During one of my pre-spring conditioning rides (we're getting ride-worthy weather up hear in Stumptown, and the sad glances my Peugeot gave me all winter finally got under my skin) a thought occurred that I was going to keep to myself, but the recent discussion in the Why Lugs thread had me thinking about it again, but it doesn't really have anything to do with metallurgy, so I thought I'd throw it out for discussion here.

My thoughts went in this order:

Man, riding this old (~81) Peugeot is FUN!
It's 2008, and this thing is almost at old as I am...huh.
When I picked this up from it's original owner, I fixed one thing [thanks to the wonderful advice from all the C&V gurus], replaced the bar tape and the tires, and now I'm zipping around Portland like a teenager.
Man this is FUN! (a continuing theme, when I ride this particular bike)
Then the navel-gazing started:
I wonder if the person that built this bike thought it would be around almost 30 years later?
I wonder if the person that built this bike knew it would be so fun to ride?
I wonder if people bought more old-but-well-made stuff, we would throw less away? (This is a granola-eater thought that I blame almost entirely on my environment j/k)

And that's where my thoughts kind of petered off, because I don't have the name or address of the person who built my bike (to send them a thank-you card and a picture). I also don't have the money or the political clout to effect a gynormous paradigm shift.

But...I can ride my bike, which is fun.