Thread: Birth year bike
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Old 07-12-19, 11:13 AM
  #51  
noglider 
aka Tom Reingold
 
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Location: New York, NY, and High Falls, NY, USA
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Bikes: 1962 Rudge Sports, 1971 Raleigh Super Course, 1971 Raleigh Pro Track, 1974 Raleigh International, 1975 Viscount Fixie, 1982 McLean, 1996 Lemond (Ti), 2002 Burley Zydeco tandem

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Originally Posted by Pompiere
I would rather have a bike that evokes memories, instead of a bike made when I was an infant. When I was in middle school in the mid seventies, a kid on my bus was raving about getting a new Fuji and how they were so much better than the Schwinn Varsity and Huffy bikes that everyone else had. I ended up buying a used Kabuki, because I didn't have enough to get a Fuji. I don't know what model he got, but a Fuji from that era would mean more to me than something from the early sixties. Also, I wouldn't be concerned about upgrades, because things were changing rapidly back then, so it was normal to swap parts whenever something new came out, or when you saved enough money to upgrade to a lighter version.
I feel the same, and I suspect many others do. I've read that the age of 14 years is a highly impressionable one. We can understand how a musician, for example, crafted their creativity by listening to the music they listened to when they were 14 years old. The bikes I lusted after at (and around) age 14 still have a special place in my heart. In 1975, when I was 14, my bike was an Atala Giro D'Italia, similar to a Peugeot UO-8. A schoolmate of mine had a Raleigh International. It had almost all Campagnolo gear on it, and it was light and fast. Well, is it a coincidence, then, that I own an International now? In some ways yes and in some ways no. I also lusted after those Viscount bikes, and I've learned they're not as fancy as the marketing had us believe. I have one now, and I've converted it to fixed gear. It's the most disposable bike in my collection, and I don't mind it locking it up on the street when I take a short trip, but I'm glad to be riding it and imagining what it was like to own one in the 70s.

The C&V realm of bikes has many forces to create and sustain it, and one of them is the tendency for middle-aged men to buy the toys that we had in childhood or lusted after.

After my Atala was stolen from me, I got a Raleigh Gran Sport, whose geometry and weight were similar to the International's. My International is built as a practical frankenbike commuter bike, and it feels familiar to me, from my memories of my Gran Sport. I still have some tugs on me, telling to get a Gran Sport, for old times' sake. I also would like a PX-10, as I had two, each for a short period, as they were both stolen. But I'm holding out, because they would overlap with the bikes I currently own.
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