billnuke1 

Something like, "Your not worried about being seen with her, but, no one is going to fight you for her!"
Thin line!

RobbieTunes

I'm in my garage today, and a guy comes over to get help removing a BB that was ruined by the previous owner.

He walks over to a bike and says "you must have rubbed this with WD40..."

I said no.

He said, "come on, I can see it on the tubes, and feel it."

I said no.

He looked at me strangely.

I explained, before he arrived, I was working on it, and it's simply greasy from my hands.

He asked "are you going to clean it up?"

I said no.

"Why not?"

"No reason to."

"Why not? You don't care what it looks like?"

I put down the wrench so I don't throw it.

"Because, as soon as you leave, I'm going to try and finish it."

"Oh."

Awkward silence.

"Here, have a Yuengling."

Steve Whitlatch 

Some of the bikes I see here I can`t imagine riding. They are to beautiful to ride. Some of the Italian bikes are to die for. I go nuts if I get dirt on the sidewall of my Prelude. I could only imagine how crazy I would get if it was a bike worth 5 times my Prelude. One scratch and the value drops by $300. Oh my god. I would NEVER be able to deal with that.

jimmuller 

Yeah, but it's not about the value. It's about the appearance. A scratch or two? Well, after paying $600 for a paint job for the Masi I worried about it until the first flaw appeared. Then I realized that was the natural result of my riding it. It still looks great but now it carries my fingerprints as well as Faliero's signature. From 10 yards away nobody can see any flaw. I can't see them when I'm riding. And in any case, I'm usually going so fast nobody can see anything anyway.

vonfilm 

Steve,
The red bike in the second picture is actually my 87 Super Sport which I recently had powder coated and built up with unblemished components. The white 86 Tempo may eventually get the same treatment. I was kind of thinkinking of powdercoating it Superdurable Wet-Black and installing some hammered Honjo fenders that I have on hand. Right now I am experimenting with it and seeing what it is like to ride a beater. The Super Sport frame is the same as the Tempo but without fender eyelets.

Steve Whitlatch 

Nope. Not me. That flaw would eat at me daily. I would have a heart attack for sure. It would be like scratching the Mona Lisa. If I had a Masi it would be roped off in the living room and never ridden so it would not drive me crazy. It would be looked at when I woke up. I would have my morning coffee in the living room. I would eat dinner in the Living Room. I would kiss it goodnight when I went to bed. But ride it? Never!!

jimmuller 

He, he! Ever ridden one? If you did you'd want to ride it again. And again. I dearly love several of my bikes and some simply disappear underneath me. But the Masi is special. It has a psychic tie-in to my desires. If I want to go straight it goes straight. If I want to turn it turns exact how I want without me telling it. Its only flaw is that it always wants to go faster to the point that I find myself asking myself why I'm pushing so hard.

But the paint? When I acquired the frame (it was a gift) it had been abused, stripped of its decals, repainted very badly, abused further. And it has some peculiar features from the shop which I won't describe here. Fortunately it was straight and sound and authentic. So it wasn't original and wasn't cosmetically acceptable let alone factory-perfect. Its appearance now is my own doing. So if it picks up a stone while I'm riding it, that's my doing too. It was made to be ridden, unlike the Mona Lisa which was made to be hung on a wall.

But YMMV of course.

turky lurkey

My nicest looking bikes get ridden far less than my others. Mainly because the majority of my riding is commuting over a mix of paved roads and gravel/dirt MUP's. I don't like to get my nice looking bikes filthy and leave them to get bashed up on bike racks all day so I guess it does matter to me that my nice bikes continue looking nice.

I actually do feel I get less respect from some other cyclists when riding my beater franken bikes. When I am riding those bikes I guess that does't bother me though because I know that all my bikes are mechanically well maintained I am comfortable on them and I ride quite a bit so I don't need to prove anything. Besides, most of those cyclists who are too cool or hardcore to bother smiling or waving when they see somebody on an old beater bike weren't around two months ago when it was freezing cold.

The Golden Boy 

Then why have it?

I always draw a parallel between bikes and guitars. It's really applicable.

I have old guitars and basses I've had for 20 years. I play them and play them out just as much as I care to. They're the instruments I play. When you play them, things happen. They get bumped, dinged, scratched, broken... it happens. Some of my old stuff is now worth thousands of dollars. Around 15 years ago, I started buying Custom Shop instruments- because they felt like my old stuff. But they were expensive. In 2001, I bought a brand new Les Paul 1958 reissue. It was not inexpensive. I think I had it less than a week, and I was in the basement with the guitar strapped on- and I walked through a doorway and biffed he guitar on the door frame. Since then, it's been just a guitar to me. I pummel it, but I maintain it, I keep an eye on it. But I play it. All the time.

A few years ago on a forum, a guy was talking about his 1958 reissue (the 1959 RI is the Top Of The Line Les Paul reissue, the 1958 is 'second tier'). He maintained that guitar only at home. He was in a band, but not only did he not play it out, but he didn't take it out of the house. He was terrified that if this guitar were around things that were out of his control that it would start on fire and his soul would be crushed and then consumed. I could not understand that.

****ing ride it. ****ing play it. That's what it's there for. Take care of it.

tashi

QFF-ingT.

They exist to be ridden. The fullest expression of all the resources that went into making it happens when it's ridden. If it's a race bike than ride it hard. If it's a touring bike than cover some ground. If it's special for some reason than take really good care of it.

I can see having a wall hanger or two (ten), but I can't imagine not taking them down and riding them. I'd just be a waste.

Steve Whitlatch 

Actually I am very comfortable knowing I may never own such a bike, well unless I get lucky and find one at a garage sale for $100. I enjoy what I have. I find fixing up old beat up bikes fun. Maybe one day it will be a beat up Masi or some other Italian beauty that has been neglected and left for dead.

turky lurkey

I agree with this. I have actually been get a little too into beat up old entry level bikes lately. I have found that as long as they are at least entry level bike shop quality bikes then with a little care and maybe a couple cheap upgrades they can usually be turned into great riders. One of the things I like about basic bikes is that I feel can mix and match parts and build interesting contraptions without feeling like I am ruining something super collectible. The problem with my interest in low level bikes is that it is easy to get too many of them and they are difficult to resell, no matter how mechanically sound they are. The sad truth is that from a financial point of view many of the old bikes are hardly worth the new tires I put on them.

rando_couche

And ugly bikes (can) ride as well as pretty ones. Life's to short to obsess over how pretty your bike is. Get out and ride!

SP
OC, OR

Steve Whitlatch 

Yes they do. But why ride an ugly one if you can make it look good?

The Golden Boy 

The point of owning anything cool is to enjoy it responsibly.

There's the guy who walked into a 1959 Paramount for $200 and is going to copper or nickel plate it. He's not seeing a 1959 Paramount. He's seeing an old $200 bike that he can **** with.

I seriously walked into two of the finest touring bikes of all time in less than a month. I've been building them up and I'm going to ride the **** out of them. I just finished getting the fenders on my Trek 720. I'm not going to have disc mounts brazed onto it, I'm not going to replace the headtube on my Voyageur SP to accommodate a 1 1/8" steerer. I'm not going to spread the rear ends of those bikes farther than is safe for them. I'm going to appreciate the 1984 Voyageur SP, 1985 Trek 620 and 1985 Trek 720 as some of the finest designed bicycles of their era. I'm going to respect them for what they are, I'm going to change what needs to be changed for me to be able to enjoy them. But I'm going to make sure they can be returned to their stock configuration. But they will be ridden. And thoroughly enjoyed.

You should HOPE to run into something outrageously cool. And when you do run across it (because you will, if you keep looking) that you recognize it and take care of it. That doesn't mean hide "your precious" away from the world, it means be responsible with it.

The Golden Boy 

If your life is so cluttered that you can't clean up your ****- that's on you.

The Golden Boy 

Use your good stuff.

If you have good stuff and you don't use it- that's on you.

If you feel like people are judging you- either your **** is REALLY repulsive, or it's just you. Chances are, it's just you.

There are more people on entry level hybrids that don't return a "Hi" to me than people on DeRosas and Cervelos or 1950s Bianchis or whatever fancy-pants bike you want to talk about.

turky lurkey

I actually never said I don't use my nicer stuff (by nicer I mean nicer looking, or more collectable) I just said that I use it less. If I am going for a ride (on pavement) on the weekend I am going to ride one of my nice bikes because I agree that there isn't a lot of point in having something if you never use it. However, I have no interesting in letting my good stuff (good stuff is of course relative for each of us) get beat up on the bike racks during the week. My statement about how I like entry level bikes had nothing to do with not liking higher end ones as well. It was just a separate point about how I appreciate many bikes that some people might overlook. From my experience, in many ways a bike is a bike (I know that only goes so far) and if it is comfortable and suits the purpose a person needs, a lower level one might do a job just about as well as a more expensive one.

As far as other cyclists judging, I really don't care much about that, and maybe your right some of it could be in my head (I'm sure not all, but again just a bit of an observation, and I don't care).

I think there is a lot of room for opinion in this thread, and there is nothing wrong with that. If somebody has a collectable bicycle and they want to hang it on the wall and admire the care and craftsmanship it was was built with, good for them, it's theirs to do what they wish with it. If another person has the same thing and wants to ride the heck out of it rain or shine, pavement or dirt thats fine as well. If somebody only has one bike and it looks awful, well great I hope it fits and rides nice.

a77impala

Am I the only one that will take my coffee to the back room and sit on the steps and just look at the bikes? I did the same thing when I rode Harleys, a thing of beauty is a joy forever!

The Golden Boy 

I totally understand not using your good stuff to be ridden, and locked up and unattended. That's about being responsible about your stuff.

I put a thought about "my precious" onto your statement, and you didn't say that - I apologize.

turky lurkey

no problem!

The Golden Boy 

In my guitar practice area of the basement I have a mirror. I put it down there so I could see where my hand was and be used to not looking at the fretboard. In reality, I more often use it to stare at my guitars while I'm playing them.

CroMo Mike 

I've been riding bikes and looking at my bikes (with a cup of coffee) for 40 years. My wife still thinks I'm nuts.

When my son was 15 I used to let him ride my '72 Bottecchia whenever he wanted to. It was meant to be ridden. It always came back without a scratch. He is 30 now and lives one state away. When he comes to visit, he brings his helmet and shorts and we do a ride using my bikes. I just let him pick whichever one he wants to ride. He always picks the Colnago. No problem, that way I get to admire it on the road.

a77impala

When my son and I ride together one of us will always pull me to the other and say"nice bike". He has an"08
LeMond Versailles and I am usually on my "06.

Murray Missile 

You just described my bike affliction to a T.