rhm

I am not a car guy. I was into cars as a little kid but was over that long before I was old enough to drive. By then I'd found all the independence I needed in the form of bicycles, and they gradually got to be better ones until I started grad school, and didn't have time or money to continually improve them. At some point I became aware that the industry had moved on, to mountain bikes and indexed shifting. I was shocked to hear suntour had gone under. I made as valiant effort to get with the times, but discovered I really didn't like where things had gone. But then I discovered folding bikes, and my enthusiasm returned. I joined Bike Forums to participate in the folding bike discussion... And saw there was a thing called C&V. I knew right away that going there would be a really bad idea, and I resisted for a few months....

I can still say I don't own a car. I have in fact never owned a car in my own name, though I have co-owned a few with my wife. The current one is in her name only, and that's how it should be. I'm not a car guy.

Pars 

No. The only "mentor" I had was the local Schwinn dealer. As an underpaid young lad, I went down an plopped a wad of money down to order a high end "lightweight" 10 speed. Ya know, as Capt. Kangaroo said, I must be getting the best, right? 6 month wait. Unfortunately, I (pre internet) started to do some research. And discovered that a) the marketing speak for that bike might be wrong, and b) for not that much more, I could get something that might actually deliver on that marketing speak.

So said "mentor" would not budge on order cancellation without forfeit of 50% of my deposit, which was a lot of money to me at the time. So I took delivery, rode it for a bit (during which time so called "mentor" admonished me for disassembling things, to try to make it better), and then ditched it in favor of what I had since discovered. Never looked back (at least with any good thoughts).

I'm most in line with the posters who said they bought the bike new and rode it until it was "vintage". :rofl:

Bobtoo

That's pretty much exactly how it was for me. I've gone down the route of getting the kind of bikes I wished I could have when I was a teenager. I've always been mostly a lone rider though, the closest to a mentor I've had would be Richard Ballantine- I read his Bicycle Book dozens of times when I was in my teens.

Prowler 

When I was a kid (I think Howard Taft was president at the time) all the kids had bikes. My brother rode fine but I just could not get the hang of it. One day my father got so frustrated he, literally, said "get out there and learn to ride that bicycle or come back bloody". I fearfully rolled it down the driveway and my brother came running up behind me with a bottle of ketchup........

I did learn, then mowed a LOT of lawns to earn enough for a green Schwinn Varisty = freedom. I had that thru college and several years into career and kids. In the late 70s I realized what a slug that Varsity was so, with my US Steel income, bought a Moto Mirage brand new off the floor. Great bike but as "way leads on to way" I rode less and less and moved and moved and bought motorcycles and, and, and........

Then when my son was in college he scammed a campus raffle and won a Huffy mountain bike. POS so he gave it to me. At the same time my sister gave me a nice bike rack (cuz it would not fit on her Honda Odessy). "A to B to Z" and I started riding that Huffy on our local rail trails. Loved it. Really loved it and recognized how good it was for my health.

Found "Lovely Bicycle" and got real interested in C&V stuff. Took another look at the Moto, cleaned it up and pushed off. Heavy and slow but once up to speed it runs like a locomotive. Loved the classic looks too. Converted it to flat bars "cuz I cannot see myself riding drop bars ever again". Wadda dope!! I just needed the core strength and flexibility.

Those came as did a CL ad for '4 vintage bikes' and a lousy picture. But the photo was enough to make me think it might be a Raleigh Pro. I put the 4 bike rack and the Trek ZX7000 on the car. And drove the two hours. (I took the Trek so if I did not buy the bikes I could at least ride a neat trail out that-a-way and the drive would not be wasted). It was a Pro Mk IV, my size, as was the Nishiki Intl. I took the ladies Vista too but left the rest. Oh, I rode that trail anyway but was so concerned about the vintage bikes hanging out on the back of the car, while I was gone, that I parked at the local police station and they agreed to keep an eye out. Gotta love small Pennsylvania towns.

Then I found Sheldon and you guys and a few other blogs. Youse all have been an awesome help. I'm enjoying the rides, the renovations, the hammering of my cardiovascular system and the shinny chrome. Even proficient enough now to be wrenchin a bit in a shop. Great life.

RobbieTunes

My skill set is limited, but my focus is good.

iab

When I was riding as a teenager, I was touring. We would pack up, hit the road Saturday morning, sneak onto someone's land to camp (never at a campsite, too much money) and ride home on Sunday.

Ironically, I have no interest in touring now.

Essthreetee

Looking back, I realize that I have always been into bikes. Started with my stingray...which then went to my diamondback. I rode that thing all over. I remember taking it apart and cleaning it all the time. I always wanted to ride my dads green Varsity, but it being TOO BIG (although now as an adult, it would be too small). The. I got my first road bike, a Raleigh Technium 440. I loved riding...although it was short lived due to being the only one in town...and my inevitable drivers license.

Fast forward about 25 years, and here I am following my interests.

repechage

When I started riding a road bike at 12, I thought I would tour. A year later I found a doorway into bicycle racing. Old bike racers make terrible cycling tourists I think. Every ride is still a training ride, unless its with my kids. That is the time I can shift the mental outlook.

iab

I've got a little of that in me. Even when commuting to work, I rarely take it easy.

The Golden Boy 

I got a bike a couple days before I got out of the Army, ostensibly to get around when I went to college. It sat in my parents' garage 15 years or so. A few years ago I decided to quit smoking and wanted physical diversion for something to do and not put on too much weight, so I dug that bike out along with my sister's bikes.

While in the process of learning about my bike I gravitated here. This forum has some of the finest collective knowledge in the universe.

Kobe 

I always had some kind of cobbled together boaster brake bike (3 brothers stealing parts from each other), then about 11 the older kid across the street started to tell me about the races at Greenbelt Park in Maryland. He made it so facinating that by 13 I saved for my first race bike. Unfortunately we move away when I was 12 and he never knew the impression he left on me. I may eventually have caught the cycling bug, but all these years later I still like riding as much as I did at 13. He started my interest in good bikes before any of my friends had any idea what a good bike was.

mountaindave 

Great stories, just in time for the ghosts of Christmas past

I think the first seed was planted when I grew legs long enough to ride my dad's '73 Gitane TdF and discovered how fast I could go compared to my Coast to Coast BMX bike (all the kids had BMX bikes in the 80s). It didn't take long to outgrow that frame, but a friend got me pulled into a time trialing club and I ended up buying an '88 Specialized Sirrus on consignment that was only a couple years old. (This was the the era of low-cost, high quality Asian imports.) I rode for fun, hung out with guys that knew way more than I did, learned a few things, rode as part of a family team in a local mini-triathlon, then went off to college.

I dabbled with cheap mountain bikes, but road biking really called to me for some reason. I wasn't good at any of the "normal" sports, but my long, skinny legs seemed to be made for road bikes. Ironically, when I was at college, my MTN bike got stolen off our front porch and my much more valuable (to me) Sirrus was left behind (thank goodness!!). When I finished college my brother got into triathlons more seriously, so I gave him my bike.

In the early 2000s I discovered that MTN bikes had completely taken over the market and there was no such thing as an "entry level" road bike anymore. Fortunately my brother moved on from triathlons and the bike ended up back in my possession.

I've settled my family in the town where I grew up. MTN biking is by far the most popular form of biking, but CX bikes have opened up the "rode bike" market to many more people because of their versatility, which is needed when half the roads in our valley are still dirt. People can commute, tour, and still go fast.

Then I found a group of people who do a vintage bike ride and the rest is history. I swallowed the koolaide, hook, line and sinker, and was all in. I found Sheldon Brown (my he rest in peace), BF and various other online portals. I have made virtual friends through BF and have had the great fortune to meet some of them in person. There have been a number of instrumental people who have nudged me down this path along the way, but I have by far learned the most (and become the most addicted) thanks to the members of BF.

So my hats off to you, BF members, for being by biggest mentors. Merry Xmas!

sbarner 

My mentor was my dad. With a large family surviving on a school teacher's income, there wasn't any money for new bikes and my dad had fixed up and sold bikes as a young man, pre-WWII, so it was typical to be a part of the process of assembling the next of a series of bikes with which I grew up. Since our bikes were kept in a partially open shed, bike repair and rebuilding was a seemingly constant activity. At first, my role was only to paint a just-assembled bike (it may have been old, but every rebuilt bike required a new paint job, as the finishing touch of pride in the job--it may not have been new, but it had to look good). Eventually, I was given mechanical tasks to perform, until I became responsible for fixing and rebuilding the bikes for my younger siblings.

It was largely this experience that led me to my first real job, assembling bikes for the Christmas season at a chain tire store. One of the things that impressed the manager was my well-kept Schwinn Varsity, the first ever new bike in my family, purchased with the small settlement from an accident in which a car hit me during a snow squall, while I was riding home from Boy Scouts one night. I don't know if I had any lights, and I certainly didn't have any reflectors, so it's not a surprise that the driver didn't expect a cyclist to come blasting out of the snow, riding hard to get home. The tire store job gave me experience and pocket money to become a regular at the local Schwinn dealer, buying accessories for my bike like a Stewart Warner speedometer (better suited for a moped than a bicycle), a rack, and eventually a Motobecane Grand Touring.


The Schwinn shop hired me away from the tire store and that began a 15-year on-and-off stint in the bicycle industry. I never got paid very much, but had tons of fun, went through a number of sweet bikes (my favorites being a Cinelli Mod B and a twin-plate California Masi). Although I spent a high percentage of my income on bikes and parts (at cost-plus-10%), my childhood frugality stayed with me and I rarely owned a car. They were just too expensive for their limited usefulness when I could get pretty much anywhere I ever wanted to go by bike or bus (or both). All this "utility riding" kept me in good shape and made long distance riding relatively easy. I loved racing bikes, but didn't enjoy racing, something that might have been different if I had had a cycling mentor or coach. The closest people to this role were a lifer at the shop (your basic Joe Coasterbrake--a great guy who could fix anything) and a former auto racer-turned-frame builder who was known locally for his oddball designs.


When I left the bike industry for a teaching career (driven more by the desire for meaningful results from my efforts than more money), I kept my bikes and tools and, though there were years when my riding miles dipped low, I never really left the sport. The 1990s were the years when my small bike fleet gained the most dust, and my mileage during several of those years would have struggled to break 1,000, but the turn of the century was followed by a rededication to riding and a revisiting of annual double-centuries. Having missed the advent of the indexing craze, and finally accepting many of the truths I had denied in my youth about the lack of a direct relationship between high price and high fun in cycling, I just stuck with the bikes I had and slowly added to my stable of steeds as I stumbled across bikes I had coveted in younger days at very good prices, compared to modern bikes.


I stuck with classic bikes largely because they are every bit as much fun to ride today as they were when they were unaffordable, cutting-edge technology, yet you can buy a pristine classic for less than the price of a mediocre new bike. I have adopted index shifting, and spend most of my time on clicky bikes with Look or SPD pedals, and I have several bikes less than 15 years old that get ridden a lot, especially when I know I am going to be meeting up with young, fast riders, but my first selection when I am heading out for a fun ride is almost always going to be a classic Paramount, DeRosa or Masi. I really like being able to select the right bike for the ride, based on who, where, how steep, weather and fun factors, and I especially enjoy carrying my load on a long, fast, group ride while on a bike that is older than most of the people I am with. I try not to be a curmudgeon, but I enjoy the tacit teaching of what I learned long ago about how riding a fast bike does almost nothing to make you fast--it's all in the legs.

jon c. 

I rode a Raleigh Record when I was a kid. It was low end gas pipe, but it was better than the comparable Schwinn and that was good enough for me. I loved that bike and put a lot of miles on it. Then life intervened and I didn't ride for over 30 years. When I started again it just seemed natural to go back to what I loved. So I wanted to get an older bike that was a step up from the one I loved as a kid, preferably another Raleigh. I lucked into finding a Team Pro that was my size and my love of riding came right back. I never really considered getting a new bike. And I certainly wanted downtube shifters. I didn't really think about why, but obviously I was just trying to recapture my youth. And it worked pretty well.

cs1

I was -1 in 1957. Well actually no I was shot out a cannon in 57. Let's talk bikes. I started riding in 1976 and still like the same kind of bikes I started out on.

fietsbob

I still have the Bike Frame-set I Built in 1976.. a DIY project.

RaleighSport

In a sense, when I first showed up I bugged @3alarmer a lot with questions and he was always willing to help, I'd definitely call him my C&V mentor.

browngw 

My first thought when I read this thread was that no mentor was involved. As a kid who lived out in the country bikes were our source of fun and adventure. I never realised people would race them. They were quickly abandoned when cars came along.
I always had one to use if I wished but it did not see a lot of use for many years other than a ride to the beach or while camping.
Three years ago a good friend was cleaning up and decided he wanted to get rid of his fathers old Raleigh Sprite 6speed. He had just bought a new Giant Cypress for fun rides and exercise. I tried his Giant and liked it so well, I bought two, one for myself and one for my sweetie to replace our rusty aging Free Spirit MTBs.
I also accepted my friends gift of the Raleigh. That bike was so much fun to restore, research and tinker with that it led to "Bike Forums" and many more projects including some vintage road bikes. I'm now the neighbourhood "bike guy" and own a number of bikes.
Last spring my friends father passed and I gave him back the old Sprite in like new condition. I don't think he's ridden it but enjoys having it in his shop.
I, on the other hand now ride a lot more, do some touring and enjoy cycling immensely. My friend now sees me as his mentor in these endeavors. I guess we all have, or are mentors of some type, including all the good people on this forum.
Happy Holidays All.
George.

The Golden Boy 

These are some cool stories.

RobbieTunes

If someone wants to volunteer that they me, ....

...my wife is looking for someone to blame....

Just putting it out there....


Actually, I blame it on my friend Carl.
He had a 5-speed Stingray, when I shared a Westpoint banana clone.
He had a metallic green Continental, so I bought a Free Spirit.
He didn't mentor me, he drove me nuts.

I wanted a '69 429CJ Cougar; he got it and rolled it.
I wanted a bicentennial Vega (like the Free Spirit); he got it and rolled it.
He eventually rolled his VW Fastback, so his dad bought him a motorcycle.

We both ended up with Fiat X 1/9's, and yep, he rolled his, too.

I like a guy who doesn't quit.

JJScaliger

I was leaning toward cv after I had been a bike messenger for about two years. I saw a De Rosa giro in the local shop with pretty lugs, chrome and a flat fork crown and was smitten. It had Dura Ace though...

Fast forward a couple of years and I was working in a college town bike shop, assembling point and pedal bikes and refurbs of old vacation rentals. Then I went to a bike swap in Boston in the Fall of 1998 and picked up a Rivendell Catalogue.




I remember bringing it to one of my favorite bars, Custom House in Prov (RIP), and reading it cover to cover enthralled. The parts on friction shifting really struck a cord with me. The vintage parts in the cat didn't seem that appealing to me then...






The frames were too much for me to swing, but it really got the mental wheels turning!


6 months later I was just about to pull the trigger. I was seriously contemplating ordering a Gios compact pro frame from excel or a complete Bianchi with Veloce when one of my friends who worked at the before mentioned De Rosa shop said "Come check out this little bike shop that specializes in Italian frames."

It was in a mill town in northern RI and sold Grandis and Masi frames, (along with Trek and other stuff I wasn't interested in.) There were beautiful 3V Masi on the the walls and a picture of the owner with Eddy Merckx, and 2 rows of Grandis frames hanging from the ceiling. The lugs on the Grandis frames knocked me out and I ended up leaving with Grandis Gara frame equipped with campy Mirage and hand built wheels by the owner.

In the small universe that is RI I ended up wrenching at this shop in a few years and learned so much from the owner, who was very knowledgeable and a true artisan. Grandis made these Gara frames exclusively for the owner .The Gara frames used the same lugs as the SL frames. The owner told Grandis, "I can sell these cheaper tubed frames just on the craftsmanship." The owner was a 2nd generation Italian American, fluent in the language, and had visited both him and F. Masi several times. He also went to the Milan show every 5 years or so.

Later the owner's health started to fail and he stopped going to Italy to import these frames, but we were also dealers for Colnago, Casati (we only had carbon bikes in the shop) and Tommasini ( a few steel). He kind of looked down his nose at any frame that wasn't Italian or made with Columbus. He always said there are two things Italians do right, "bicycles and shoes."

I sold my Grandis Gara and was interested in cyclocross at this point when the owner decided to sell the shop about 10 years ago. He gave me a Cinelli super corsa neuron frame that he got a smoking deal on from Oschner as a thank you for the years I spent working with him, and I guess just because he could. He passed three years ago and I miss him very much. To be honest, I would be talking to him in person about a lot of the things I have to research here about old bikes if he was still alive.

Number_6

I was always in it..

I started riding on two wheels with the Huffy convertible trainer I got for my sixth birthday (1967). All the bikes I had as a kid, except for the last, a Columbia Lexington, were Huffys. Next Huffy was a Trophy CS, which was stolen and replaced by a 26" Celina-built 3-speed Huffy Sportsman, which I started riding at nine (I've always been tall). It was black, whitewalled, had speeds and was big- it was sharp- I felt head and shoulders above the Sting-Rays and Cheeter Slicks because it was a bike for grownups. I got a taste for 3-speeds with its twist grip Sturmey Archer. Why Huffys? I was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. Nonetheless back then I always had a healthy respect and admiration for Schwinns- in my world they were tough and quality.

I've always enjoyed roaming, and gawking. I've been a vehiclephile since I can remember and like working with the mechanical. I could pick out cars by make, model, and year from 3 or 4. I love airplanes- my grandad bought a Cessna when I got my first bike (I first went up at three in a 170)- and also because of where I grew up.

But a kid has to start somewhere and that, logically is the bicycle. I didn't grow up in a subdivision, I grew up in a neighborhood. I had plenty of corner stores to ride to, rode a bike to school, rode to work downtown in high school. I rode to the Air Force Museum, to Carillon Historical Park. The Miami Conservancy District opened a bike trail when I was in eighth grade along the Great Miami that I rode all the time- ten miles one way from Helena Street near downtown to West Carrollton. In the spring, summer, and fall I lived on my bike.

Never know much about the really exotic bicycles until adulthood. Exotic to me back then was my classmate's Peugeot. I can't remember what model it was, merely being a Peugeot made it exotic.

I love mobility, and of course cars and planes took a big place in my life as I got older, but I've never left the bicycle. I rode again in my early thirties during my second college career. I am riding again as the rest of my life offers little physical activity... and I know I'll like riding a bike.

So what does all this have to do with C&V? I can't really pass it off as mere nostalgia. When I first rode the Schwinn Super Sport and Suburban I picked up a few months ago, I had a certain sense, a certain feeling I'd not had since the seventies. I dig the bag o' tricks Moto titanium, the poverty Sirrus, and the Catrike Expedition but, they just don't give that feeling the hardware does from my childhood- I'll always enjoy that stuff a little more.

Now, I need to get to those old Raleighs...