David Newton

Bikes from the '90's are 15 to 25 years old.
As a younger person may see a 25 y.o. bike as "vintage" we are seeing many newer bikes for evaluation/help. I suppose it is because there isn't a forum for "tween" bikes, but I miss the reason I started coming to the C&V forum, that was a proliferation of crusty bikes from the early 1900's up to 1980 at the latest.
Is there a need for a "vintage" and a separate "really-vintage" forum?

Cyclosaurus

Vintage carbon fiber. Enough said.

ThermionicScott 

I'm on another forum for aircooled VWs that has separate subforums, by year range, for specific models. Even when there is overlap, it works out pretty well, and it's interesting to see the different crowds that are attracted to one vintage or another.

I think the problem with C&V has always been where to draw the line, especially since there is so much overlap of technology. People often try to use 1984 (SIS) or 1990 (brifters) as cut-off years, but there are "classic" elements to newer bikes that still have an appeal to this crowd. Heck, friction-shifted or 3-speed-style bikes are still sold in some parts of the world.

So I don't have an answer, but the topic interests me because most of my bikes are post-1984, and I almost never ride the one that is unequivocally C&V (1964 3-speed.)

gomango

No.

Many members have a wide range of bicycles in their stables.

One of my bicycles is truly vintage by your guidelines. None of the others come close.

I don't think it's wise to define this group so narrowly.

The best guideline is to pick the thread wisely in which to participate/view.

There are so many threads on this forum to choose from, I see no need to split us up.

Sixty Fiver

My newest bike is a 2001 Rocky Mountain Blizzard which is still a classic steel hardtail... earliest is my 1951 CCM which is also classic but not so much vintage.

Classic defines an established design, vintage defines the very best of it's kind.

BradH

For me, a threaded fork, quill stem and parallel top tube give a bike C&V appeal, at least for a road bike.

Lascauxcaveman 

Naw. Usually the thread titles give you enough info to let you decide if the subject is 'vintage' enough for your interest.

SJX426 

I agree. What was newer to me is now 20+ years old. I need to adapt and accept that my perspective is old and needs to change/expand! Change is the only constant.

Chombi

It will be sad when aesthetically challenged, jillion speed, "tail dragger", compact bikes, mass produced in big factories in the far east from molds and ovens, will be considered C&V....... I don't think we'll have problems apply the term "Vintage" to them, but "Classic"??
Maybe they should be called "Neo C&V" bikes??
The difference to our present C&V bikes will be like that of a modern electric violin with no body to speak of, and a Stradivarius......
JMOs.........
Dang!, I also noticed that downhill skis had gotten really weird, short and ugly looking too........ Dang!, how do we get off this ever fuglyizing ride??!:

SJX426 

Its hard after all this time to say the bicycles are not a commodity. Really? I think many are not! The top-end ones we admire and collect are not commodity items! "Mass Produced," sure. Sometimes I think that anything "plastic" can only be commodity, with the exception of the early products that tested the mass production process. Classic and Vintage have an inherent property of some level of durability, amongst others, at least in my mind.

What will differentiate the "aesthetically challenged, jillion speed..." bikes will not be the bikes themselves but the mass production technology that produced what were durabale goods into disposable ones at an increase in price!

mikemowbz

Some folks do seem to raise a recurring gripe regarding the claimed inappropriateness of much of the bicycle content posted here, not always 'vintage enough' for some tastes (i.e. 1980s and early 1990s road and mountain bikes).

I'd definitely be without suitable material for a "really-vintage" sub-forum, with a stable spanning the 1980s in their entirety (1981-1990) if we exclude one or two 'modern' bikes I keep around. Well, maybe the girlfriend's '71 International.

Many, many posters here share both an interest in older bikes, say pre-boom or pre-1980, and in steel (and Ti, and Al...and vintage CF) from the 1980s and even the '90s - or even fix their attentions mainly on the latter.

I don't own anything more than a couple years older than my own biographical tally of 31; I will someday, and enjoy much of what I see here going as far back as folks' collections and knowledge can take us.

I concur that browsing past a few thread titles extraneous to some folks' personal interests should be no great burden, and a reasonable one to keep this eclectic community together.

gomango

I started downhill skiing again four years ago after renting a set of these "shaped" skiis.

Absolutely amazing performance!

At the end of last season I picked up a set of Volkl Katanas. My goodness are they fun. I use to ski slalom and GS when I was in high school on Hart Kings. Long, floppy skis with Look Grand Prix bindings. While they were decent in their day, they simply can't compare in any way to my new Katanas. Oh yeah, the Volkls are much better looking. Imho

bikingshearer 

Rumor has it that Mother Nature eventually takes care of that for all of us.

The Golden Boy 

I generally use 1994- the end of Suntour.

Bianchigirll 

Well if you look at it sort of like wine or bourbon every bike it technically vintage. Once trek runs off 5000 bike run of 2014 model 5500s or Bianchi runs off a couple thousand Bravas or Giros, those are vintage there will never be another one like produced. Now whether it is a classic like a bottle of Markers Mark or run of the mill like Old Granddad is kind of up to the drinker/owner right?

Personally I am stuck in what I call the "Nuovo Classic" era of '84ish to '90. Most of my bikes are from that period and either have DT or barcons, some even have exposed brake cables. I have actually not ridden a 'brifter' equipped bike this year and while I have enjoyed cycling the last few weeks it really stinks not being able to shift when I want to.

SJX426 

LOL! Some will use the demise of Serotta as the line!

Fahrenheit531 

I'm not sure what I consider a cut-off date for C&V, opting more for the idea that "you know it when you see it." I shared a '93 Eddie Merckx in the "Looking for One of These?" thread recently, and I think that bike is unquestionably C&V, year of manufacture being all-but irrelevant. Of course, I'm still pretty new at this.

Either way, tough to draw any kind of line and say "this, but not that," without immediately finding an exception.

SJX426 

Anything Eddie is likely to be classic regarless of date! Yeah the line is hard to describe, that is why we choose dates. It was easier decades ago.

Chombi

I guess we can look at it from the "modern" rider's perspective.... They may be starting to look at our C&V bikes like some of us look at Penny Farthings..... being that, modern bikes have been evolving to something almost not recognizable to some of us...... It's just people had been conditioned so so long to the form of the "Universal Diamond Framed" bikes.....

embankmentlb

I dunno, my 2003 Kleins with STI are starting to look like they were dropped from a time machine.

jeirvine 

I also think the l'Eroica cut-off date of 1987 is a useful (though admittedly arbitrary) break point. I don't own any bikes newer than that.

b dub 

I would say anything the folks in 'Road Cycling' give the OP a hard time about ends up here. There is nothing in between.

vonfilm 

What is a new Mercian if not classic? There are still some bikes built today in the classic pattern.

Fahrenheit531 

I was going to head in this direction as well. If you take a nice bike to the roadies section and get laughed out of the thread because it's an "obsolete boat anchor," you may be riding C&V.

Velocivixen

Other than my Surly Cross Check, all my bikes range from 1974-1992 - to me they're vintage but definitely not "classic" in the sense that the brands/models I have did not "define" a particular style or type of bike.