uncle uncle

As another year winds down, another year unlike any we've experienced unless you've been around since 1918, it's once again time to look back on what was. Personally for me, the hobbies associated with C&V bicycles was, like most years, with it's highs and lows. Here's my view of the State of C&V, for what is worth... I was out on the paths and gravel roads much more this year, due to an unforeseen layoff. Thus, the frequency of bicycles crisscrossing my outings was up, but I DIDN'T REALLY SEE ANY MORE FREQUENCY OF C&V BICYCLES OUT THERE. What I did see more of was mostly families out on big-box bicycles... which is fine, for what it is. I had a friend that I would sometimes ride with, while trying to keep our distance... he exclusively rode his new mountain bike. His dad (in his seventies) finally abandon his 70's Schwinn coffee colored Varsity for his son's cast off mtb (it is like 5 years old). A fellow coworker abandon his efforts on an old Nishiki he had partially refurbished, he abandon his 10 year old hybrid, and treated himself to a new carbon fiber "graveler", which he now swears he won't go back to either of his other bicycles. On another front, my dealings with the local coop were scaled back... almost exclusively to donate parts. Again, as in the past, the coop manager stated that mtb's and hybrids are more in keeping with the desires of the majority of people seeking bicycles at the coop. So, all in all, in a year that saw a boom in bicycle sales and usage, C&V bicycles seemed very much outside of areas benefiting from said boom. What did you see this year from your viewpoint of your saddle?

rccardr 

C&V is but a pimple on the great rear end of all cycling endeavors.
Yes, more people got outdoors in general this year, but most of them who bought bikes either went cheap (CL, Walmart) or super high end.
No reason to believe that there would be more old bikes on the road in 2020 other than folks who brought up something dusty out of the basement.

sheddle

Saw a ton of them locally once the stores ran dry of new ones, but Seattle has always had a ton of old bikes, so hard to tell. Definitely saw shops jammed with people taking Craigslist Specials in for a "tune up", though.

Old mountain bikes and bike boom ten speeds were definitely popular.

SurferRosa

I saw higher prices for c&v, which helped me quickly sell two flips in the spring.

Somehow, I managed to buy four bikes in 2020 at these prices, thanks to a keen eye and some diplomatic haggling.

Still, I saw that familiar ceiling on my local bike sales when a bike gets around the $400 mark.

jon c. 

Early on, I saw a number of folks who had clearly knocked a few years of dust off the old bikes from the back of the garage. But the bikes were never old enough to be vintage and they generally were seen only once or twice. They were all gone by the end of June.

repechage

The state of the Union spokes are strong.

oops, that’s for 1/20

different year for sure.
biz was terrible
riding was ongoing
bought one, an actually significant to me bike.
passed on a number of others
a few could have been flipped, art, love, time, money.

Tomm Willians

Of all the bikes I own my vintage bikes are my favorites and I ride them frequently. Can’t say I see a lot of others doing the same.

icemilkcoffee 

I started cycling in April , and almost immediately got sucked into C&V bikes. It all started when I bought a single speed converted Lemond:

I rounded up all the pieces to convert it back to original RSX 3x7

After that I was hooked on both steel frame bikes and also working on bikes! From there on I bought:

Nishiki Linear frame that I am slowly building up....

A sweet Battaglin Lopro that I am not completely sure which direction to go...

Performance Focus with Tange Prestige tubing. This has become my commute and all around bike.


and my latest acquisition-a pristine magenta Ironman which I am modernising with STI, dual pivot brakes etc....

in between all that I also put together this Terry style Bianchi for my wife... and got these two 650c wheel (non C&V) bikes for the kids:


So as far as I am concerning the C&V scene is happenin!

t1k

Great bike collection. I'm curious how and where do you store them?

My C&V bikes stable grew from 1 to 5 bikes this year and storage is quickly becoming a limiting issue.

icemilkcoffee 

No kidding! Lack of storage is what's keeping my collecting habit from getting out of control. I've got bikes hanging from the garage rafters and all!

sheddle

That's a fantasticly eclectic collection, love it.


The Terry Bianchi is awesome in particular

katsup

At the beginning of the year, there were 8 bikes in my garage (not all C&V). Once covid hit, that number dropped down to 3 very quickly as I only kept the ones I liked the most. Picked up a few flippers, but the competition for project bikes increased significantly toward the middle of the year, so I mostly worked on bikes I got for free or in trade. Paid up for one that I was looking for in July (doubled the asking), so the number now sits at four (3 for me, 1 for the lady).

Also sold off a lot of spare parts.

randyjawa 

Most vintage road bicycles have diminished in value. The higher end collectable ones have increased in value and continue to do so. BMX has come into its vintage collectability value. And vintage road bikes are easier to find in Thunder Bay because people are now offering them on Kijiji and/or Craigslist and/or FB Market Place.

This year, an early sixties Torpado Professional, a late sixties entry level Torpado, a late sixties Carlton Corsair rebranded as a Raleigh, an early seventies Torpado Luxe, a mid fifties Olmo, a late eighties Santini a mid eighties Peugeot Super Sport, a 2000 Marinoni Piuma and a Bianchi Grizzly mountain bike all came my way and four were free to me.

The Torpados I am keeping to restore (one is under way now). The Marinoni is a wonderful bike, a perfect fit and a keeper. The Olmo went to a fellow forum member. The Carlton will be sold in the Spring. The Peugeot will become a SS and be sold in the Spring. The Santini was harvested for components and I gave the frame away. And the Grizzly I swapped for a bike that I forgot I got this year, a Cannondale which I swapped for a set of Campy high flange Record hubs (for the Torpado Pro).

Next year, resources permitting that I do so, will see me find and purchase a Legnano Roma from the fifties or sixties. Long have I lusted for a Roma thanks mostly to how much I like my 1968 Grand Premio.

My guess is that nothing else will come my way this year but I do plan on a new set of clothes for this before Ho Ho Ho Day. The art is already on its way from Velocals...

merziac

You clearly need more storage, lack of control should never be hampered by mere physical constraints.

RiddleOfSteel

I see vintage steeds rolling around from time to time, and it's fun to see. Naturally, they aren't the norm, but I don't mind. At the start of the year, I couldn't imagine going to one bike without feeling like I was cutting off limbs, but time and circumstances have a funny way of striking up mental conversations, and I'm now a one bike guy and I love the space and simplicity. But man, not wrenching during cold and wet winter months is trying!

People don't mind a vintage bike so long as, depending on price range, it's attached to much more modern stuff. And completely sorted and pretty. Or if it's original-ish and super cheap and a little rough. I don't play in that arena, but it seems, anecdotally, that there's always a market for the 'as-is' $125 vintage roller.

This year, for me, has more or less cemented my love for lugged steel frames. I can't stand the uninspiring (if brutal) look of welded straight-tube frames; and even if great skill and care are taken to create a fillet-brazed frame, it still reminds me of old lower-end Schwinns and it still looks boring to me.

sdn40

As I've said for a couple years now, for the general public, it's all about brifters. Another year means the prices on the older brifter bikes will be closer to vintage downtube shifter bikes. If you're a buyer, that's good. If you want to flip vintage bikes, your competition just got more intense

Kabuki12

Since I don't normally sell my bikes , I don't know the actual prices. If anything I see prices higher when cruising CL and the bay. The sold prices seem to be up on the bay . High end components are definitely up so it takes a little more patience to score that tidbit for my classic racers. I added to the stable this year and got a fair deal but not the incredible bargains I got a year or more ago on my others. In Southern California there seems to be more grey haired folks(my age) on lugged steel bikes in my area. I passed a guy older than me just cruising his DeRosa when I was on my ItalVega and it was kind of cool to see a fellow C&V biker. My LBS that I frequent in Ventura told me that they now have a few other vintage race bike folks coming in for accessories .I met one of them on a Saturday and he was having work done on his Eddie Merckx , I was on my Windsor Pro so the talk in the store was all about the older ten speeds. I don't expect things to change too dramatically but I don't think the classics are going away.

Murray Missile 

My take? I still have too many.

mountaindave 

Ditto. We polished a lot of turds this summer but people were willing to pay because they had no other options.

New kids bikes were particularly hard to source which meant used bikes didn’t last long.

But I saw no appreciable increase in C/V. If anything, I saw more being traded in for new bikes and they were turned around not so much because of interest in C/V, but because people just wanted a functioning bicycle. That meant I saw a few travesties occur... but then the customer is always right.

thinktubes 

Nothing but gravel bikes

Wildwood 

A year end statement about C&V???
I've been a classicly good boy.

I want Santa to bring a new-to-me vintage bike.
(actually, I picked it out for him. Almost 'celeste' but on a late 70's English Carlton)



Happy Christmas to all - may Santa stuff your stocking.

sheddle

As someone who loves taking creepy pictures of other people's parked bikes, here's some cool stuff I saw locked up this year.








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mercator

I was able to sell a couple of bikes for a rather tidy sum early in the year and bought a 1985 Miyata 1000 for a fair price with the earnings.
I now have a couple of projects to work on over the winter (the other being a 70's era Peugeot), but I'm finding the cost and availability of parts to be an issue.

PugRider

In my experience volunteering at my local co-op, the vast majority of requests we got this year were for mtbs and hybrid/upright bikes for people of all ages. Now there are pros and cons to that—it sort of leaves the good stuff for us old C&V heads, but it also leads to piles of nice old bikes that just sit, and that’s never good.

From what I’ve seen out there, I think there’s a stigma associated with friction shifting—which is unfortunate because it’s kinda easier to learn shifting that way—and people are intimidated by drop bars and skinny tires. Drop bars are for serious riders only and skinny tires are unstable, etc. People also often don’t understand sizing, and want to be able to stand flat on the ground while seated. And speaking of seats, people are terrified of saddles. More cushion the better. But I get all of it. We were all there once.

There’s a sort of notion out there that it’s not up to us to question what people want, but I always thought it might only take a little convincing to steer someone away from a run-of-the-mill hybrid and toward a nice old mixte. Or even just to convince someone that, i’m the long run, an old Univega road bike will probably better suit your riding requirements than some entry-level mtb.

That said, during the pandemic boom we had this year I chuckled at the utter shamelessness of the local flipping community. It was like their Super Bowl. I would have said you could have just paid $20 more dollars to get a new Trek 8xx or whatever, but that was the problem—you couldn’t find a new bike. Huge money asked for bikes that quite obviously would need a lot of work to sort out. I wonder what the impact will be on people who got gouged for a bike that was dusted off and sold for $300 and was literally ground to a halt a few weeks later. Are we going to lose that rider again?

botty kayer

Definitely a year like no other for me here in the UK. Bought a vintage 753 Merckx frame from Canada in February. Then Covid happened and I had to wait 6 months for it to arrive, during which time I got frustrated with the wait and bought a Columbus Max frame from Finland. Following Lockdown 1 here in London in March, all ebay prices for the 10 speed Campag stuff I mostly have seemed to go through the roof, and prices in general seemed to go up as people scrabbled to acquire bikes so they didn't have use public transport. Saw truly laughable prices for lots of old tat. Saw lots more people out on bikes, not necessarily on C&V bikes, all kinds. Like lots of the new cyclists I got a real buzz out of cycling around deserted London streets that were normally a hive of activity. London has just entered our 3rd lockdown of the year, so that novelty has worn off somewhat.

I got Covid at the end of March, not hospitalised by my lung capacity has definitely been reduced and 9 months on still have not recovered to pre-Covid capacity and I doubt they will now. Then I was let go from my work because of Covid laying waste to my sector, and feared I would have to sell some bikes to keep going. Luckily got another job in the summer that involved cycling for part of the day, so I was now getting paid to ride around on my fleet of old steel and ti bikes, and I didn't have to sell any, hoorah!

Covid has also resulted in me having to cancel 3 cycling trips I had planned this year, so for the first time since I got into cycling, every single one of this years expected 9000 miles has been in London. 9000 city miles, and not a field in sight, yuck. Traffic and pollution has been less this year than in recent times, but air quality is still bad and my already battered lungs have I'm sure suffered as a result.

Despite all that, and providing I stay out of trouble over the next few weeks, it looks like I'll be classed as a survivor from 2020, when many others have not been so lucky, so I consider myself fortunate. And I've been very happy with my two bike builds of the year too, my full vintage 753 Merckx with downtube shifters, and the Columbus Max Nikor frame with modern 10 speed.


And I'm very excited about the prospect of riding them out in the great British countryside at some point next year, roll on 2021!