Originally Posted by
unterhausen
I've always been a bike snob and I have to say that the people that collect old low-end bikes kind of mystify me a little. I understand it on one level, but I suffered through a lot of crummy bikes as a bike mechanic back in the '70s. Just as one example, I did a complete overhaul on a UO-8 that cost over $250 in '80s dollars, which is $650 now. It was so worn out that even after I fixed it up it was going to need fairly constant attention. I called the guy and advised him to ditch the bike and buy something nicer, but he apparently was emotionally attached to it.
+ 1 on this.
I once overhauled a really crappy bike owned by one of my former Command Master Chiefs. What a drag. She was cool about it - wanted to get back to riding. I told her it really wasn't worth the cost of the stuff we needed to make it ride-worthy, but she told me she'd rather spend that than get a new bike and find out she didn't want to ride it after all.
And whatdyaknow? She did a test ride of the refurbished bike and put it right back in the garage where it's sitting on two flats even today.
Another co-worker of mine wanted the same thing; an old Peugeot UO-8 he'd had since high-school. It was for nostalgic reasons, but there was nothing I could do about the bent fork and I told him so. After the overhaul it stayed in his study. I guess that's better than riding it with a potentially-catastrophic fork failure looming on the horizon
My point being if they are just gathering dust and rust, I'm a snob about them. However, I've gained a healthy respect for some of you riding "gaspipe" in the year-and-a-bit I've been on this forum. They're out there being used and appreciated and no matter what level they occupy that's all that matters.
DD