reroll

Welcome!

I tried 10-speed but gave up on the newer technologies and now all of my bikes run on 8-speed chain although some have 9-speed derailleurs.

rudypyatt

This is exactly how I feel, though I admit I sometimes use Strava just to track my rides. But I don’t quite fit because I don’t have a workshop and I can’t build up a vintage frame with NOS parts (NYC apartments are not big unless you earn BIG money); it’s just not going to happen in-home, though I once had a shop refurbish a vintage Schwinn Speedster. Loved it even though it was a tad small, lost it to a Mack truck…

I tend to focus on the classic design more than actual vintage bikes, because the appeal for me is riding something that is mechanically simple and looks good. I have no interest in the latest carbon framed, hydraulic braked bikes. Brands like State, Linus, Handsome, Surly, and various models in the BikesDirect’s family are what I go for precisely because they are classically styled with some mechanical updates.

Actual classics would be great. But I won’t build one up. I am happy to have access to bikes that at least look the part and use the right materials and components:

Rim brakes rule.

Steel is real.

A three speed IGH is all I need.

Ktodd

Anything that came stock with brifters isnt C&V ...I agree with Grant Peterson I hate Index shifting so for me personally anything that came stock with friction shifting is C&V

Cgnman59

I would consider the early 90's Cannondale R series as vintage classic. Made of aluminum and what is now a classic design. My friend owned a '93 Cannondale R400 and gifted it to me when his eyesight failed to the point he could no longer ride. I was amazed a bike could be made of aluminum and be durable. That R400 was always a joy to ride and I owned it for 20 years before I ended up selling it after I could no longer ride it due to lower back issues. A classic design that has stood the test of time while also being mechanically simple.

Ktodd

Yeah idk about that one. I own 2 early 90's Klein Quantums and I don't really consider them C&V bikes. Idk about your R400 but Kleins are dropping in value every year. I dont think you can consider bikes as "collectable" if theyre continually dropping in value.

MooneyBloke

I think you're letting your prejudices and perhaps a bit of hero worship define C&V. Campag Ergopower's now thirty years old. Alan McCormack's (certainly an OG of the road circuit) Paramount from his Schwinn/Wheaties days four years earlier had Dura Ace indexed shifting. There's a nice interview where he says he prefers the ride to his six-pounds-lighter carbon frame. (He also has unkind words for the mounted SRAM group of his modern bike as well.)

My view is that the industry has absorbed a (to me offensive) brutalist aesthetic to the point that modern classic frames such as those of Richard Sachs are disfigured by the parts that hang off them. To my eye, Campag's aluminum crank with the hidden bolt was a beautiful thing, and I gag when I see the ugly drive trains that are common now. Let's not even talk about the wide billboard downtubes. My Mooneys certainly sport the maker's name there, but it's small and tasteful rather than visually screaming.

On Sach's blog, he cites the founder of Honda as saying that racing improves the breed. Trouble is that the optimizers of modern racing have no sense of aesthetic charm. I'm at an age where I don't give a rat's keister if it's aero when it's ugly as sin. To quote Sachs again: "bring back the elegance."

rsmarion

Hard day at work today, so needed a reason to smile. This thread did it. THanks all!

Bill in VA

My 1973 BLUE Peugeot UO-8 would highly disagree!

MooneyBloke

Same with my Peter Mooneys. Both are blue.

Aerzon

Lots of different definitions in this thread. If, say for example, I wanted to do a thread to collect information and showcase/document a build of the following frame:

(Late 90s/Early 2000s Quattro Assi)

Would the C&V forum be an inappropriate place to do so? And at which point in time would the frame become old enough to be titled "C&V?"

Puttis

I consider bikes that are now longer in production as vintage. Also if you have a model that a lot of people bought bak in the day, it must be considered as a classic. Those are my thoughts

Puttis

I have and old Nishiki with a suntour rear derailleur and gear shifts that are turning ones instead of clicking ones. But I think that bike must be from the end of the eighties or beginning of the nineties.
Will post a picture if i find one decent.

Drillium Dude

Hey, wait just a minute - that's a crabon fyber fork!

You heathen!



DD

MooneyBloke

Not to mention likely welded alumin(i)um.

Aerzon

I'm scared of having it in my house... It could assplode at any second! I don't even think my renter's insurance would cover damages caused by spontaneous combustion(s) of crabon fibber objects, as any self respecting gentleman would know better than to disgrace his household with such modern, black magic lunacies.


(Thinking out loud begins here) Ahem.... Anyway... It might seem silly to post it here, given that it's threadless equipped, carbon fiber forked, and could be a viable weight weenie build. I get that. On the other hand, to many people, that frame is "too old" and anything 20+ is "vintage" to them. I was scrolling on another cycling page one day and saw someone refer to Ultegra from 2003 as "ancient." I saw another say they wouldn't ride aluminum from that time period and that it needs to be retired. On the other hand, to many members here, that frame is way too new for this forum. Different perspectives.
I suppose it depends on whether you consider very early 2000s frames with horizontal top tubes to fit under the C&V umbrella just yet. At some point they'll have to, it's just a matter of when that will be. I'm not personally sure. Maybe the definition of C&V should just be "any bike which GCN would refer to as retro in a video title."
I could put my upcoming build thread in "Early Brifter Bikes," but it's rather...... *crickets* around there. I guess it doesn't matter too much, it's mostly for my documentation and maybe the occasional ask for advice.


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MooneyBloke

Thanks for the warning. My place might need an exorcism myself.


Omitted: the Shamal 12-HPWs that were my TT thingies back when I was foolish enough to enter those sorts of things.

5colellla

if it old and you like then is it’s C&V

MooneyBloke

I think the main dispute is what counts as old. Some of the tech some consider newfangled is at least two decades old now. I think there is a strong demarcation between what is considered a conventional road bike these days and what that was even two decades ago.

Here's a video depicting a Gilco tubed Colnago equipped with Shimano STI:
I certainly think the paint is loud, and I don't have much fondness for straight bladed forks, but it certainly predates the watershed that I take as the distinction between vintage and modern.

I think it's the rise of a brutalist aesthetic complete with loud downtube branding, the increase in complexity and cost, and the tendency of more and more parts to have shorter lifespans (e.g. design strictly for weight savings at the expense of durability), that are my turn-offs in regards to the current road bike.

SurferRosa

I know it when I see it.

MooneyBloke

So vintage and classic bikes are pornographic?

merziac

Ya think?

stoneageyosh

This is going to be greatly influenced by the age of the beholder. A forty year old would probably say anything before 2000 is old. Others, ahem, however, idea of old is more like downtube shifter era bikes. Classic Rendezvous is of that mindset and there are others across a variety of interests. There is already a wide range in the ages of bikes being discussed here, which indicates that the C&V scene is evolving as younger enthusiasts join the party. Someday they will be the old farts answering questions about how it was “back in the day”.

MooneyBloke

That really depends. I'm using the definition from fashion where vintage means twenty years or older, and It's been quite a while since my fortieth birthday. I think drawing ones definitions from personal nostalgia is fraught with danger.

I think that bicycles have undergone more than a few aesthetic changes since the days when Merckx and Gimondi raced. People may grumble about brifters and pedals devoid of toe clips and straps, but perhaps an even greater visual change was to brake levers that ran the cables long the bars rather than having two huge loops poking out above the levers. I do tend to think that quill stemmed steel bikes from the mid to late nineties were at a aesthetic pinnacle. This is coupled with the fashion definition is why I pin the term vintage and classic there. It's more a matter of using these terms in revolt against the brutalist aesthetics and technical complexity of the modern race bike.

Bicycling and the bicycle seem to mean different things than they have for the majority of my life, and I'm definitely not on board with that.

Hondo6

You do realize that some of Petersen's later Bridgestones came with STIs either stock or as an option, right?

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/bridges...3/pages/64.htm

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/bridges...4/pages/73.htm

I'm guessing most would consider a 29- or 30-year-old RB-1 to be "C&V".

Hondo6

Well, they do cause a sudden increase in many people's . . . interest.