our area has one, really good car show per year. The original draw many years ago was for original and restore-to-judging standard cars (Cord, Duesenberg, Stutz, Cadillac/La Salle, etc.). Over the past 10 years the focus has gone from restore-to-standard to resto-mod, hot rod, and muscle cars. The biggest decline has been in high-end restorations of pre-war automobiles to a particular judging standard. There's a lot more demand for old cars with modern amenities and loads of power. The hardcore pre-war restoration people may be dying off... The Model A club is still going strong, but the Model Ts and the high-end pre-war cars are getting thinner at the meet each year. The showing of post-war British sports cars was stronger this year though.

shoota 

As someone on the younger side of the crowd here, I can unequivocally say the younger generations don't give two craps about "old" things. They like the new stuff. The disc era has only widened the chasm further.

cudak888 

Complete generalization. There's always a subset of every new generation fascinated with old shyte.

Source: Me, 15 years ago.

-Kurt

Germany_chris

Have you looked through r xbiking?

Those young people love playing with old mountain bikes and hybrids

shoota 

Ha, I forget people like mountain bikes.

RustyJames 

I’m probably slightly on the younger side too and basically agree with ^^. I’m not a good barometer for “the market” since my interest is towards stuff built before I was born.

guy1138

Its really awesome that 26" is making a come-back. Mountain bikes you couldn't give away 10 years ago are now worth something and getting rebuilt with nice 1× groups. The ones with cool fades, splatter and flake are especially desireable.

icemilkcoffee 

Aside from the MTB's and BMX'es mentioned before, I notice that touring bikes also have a strong following. Anything with cantilever brakes which will accommodate 35mm+ tires. For example, a Miyata 210 would sell readily at a decent price, while a Miyata 310 from the same era would languish. Maybe as collectors get older, they gravitate towards fat tired tourers instead of race bikes.

dweenk

Lately I don't even try to sell a bike. I did very well a few years ago, selling bikes that I got for cheap from yard sales and CL. It's not like I was making $$ on them, but I was using the profits to buy a better bike, and if I could sell that bike I could go on and on. Not any more.

Bad Lag

I think of it as a wave, or a window, that moves through time. It advances in time with the aging of the population.

The old bikes and the old heroes get replaced by newer.

At some point, the old bikes are better not ridden, as spare parts, wear parts, become increasing difficult to source and become VERY expensive.

When the bikes are no longer ridden, when they are wall hangers and museum pieces, it's over.

squirtdad

to comment on the Car aspect noted by the OP

I think a lot of younger people (basing this on my son, 24, and his friends) are not as into cars as I can remember being as high schooler. (ask him how many cylinders, displacement and whether the 2004 volvo he drives has (5, 2.5 l, yes) and he could not tell you. not sure why?

to put it in bike terms their approach to cars is like the dutch approach to bikes, they are tool to get from point a to point b, and carry stuff

that said locally there is pretty good attendance to micro car shows...last weekend 4 blocks of the micro downtown area near me (lincoln ave for locals) had a hot rod, woodie and lowrider show....super nice. the hot wheels dodge cab forward van/pickup with surfboards was super nice and some nice woodies

but I don't see my son going to a car show as destination

as for bikes, BMX was king, then he road ss/fg but just gave that bike to a friend who commutes on it and he never got into bikes with shifting, so he has not base for C&V appreciation

bit of a ramble but I think a lot of it is lack of hands on wrenching caused by necessity or that you can't do a lot of hands on on modern cars has a lot to do with this