As said above there is no firm definition. There are some C&V fans who consider anything with a deraileur to be Modern and only old SS/FG and IGH is considered Vintage. As for this forum I believe for most part they try and stick to bikes roughly 20 to 25 years and older, so anything older than say a 90-92ish bike. I believe in the sticky threads at the top of the forum is the rules and the dating of the bikes for this thread.

Some here stick mostly with older middleweight 3+ speed cruiser and "Club" bikes other like anything that might be Italian from '79 and older.

I persoanlly take a slightly different view and base my break down on technological advances. Anything older than say '84/85ish is a real C&V machine. Bikes from '85 to '92ish are what I call 'Nuovo Classics'. From the advent of the deraileur systems in the "Golden Age" (the 1930's as labeled by the "Dancing Chain") bikes had not changed much. There were various derailleur designs and crank systems but most all bikes were steel and had brake cables flapping in the breeze.

In '85ish bikes saw the first big changes since the industry and consumers settled on the two pulley parrellelagram derailleur and double rings. Indexing and aero brake lever came on the scene alnong with aluminum bikes and some Ti bikes becomeing musch more mainstream. The road bike or "10spd" took a huge technological step but still retained it classic look of drop bars, DT shifters and round tubing. In '93/94ish the classic road bike or "10spd" changed again with most employing "Brifter" type shifting and Aluminium displacing steel and Carbon Fiber becoming mainsteam. Alas the classic look of skinny metal tubes with popsicle stick looking shifters and toeclips faded from the shoroom floor to be replace by fat aerofiol shaped carbon and aluminium with tubing shapes and weights the Wright Brother would stand in awe of.

OH Pardon me I'll get off my soap box now, didn't mean to bore you