RFC

A couple of months ago, a poster made a very astute observation about restoration philosophies based on car collecters. Basically, collectors tend to fall into one of three categories -- 1) complete period (i.e. museum) restoration; 2) minor mods, i.e. aero brakes; and 3) tricking out and hot rodding. Of these, I am definitely in the #2 and #3 range.

It seems to me that there are corresponding categories for C&V collectors. Some buy strictly to collect, some to fix and flip, and some to ride. Granted, many people collect for all of these reasons, but I am willing to bet that each tends towards one of the three.

Here, I am in the ride category. As the story goes, after 15 years of road biking, we moved to North Scottsdale, which then suffered from a lack of good road biking -- busy arterials, narrow highways, no bike lanes or shoulders.

In the last couple of years, new development opened a number of great routes. So I dusted off my 1989 Trek 660 and started riding again. I began looking at new bikes, but then discovered this forum and the availability of great older steel road bikes. That was the start of my stable of older road, crit, triathlon, and time trial bikes, all of which I ride regularly as part of my 150 mile / week workout regime.

As a result, I find that I lean towards post 1985 bikes because of the technological advances that occurred during that period, such as free hubs and index shifting. And, I think the steel racing bike reached a zenith of sorts during this period before being replaced by aluminum and carbon. I am working on a 1984 Miyata 1000, but, again, it is driven by the fact that an upgraded Miyata is somewhat close to more contemporary touring bikes.

The conclusion is that I buy and work on what I'm going to ride. I very much appreciate the older bikes, but am less inclined to ride them. And, I'll look at new bikes again sometime, but for now, I am very happy with my collection of street racers and hot rods.

So, what is your primary collecting motivation?

Here are a couple of examples of my regular riders, my 660 and Team Fuji, both with upgraded drivetrains. I've posted these pics before, but I just like them. I have since replaced the Fuji front wheel with a black bladed spoke wheel that matches the rear wheel.








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John E

Every bicycle I own is a rider. Even my near-original 1960 Capo is getting KoolStop brake pads and practical 700C clinchers, and I am gearing it 49-46 / 14-26 (12 speeds), instead of the original 52-48 / 14-22 (10 speeds).

Although I do admit that the freehub/cassette system is mechanically superior to the old screw-on freewheel, and although I like modern braking systems, I see very few other disadvantages to bikes of the 1960s or even late 1950s. I draw the line at suicide front shifters and bandspring normal-low rear derailleurs.

redneckwes

70's and 80's Tourers for me, and any 60's through 80's mid range steel thats a good representaion of it's home country, as soon as manufacturers started selling off names and importing bikes from the far east, my interest is gone. I look for the honesty of the bike as a cultural artifact.

Beyond that, I want to ride them, I don't own anything super valuable or rare. I don't leave everything bone stock, My Bottecchia has alloy wheels, Sunshine hubs, and cork bar tape. But I did retain all the factory parts.

RFC

I agree with the indentity of the steel criteria. New bikes and their technology are great, but have become more like comodities with a lack of identity. The finger print of the brand has faded. Basicially, the bike "manufacturer" designs the frame, the design is sent to Taiwan for molding, and the the brand manufacturer hangs components on it made by other companies.

iab

I think you will find most people here are riders, there is very little wall art this this crowd. I was drawn to a certain brand because of nostalgia. When I was a young kid, I wanted the cool teenager's bike and know I have the means. I also enjoy things that are completely diffferent. I have a bike from 2004 with brifters, a bike from the late 50s with a down tube shifter and a suicide shifter and I am building up a bike from the late 30s that will have a Vittoria Margherita shifter. What is most interesting to me is that all 3 bikes have a common thread.

But I also like getting things that appeal to my personal aesthetic. I am nearly done building a commuter. The frame is a gaspipe Torpado but it is chrome. I have also collected some interesting bits that appeal to me that will go on the bike. This bike is most definately period incorrect whereas I much prefer as close to orginal as I can with my other bikes.

Also, one petty point, I prefer preservation over restoration. In my eyes I don't see much of a difference between a restoration and a hot rod.

caterham

I'm neither a collector, hot-rodder, nor investor or restorer.
My interest is mostly in riding and maintaining my favorite bikes and some of them have "suddenly" become vintage classics, much like moi and purely by default, I have become their caretaker.

I have *accumulated* as many contemporary bikes as I have oldies in an attempt to stay abreast of current technologies and materals but have come to the conclusion that as much or more has been lost in the art as has been advanced upon.

I'm preferring the ride of steel and love the craftsmanship of good brazing and lugwork .
While I appreciate modern indexing mostly for the ability to shift reliably under a load and the closer gear spacing, I also dont really consider them necessary.
In fact, I find a certain pleasure in the mastery of the tactile skills involved in friction shifting, which to me, depending on the ride, can largely offset the technical advances of indexed brifters.
I've yet to be convinced that "clipless "pedals offer any real advantages over a cleated shoe with toeclips & straps and that toeclips' overall versatility have recently had me reverting many of my bikes to caged pedals.

anywhoo... my attitude towards the equipment is that I can equally appreciate and learn from both old and new cycling technologies, constructions and aesthetics and that leaves me open to discovering, analysing & savouring the pleasures & character of a wide variety of bikes, some of which I'll possibly hang onto long enuf that they might also become classics in their own right.

Dr.Deltron

Restoration has strict parameters, ie; What did the bike come with?

Hot-Rodding is more freeform, ie; What do I want the bike to have?

And I agree there aren't many differences, they are both overexuberant labors of love.
ie; you'll NEVER get your "money" out of it.

Me? ...Definately a Hot-Rodder!



OK, except for the box-stock '74 Raleigh Super Course Mk II. But that's youguyses fault!

I felt compelled as a matter of true C&Verism to place that last minute-won-by-a-dollar bid!

(it was red..the fastest color, right?, my size, great but dirty condition, made in Worksop & box-stock.)

barndoor

I love old steel, lugged frames......and new technology! .... all of my old bikes have sti or campy brifter systems

.... it's the best of both worlds!


I collect, sell and ride.......some I keep, not that I'm greedy....it's just hard to let some of them go.

dbakl

I'm attracted to the racing 10-speed bikes of when I first started riding, which was the early 70s, but includes the 60s and 50s too. I like to put them back more or less right and as I remember them, but not to the point of obsessing about date codes and the exact tires and stuff. I usually change the gearing and the brake shoes and tires cause I like to go and stop and get home again. While I appreciate the need for indexing for people who don't care to understand how a bike shifts, having grown up with friction its no big deal to me. I've always called indexing a complicated solution for a nonexistent problem. But that's just me. I guess cassettes may be better than freewheels, but a freewheel has never given me any trouble. 10 gears always seemed like plenty, though some of my bikes have triples. I like the brake cables hanging out in the breeze! I can tell by the sound when its shifted correctly. A 70s, all Campagnolo bike is the ultimate for me, I don't need anything newer!

Oh, I find em, work on them, collect them, sell them and ride em.

caterham

hmmm....ya think i should go with Campy Record Carbon & Boras or SRAM Red & Zipps?

dbakl

I wouldn't change a thing!

wahoonc

I accumulate and ride. None of my bikes are what I would consider highly collectible...in fact most of them were at the low end of the spectrum when they were built, with a few exceptions. Some like my 1972 Raleigh Superbe I will try and keep as original as possible. My 1975 Dawes Galaxy frameset is getting built up as a 40's-50's style club racer. It will have parts from all over the calendar. Rear hub is a 1954 FG, rims and spokes are modern as will be most of the rest of the parts. Some of the parts will be repro but it is the style I am after not the authenticity.

Aaron

Old Fat Guy

SRAM Red & Zipps

edit: Fizik saddle carbon post, too.

roccobike

I'm pretty much all over the map. I certainly flip bikes, but I'm beginning to lose interest in that. Like wahoonc, most of my old road bikes are not highly collectable. I am mantaining 3 or 4 bikes as completely original because they were in such nice shape when I obtained them. On the other hand, when it comes to my old mountain bikes, I totally hot rod/change to my liking. Come to think of it, I do that to my new (05) MTBs too.
The only really high end vintage bike I own is a Woodrup, which was a custom build to begin with. Then there's index shifting, which I prefer. So I'm going to change 3 older road bikes to index shifting.

So I guess I'm a flipper who keeps a small number of early 80's road bikes as original, but likes to change, soup up my MTBs and likes to add index shifting to my vintage road riders. Yeah, that's me.

Road Fan

Fantastic frame, Cat! The great thing about such wonderful frames is that they take well to modernization, restoration, conservation, and maintainance.

I tend to use vintage bikes as if they were mine when new. If I need a rim, I buy the highest quality but most cost-effective part I can get, modern or vintage. Usually this results in a bias in favor of vintage, based on price and product confidence. I know what I'm getting with a NOS Fiamme Red Label or Mavic GP-4, where I don't really with a Reflex. But this also means they are riders!

So this is what I call faithful maintainance. One could keep up say, a Masi Gran Criterium as a restored user, but to implement that philosophy would require searching hard for Martano rims with nipple washers, and putting up with Unicanitor saddles that I couldn't abide when I was young enough to adapt, or Cinelli 66 deep-drops on short Cinelli stems that my back can't adapt to, and really could not back in the day.

I make mods today that I probably would have back in the day, had I owned the bike as new.

My Masi is being kept essentially as it was when I got it, as owner number 2. Owner 1 was an active racing lady, who may have adapted the bike to remain on the pitch and to suit her needs.

My Mondonico is being converted to Campy 10 speed (I need handlebars, then I can start final integration and show y'all some pictures!!! I glued the tires on the new wheels today), so it is implemented as a blend of the new and the early '80s. It was built with Shimano 600 pretty much across the board when I became owner 2.

I bought my Woodrup as a bare frame, so I consider it a tabula rasa upon which I can paint as I wish. So far it"s been a friction-shifted wide-range 7-speed triple, with strong 36-hole 3X GP-4 wheels. Now it's just gotten a set of 30 mm CX tubulars, so I can take it out in the snow!

My Trek has been a toury/commuty bike, with the original 52/40 crank and after some play a Megarange 13/34 with 700C Mavic clinchers. With parts being freed up on the Mondo dismantling, it's becoming more sporty again, with tubular Matrix/DuraAce wheels carrying 14/28 Megarange, and a !st Gen Chorus drivetrain experimenting with 172.5 cranks. I have a set of 8-speed Ergo levers and a suitable 8-speed wheelset, so I think this one will become indexed in the future.

So is this a vintage collection, a toybox, or a laboratory?

One thing is for sure: the museum piece, the Masi, is the least interesting to me! A great ride and of significant value, but not something to play with. I need toys that I can wrench on.

It'll go up for sale eventually - anyone want to buy my nice Masi GC with an odd small frame reasonably original and fully functional?


Road Fan

Kommisar89

I'm in the ride 'em catagory but not because I have any illusions that the old technology is in any way better. I have old bikes and new and ride them all. I just choose the one most appropriate to the type of riding I feel like doing that day. I don't worry too much about consumables like tires and brake pads though I try to keep the tires gumwall at least. I change gearing as needed within the limits of the period just as I would have done back in the day. To narrow it down, I pretty much stick with 1983 or earlier definition of C&V with a few later exceptions. Bikes newer than that I just consider older modern bikes.

Kommisar89

Can't really agree with you there - I mean, if I somehow came into possesion of Fausto Coppi's bike I wouldn't change a thing but for a bike lacking that sort of history and provinance I want it to look good and if half the paint is missing, or the decals are torn up and it looks like hell, it needs a paint job. My Bottecchia just has a few minor chips and I found a near perfect match in automotive touch-up paint that works wonders. That's what I would have done back then so why wouldn't I do it now? Hot-rodding is more like retrofitting 10-spd indexed shifting with Ergo levers to an older bike.

[edit] Come to think of it, I'd be that guy you see on Antiques Roadshow getting told that his antique chair is worth a $100 but if his grandfather hadn't refished it it would be worth $10,000. Oh well.

jeffieh

I prefer to keep bikes in well-loved 'original' condition. Scratches, nicks, but no rust and everything polished up as far as it'll go with autosol and a soft rag. All have original paint. Tyres are a mix of cheapish Vittorio competition tubulars or else whatever was on a particular bike when it came into my poesession.
Four or five have full groupsets (NR, Superbe, simplex/stronglight/mavic...), although the Zeus Pro with half Zeus and half everything else is arguably my most precious bit of steel (and probably the least easily replaced).

When I was young I dreamed of owning bikes like these. Now I get to ride a different one each day. If I'm looking for a point, that's it.

jeffieh

Then again, every now and then I see an exhibition grade bike on a BF forum and think "blimey I wish I had a bike like THAT." (eg, that white Merckx on the site the other week, mmmmmmmm)

sykerocker 

I'm a rider first, flipper second, and collector incidentally. I've got a couple that are completely original (UO-8), or, are being brought back to original spec (Tour de France); a few more that are not original but the bits are all period correct to within a few years of the frame (Magneet Sprint, Trek 460, Rossin RL), and two, er, modern bikes - well they're handlebar indexed shifters have at least seven gears out back and at least date from the early 90's. The latter two groups get the most riding, although all are in weekly rotation.

Knowing that I'm never going to do another hardtail chopper, I've now started hot rodding bicycles. My original bike (64 Raleigh Gran Sport) which is way too battered a frame to be worth doing an original restoration is going the custom fixie route. The next frame in is getting a wild paint job and going low end modern - details to be figured out once the frame arrives and I've got a chance to try those Bontrager wheels hanging in the garage for fit.

Most of the time I'll probably stay stock or period correct modifications, but nothing hangs on the wall permanently. This is the basis of my dislike of Masi's. Most of them are wall art. And almost none of them deserve the worship.

caterham

how many masi owners do you know? i've 3 friends that still ride their masi's- 2 on criteriums and another with a prestige. both criterium owners ride their bikes regularly,one kept fairly immaculate and the other rides it rain or shine year-round and from it's looks apparently only gives it the garden hose every other year.the prestige doesn't see much use these days as it's owner prefers his modern carbon bike but it still sees duties on sunnier relaxed cruises.
they all seem to love their bikes but certainly not in the manner your generalisation would imply.

redxj

Rider, flipper, and maybe sort of collector. All of my personal bikes get ridden by me, and maybe slightly modified for my riding purposes. My two geared bikes are very different. One (my P13) is basically original with only minor changes that were made before I purchased it from the original owner. It was repainted with some minor brazeons added at that time. He also changed up the wheelset from the original high flange hubbed tubulars to low flange clinchers. The rest of it is stock the way it came, and I have left it the way I purchased it. The other geared bike (Merckx) is extremely close to how I purchased it on ebay. It has older Shimano STI (600/Dura Ace) with a few minor changes of stem/bars and seat post and seat. My other nice vintage bikes are two track bikes that I changed out the wheelsets to clinchers and a new seatpost on each (old road posts are too short for me). I sometimes change out the bar/stems depending on were I will be riding them. I have yet to ride either on the track, but that will change this year I promise. I guess that would probably put me to the mild hotrodding, but a few bikes I have changed parts on I kept the originals just in case.

In buying bikes I will buy many things I think I can make some $$ on either complete or parting them out. The flipping has led to some collecting without a doubt. The flipping has led to added money to spend on my personal collection. I really don't collect anything particular, but some similar bikes have found new homes with me. So with that said if I do collect anything that would be Schwinn Paramounts (two complete and another frame/fork) and/or track bikes (4 complete not all vintage). I would like to add another Paramount (P15) so I want to say I collect Paramounts.

gnome

I fall into catergory four: the hoarder.

Most of my old bikes are not particularly rare, or well preserved but I don't ride them (mainly because they all need fixing up to at least safe level).

I will keep my Mercian original and for fun sunny rides. It in almost brand new condition and I'll keep it that way. The only changes will be if I have to raise the stem anymore.

I plan to restore my most of my other old bikes to period correct and then ride them. I will keep the Robin Hood original as it still has the dealer stickers.

I am tempted to hot-rod some of my bikes - put alloy rims and handle bars, multi-speed internal hubs and the like.