Welcome to the Bike Forums, a wonderful resource for newbies and veterans alike, in my opinion.

Vintage bicycles are easy to get and that can lead to problems. I did not know when to start trying to control my urge to get another, or the next, or a better... bicycle. You will see N+1, with N being the number of bikes you have now and +1 targeting the next one you will get. At one time, I had 180 vintage road bicycles. Now I have six and even that is more that enough, in my storage challenged life.

Since you are new, you might want to go to MY "TEN SPEEDS", a website intended to help people, like you, who are new to the vintage bicycle interest. I recommend that you spend a bit of time learning, and then end up saving time, effort and cash on anything you choose to build/own/ride.

For what it is worth, I did all of the wrong things when I first got into vintage bicycles and it cost me time, money and effort, all of which turned out to have been wasted on a bent bicycles that was too big for me. But at least I managed to destroy the original paint and art that was in great shape "as found". Yup, I screwed it all up but I learned. My first road bicycle...





If the bike is too big for me, or too small, I don't keep it. I seek the perfect ride and a bike that does not fit will never offer such moments of joy, in my opinion.

Go slow with the acquisition thing - honestly. Learn to discern between a department store offering and something higher on the quality scale.

That old Campy stuff should be set aside for more appropriate builds, in my opinion.