viscount

Thought occurred to me tonight:
"What does 'Vintage' mean on BF??"

Is there a definition?
What is it?

I was dissing Flickr members tonight because they have 1980s (+ later) bicycles included in a 'Vintage bikes' group.
Asking for contributors with "Images of vintage drug-stores (Drug Stores circa 1950s and earlier, give or take a few decades), primarily from North America."

OK that's not here on BF, but it poses the question:
How do you define a 'vintage bicycle'?

There has to be a dividing line somewhere.
Where is it?

Eyeseeu

I carried this over here so we don't trample the Swift thread:


A 100 year old car used every day would be vintage if used every day, and the 1981 could be an antique if it had antique plates and was used for car shows only.

I think you need an age instead of specific year, because it would change more effectively over time. To me 25 years is a pretty good number when you look at how much has changed in that amount of time. For bikes in 1982 there weren't brifters, CF, and much of the stuff used now. You could say the same for 83, 84 etc, but there were changes every year, so you have to make some type of cut-off. I would think 30 years is too long (1977 and older), and 20 years old not quite enough (1987 and older).

RIWalter

My wife and I bought a pair of MOTOBACANES around 1980. We still have them. I guess both the bikes and the owners are vintage?

cuda2k

Depends on who you ask.

On CR List it's Pre-84. Here, we have a much more loose definition of 'Vintage'. Personally, Vintage is a bicycle when downtube shifters and lugged frames were still the standard. Therefore I wouldn't say (nor think) anything against anything made pre-88 or so. That's now 20 years ago, which is "Vintage" for cars as well.

CardiacKid

I don't really think it matters. I try and pick bikes that won't go down in value and will hopefully go up with a little care. Don't get me wrong, I am not a flipper. When you mutliply the hours I put into my bikes times the minimum wage, it would be more profitable to spend my spare time as a greeter at Walmart.

LWaB

Vintage has the implication of quality (wines, etc) but there are plenty of old bikes that were and are nothing special. I prefer the term 'old bike'. The Veteran-Cycle Club has that name because of the same logic.

Stacey

Technically, there's no such thing as a vintage bicycle. "Vintage" by definition is solely applicable to wine. Like many other words of our current lexicon it's definition has been co-opted to other areas of interest.

To answer the question, I feel that like 'restore', # meanings = # people queried. My definition would start with pre 1970 bikes.

Charles Wahl

One of the great things about this forum, as opposed to the Classic Rendezvous mailing list, is that there are no rules except basic decency. It's not a place where definitions are restricting the discussion. You got something that's interesting and, in your estimation, "vintage" or "classic," then bring it, and people are happy to talk about it. Most folks here seem to gravitate to steel-framed bikes but that covers a lot, and it's not exclusive either.

John E

My personal definition of a vintage or classic bicycle is:
1) road: pre-1984, i.e., friction downtube or barcon shifting, toeclips, lugged steel frame;
2) mountain: pre-1990, sometimes called "old school," i.e., no suspension, possibly an evolutionary dead end or two, such as an under-the-chainstays U-brake or a SunTour RollerCam brake.

bbattle

Alabama used to issue Antique car tags for any car over 25 years old. They figured it would be mostly for cars much older than that 72 Ford F-150 pickup truck with no bumper, no muffler, mismatched fenders and 8 floodlights bolted to the cab in case Jethro lost his cigarette lighter while out in the woods looking at the stars with his new scope which was conveniently mounted to a 7 mm, just in case any UFOs landed in the corn field and commenced to makin' crop circles. golly, do I ramble sometimes

When it appeared Alabama would lose all tag revenue as everyone would only drive "antique" cars with that buy it once tag, they stopped selling the tags.

Eyeseeu

That is why Virginia changed their rules also. Now you can have Classic tags on cars over 25 years as long as the tags are the same age as the car. They still need to be renewed the same as regular tags. Antique tags are only for show cars and not daily drivers. Misuse is a Class A misdemeanor.

Mos6502

I generally consider anything over 25 years of age vintage, basically because that's what most states legally consider vehicles to be (it is also generally the age at which clothing is considered to be vintage).
I'm far more picky about what people label classic and what people label antique, those two terms seem to be miss handled a lot by the bicycle crowd (I generally assume antique to mean 100+ years of age, as it applies to furniture, appliances, etc. - and classic to apply to something exhibiting especially fine craftsmanship, ingenuity, or to be superior or unique in some way).

I think it would be appropriate to call bicycles which are not yet vintage or antique - just "collectible" if they are desirable for some reason.

Not that I find it infuriating when people refer to something from the 90s as vintage, it's just when I hear "vintage" I automatically assume it is refering to something a quarter century old or older.

juggleandhope

I'm guessing it can often be age-related - if you grew up riding Schwinns in the 1960s, that might your mental reference for the "classic and vintage" bike. If you grew up in the 80s anything with down-tube shifters and quill stems. The word seems to point to "back-then" (damals) which is different for different folks.

DMF 

Most people (notably ones that work in the bicycle industry) seem to think that it's any bike that uses a component group earlier than the current one.

roccobike

I like John E's definition, especially because he uses a different approach toward mountain biking.

john Q public

So this 1995 Schwinn Anniversary Edition is "just another bike" I take it.I pulled it out of mothballs and put it on CL today.I must ask what you guys think.I saw a certified collectors item today.sorry no pics,It had never touched the floor. Old school bmx Schwinn Competitor, I think. Anodized equipment.Bike shop guy said it was worth hanging onto.More value than stingrays in the future.20" rims,plastic seat,who would think it was worth over 1000,last of the chicago mades,he said, Bought a cool sticker,"If Huffy made an airplane,would you fly in it?"

USAZorro

Since there's no penalty for breaking the rule, what's the point in having a rule, or a hard and fast definition? Granted, I don't think anyone would think the bike they just bought at Wal Mart would qualify, but consider - someone might think that bike that was ridden to the Tour de France championship a couple years ago is a classic. Certainly, at some point it will be almost universally considered be one, so who cares if the acceptance process is accelerated a bit in some peoples' minds?

It's a big tent people, and we can all live under it.

bikeboombikes

I like this quote because it gets to the reason why folks might find "vintage" bikes to be interesting. They are not just something you can go out buy at the store. There is an element of age associated with being "vintage" and that fact that someone has preserved them for a long while that has the same connotations as vintage wine, i.e. what year is it from and how long ago was that. There is also an element of "vintage" that the item was good to begin with and worth preserving in the first place.

That's why probably why we are so interested in dating the bikes and components we use. I think the care I've seen taken in restorations and maintenance on vintage bikes shows that people look at these bikes as examples of something "historic". We look at what we have as timeless examples of something worth preserving.

Sianelle 

Things are different here in NZ, - vintage pretty much refers to anything that's pre-WW2. A quality bike made after that time period is usually referred to as being a 'classic'. Though the same situation exists here as in the OP as a bike advertised as being 'vintage' often turns out to be barely 10 years old and some kind of rusty chainstore refugee.

cadillacmike68

I like this, but would further refine it to refer to road bikes with "classic" (there we go with another nebulous term!) Campy groups, these Record and Super Record or GS, i.e., not "C" record or Victory / Triomph, etc. Therefore, 1984 or so would be the cutoff - but some SR equipped bikes were sold through 87.

martl

i doubt there is a definition that isn't debeatable. I've seen these approaches:

- "CR list definition" 1983 (year when Campagnolo died, also year C-Record came out)
- "l'Eroica definition" Everything with non-areo brake cable routing, downtube shifting and pedal clips
- plus all lugged steel frames

but does it really matter? pick whatever you like

M.

viscount

It doesn't really matter.
And if BF has a flexible definition, that's good.

It just occurred to me that it would be an interesting question to ask.
And it is interesting to see all the differing responses.

When I was a child, I was 'into' old cars.
And in the 50s (!!!) if you were talking about a 'Vintage' car, you knew instantly that it was post WW1 and pre 1931.

Veteran was pre 1914.
(Not sure what 1914-1918 were!! Probably Churchill tanks)

But the point I'm making is, that if you heard that something was 'vintage', you knew exactly what its timeslot was.
If it was 'veteran' you knew that too.

'Classic' was a later definition and could mean almost anything, and was not time specific.
So a Ford Cortina, 25/xy years old, could be called a 'classic'.

Similarly a 'collectors' item was a fuzzy definition and depended on your own opinions.

In my ancient orderly mind it just seemed that it might be good to have a definition for 'Vintage' that all/most agreed upon.

Road Fan

Hear, hear! I like CR, but the restriction is restrictive (lol). Here it is open, we even have people openly speaking of flipping, rather than just collecting, restoring, and appreciating. Some treat their veteran bikes (I like this term best, because it connotes survival!) as current items of utility, which of course they are.

Road Fan

melville

Strangely enough, I feel that my Vitus and Davidson road bikes, while accepted as C&V by most people here, are less out of date than my 1996 Schwinn Homegrown full suspension bike, relatively. All the bits to service the road bikes are readily available, but Rock Shox abandoned my MTB fork years ago. I raced the Davidson last year and was competitive, but that would not apply to the HG.

Any extra points for obsolesence?

viscount

Totally agree with that.

No matter how old, it should be in use.
Else it's an exhibit.