RB1-luvr

I had two excellent finds this year on Fb Marketplace. 1. A barely used RB-2, and 2. A barely used Centurion. So from where I'm looking the vintage scene is ok.

Sorry, I put black wall tires on both due to cost effectiveness and I never liked tan walls even back in the day when it was all that was available.

Classtime 

But still....
My enthusiasm for vintage bikes for seriously long and hard rides died a little this past weekend. I rode my 1977 Motobecane on a 10,000 ft. 200k Brevet yesterday and think that my non-vintage bike would have been a better choice because--weight, gearing, bottle cages, and friction vs. indexed shifting. Granted, I got my ass kicked and it would have hurt then and now on any bike but still my 2000s bike would have been a better choice apart from all the time I got to look down on my Cinelli cockpit and Nervex lug set. A modern bike is better suited to this task and if I don't feel better by Friday, this vintage bike will be de-randonneused.

Chombi1 

My younger brother turned 59 yesterday and for the first time ever, he admitted to me that he felt old and beat up after his last ride with his buddies last week. (But dang! He still wants to do the Death Valley Death Ride for his C&V bucket list!)
Now if on'e younger brother admits to such things, despite his religiously sticking to his C&V group rides every weekend, you realize you are also getting close to your "sell by date" and maybe should be planning for that "end game" on what is left to do and what to eventually do with your C&V stable.......

nlerner

You know, I felt the same way on my first CA Eroica, thinking how much more I’d be enjoying myself on my Ti gravel bike with disc brakes, fatter tires, and lower gearing. Still, I rode a different vintage bike for the 2022 version of the event, and that one worked out fine. I have done a couple of 200k rides on vintage bikes, and also feel like now I’d rather be on something more modern (i.e., lighter weight, better gearing, more comfortable over the long haul). Makes me wonder why I have so many vintage bikes in the basement!

Fredo76

Do gearing complaints and correctness hang-ups go together?

merziac

Normally, no.

The ones they have done were very limited as is the one they are doing now.

You could always have who builds for them build one, I think Peter Weigle and Mark Nobilette are their go to.

Germany_chris

I’d love to take the drugs you’re on, missing the point is something is a benefit in this day and age.

Rene Herse is all about performance, performance comes in many packages carbon is one of them.

VO is wonderful provided you’re not interested in the supply chain.

I care not one iota about lugged v filet brazed v TIG. Steel is steel is steel

nlerner

Weigle only builds for Weigle (after he apprenticed at Witcomb, anyway), but he did make that one in collaboration with Jan Heine for the French technical trials re-do. I'm not sure if that frame ended up back with Weigle or if Heine still has it.

merziac

Correct, I believe Peter retains it as he should, that was a fantastic odyssey and exactly what Jan should stick to IMO.

I brought up Peter as having let Jan collaborate and you could never go wrong with him.

El Chaba

Very early on in their history, Velo Orange listed a Randonneuse in a semi-custom format very capably made by Johnny Coast. For what it offered, it was very reasonably priced at about $2500. They collected quite a few $500 deposits and delivered very few frames. As far as I know, the deposits were all refunded, generally after a year or two of interest-free use of the funds. In my case, upon being informed that they were no longer interested in delivering the bike for which I had placed a deposit, I asked what I was supposed to do with the components that I had accumulated for the build. I was never given the courtesy of a reply.

merziac

Really?

Maybe you should hit the street corner then.

squirtdad

surely it needs a Xilinx ....er AMD (post acquisition) FPGA

scarlson 

Not a bad idea, now that I think about it!
But the letters don't spell the name of the derailleur in reverse (and FPGA kind of reminds me of golf) so we'll have to hand this one to marketing and see if they can come up with some spiffy branding.

panzerwagon 

Crap! Then we’ll need a new sub-forum “HDL hacks for FPGA components”

mstateglfr 

Yeah...I would say there is a healthy bit of appearance and cult of personality mixed in with performance when it comes to RH.
You can't honestly look at a lot of what is sold and claim that is all performance based. A lot is appearance with an added benefit of utility or reliability. You an claim those things are performance, but they are instead called utility and reliability.

georges1

I think vintage cycling has nice days ,not everyone is into buying modern carbon bikes, or bikes with disc brakes or electric derailleurs. Some will prefer the late 80's to the early 00's other will prefer the 50's to the70's because of Reynolds 531 and 753 frames which were reknowned for their lightness and comfort often brazed or fillet brazed beautiful frame, the late 80's to the early 00's was a period where some ofthe nicest framesets and group drivetrains where made. Mountain Biking has a lot of interesting things to offer,I tried 2 years ago a 29 and a 27.5MTb but still prefer my good old 26 wheeled MTBs.

Iniezione 

Chesapeake Light Craft. I knew one of their employees years ago. Funny enough, I never knew there was a connection between them and VO, until someone saw me wearing one of their hats at a bike swap. They asked me if I knew the owner of VO.

mrv 

maybe somebody posted this already, I'm still working through the whole thread thing. It's a long watch, but basically it's Ultra Romance (aka Uncle Ronnie; aka Ron's Bike Shop) singing the praises of perfectly functional, beautiful, useful bikes AND components.
He's come up with an aluminum bike, called the Alumalith. He admits it's kind of a late '80s Trek redo, because he likes it.


new vintage aluminum bike: https://theradavist.com/crust-bikes-alumalith-review/

C&V is dead! Long live C&V stuff!!

georges1

Interesting but I find personnally the price quite steep for an aluminium frame with unfinished welds and also a quality of tubes that is not as worldwide known as alcoa, easton, reynolds and dedacciai series of aluminium tubes. As for brakes, I would rather have a pair of XT or XTR V brakes over any paul component cantilever brake stuff.As for tires, first time I hear about ultra dynamico, would be interested if anyone as a feedback on them or is using them.

Bianchigirll 

uprightbent I have a simple question for you, how many lugged frames have you bought from these “keepers of the flame”? You can’t lament the loss of something you don’t support.

Your handle may even suggest you are part of the problem if you’re cruising the “MUP” astride a modern upright recumbent, almost an oxymoron there eh?, instead of a classic long wheelbase model with under the seat steering.




I too am problem because while I lament the loss of my beloved steel Bianchi racing machines it isn’t like even if I could have afforded to buy a high end steel bike every year through the ‘90s I could have stemmed the tidal wave of cheap aluminum and carbon. Sadly despite how old school they try to be bike manufacturers need to turn a profit. You can’t have fancy lugged bikes built at $700-800 a piece and turn around and sell them to us cheapskates for much less that $1100 and stay in business.

heidelbergensis 

Noob here adding my two cents regarding C&V - cycling to me definitely seems to be at a crossroads, with multiple conflicting trends.

On the one hand, there are modern performance bikes, with hydraulic disc brakes and electronic shifting, and their riders LARPing as CAT 1 racers eating up the road with their toxic self-seriousness. And, on the other, you have recyclohipster influencers like that Romance guy up above, who made everyone rush to buy up all the old 26" MTBs they could find and who make a spectacle of how they are the opposite of the first group. Oftentimes what they're riding just looks "vintage" - on closer inspection it's a $4000 Crust build. Most of my saltiness and ire is reserved for the former group, who look at bikes like moving Peloton machines, and are themselves both the product and the enabler of all the horrible developments in the cycling industry. Shimano will no longer be making cable-actuated groupsets (I can't imagine Campy and SRAM will hold out much longer) as the industry pushes to make bikes more expensive to both obtain and maintain. All of this seems to have been intensified by the pandemic, and I have found myself approaching my previous appreciation and natural preference for older bikes and used parts with more purpose and intention. Velo Orange and other companies like SOMA, with the parts that they stock, will be essential to keep old bikes on the road; without the secondary market, wear items like chains, cassettes, chainrings, etc, would become increasingly scarce. It seems crazy though, with the boutique custom, Crusties and C&V riders making up a decent chunk of the cycling market, that the major components manufacturers are cutting continued production of items that will function on anything but the newest Trek or Specialized. I realized recently that virtually all of my bike-related purchases in the past five years, beyond chains and cable kits and bar tape (etc), have been secondhand. This is, at least for me, primarily due to not being able to afford new stuff, but also that most of it won't work with my bikes. Campy has cut Potenza, leaving only Centaur (which looks like crap) and, so doing, has nixed the last full-suite alloy gruppo on offer in a silver non-anodized iteration. Which, again, seems crazy to me. Introducing a line of components specifically designed for use with classic bikes seems like it would have huge potential - with short and long cage RDs options, shifters with indexing wheels designed for different speeds and adjustable pull ratio to allow for use with different derailleurs. Or anything, really, that doesn't look like an HR Giger sketch.

rccardr 

Yer a noob so just a gentle suggestion: paragraphs. They help when reading long posts online.

Bad Lag

Here's a question.

Is vintage cycling defined by buying & selling, restoring, collecting or is it about riding?

It seems to me almost ALL the traffic on this forum is about buying, selling and restoration.

Is an activity "dead" because there's no commerce happening (buying and selling of goods)?

Once an individual or group get saturated with products, does their interest in vintage cycling end or wane OR is it just there isn't a way to discuss the riding on this C&V forum?

Looking at the reduced traffic (a quantitative evaluation) might be interpreted as waning interest (a conjecture). However, the reality might be the exact opposite. It might be lots more riding but less commerce (buying, selling,...).

On this C&V board, I believe discussions of simple riding are somewhat frowned upon. A great photo thread from C&V touring is always appreciated by all but if one wants to discuss your everyday ride...?

Is cycling "dead" if everyone is out riding and not home to be spammed with commercials while watching the latest televised bicycle race (viewership is down so cycling is dead)?

Honestly, what's to even discuss, just RIDE!


P.S. - There are analogous situations for all hobbies. Audio: gear purchases, the actual audio recordings versus the actual listening. Woodworking and automobiles are similar.

merziac

Herein lies the crux, many judge this by the buying and selling.

Some do so to fund it but once you go down that road the $$$$$ always rule the day. "I can't find enough good deals or willing buyers to make any money".

I am all about the deal like many are but when I found something I wanted, I stepped up and got it done, many were once in a whatever deal and got done.

The doom and gloom are mainly economic woes IMO and that's alright if that's your tack but it needs to be seen as such.

52telecaster

I post about riding to the grocery or my overnights on my vintage bikes, all my bikes are pretty vintage, and I've never felt frowned upon for posting. I may not be the most discerning about such matters but that's my take.