Most of the old guys I ride with have stopped buying classic and are really getting into gravel, mtb and all road bikes.

Small sample size, but I see the vintage market contracting in the years ahead.

My kids and their friends don't seem to care about vintage "cool" factors like we might. They see the bike as a tool to fill a need.

When they talk about cool, the discussion routinely heads towards tricked out scooters like a modded Honda Ruckus.

Their friends on the high school mtb team wouldn't look twice at my old racing bikes.

No utility for them.

Built him a single-speed Comp TA. He lives in the mountains, traded it for a single-speed fattie conversion. I think he's turning a 26 front and a spaced 32 rear, freehubbing, discs front and rear. His Jack Russell can easily keep up. The fatties are not as popular in the mountains due to their weight, so there are used ones out there with no buyers.

+1
Easy to build, hard to break, replacement parts are at the co-op.

Developing an appreciation for C&V road bikes among younger riders is a matter of getting out, socializing, and riding the C&V bikes with the younger crowd. Anyone under 35 probably hasn't been part of the vintage steel scene in any appreciable way, and since they get their opinions from bike shops and others their age, it's easy to understand why they think steel isn't so real (mainly because they've never had the need or want to try it). When an old guy rides with their club and grins ear to ear when asked about the ride of their steely, that's when intrigue develops. Even with that, the market is likely shrinking. So is the field of nice bikes though (the 70's garage queens have mostly been discovered as grandpa goes to the home).

+1

Glad you chimed in Gomango, always good points. This brings trends and age categories to the front.

Fixed seemed based on a cheap conversion that was done by utilizing an older bike and making it simple but unique. Cheap commuter, not really long distance. Gravel has picked up a lot of speed. In AZ we probably have more canal paths than most places as water comes from AZ central project and the Colorado river. Literally hundreds of miles throughout the Phoenix area. This will be growing but can also be a fairly mild conversion, although vintage prices are higher now so it will probably fall toward mountain bikes as mentioned.

Not a large percentage of younger people can afford to or want to put all their money into an expensive bike unless they are hardcore or racing. Middle? age like me at 45 are the buyers of the high end stuff for the most part, old or new. Some of the older guys (60's-70+?)I know are starting to thin the herd as they slow down. There may be a slight uptick of nice bikes hitting the market due to this. And they won't be cheap as they know what they have.

I don't know how the business is doing, but State Bicycle (fixed), Sikk (cruiser type) are from here and in Tempe near ASU, they cater mostly to college kids so they still seem popular. I met one of the owners brothers at a local brewery a few months ago, they were just putting out a retro lugged version that was at or near the top of their current line up so that was interesting. I imagine they both may offer a gravel bike if they don't already.

Does he still live in East NC? That might make him a bit odd right now, but I think he's probably the future...

A lot of this depends on where you're talking about. In DC and NYC, I'm starting to see Linuses and Globes that are already starting to look pretty C&V, after 5-6 years of hard outdoor use. As urban cycling culture picks up, there won't be too many "garage finds" anymore, because people aren't keeping them in garages. In suburban and rural areas, I don't think much will change.

Thinking of the C&V bikes.

Road Bikes:MTBs:

I can't predict the future, but I'll put good money on the Y-bikes having a VERY limited collector appeal. Yuck. You can toss in every other URT bike on the crap pile with 'em, but damn, the Y-bike was one of the worst looking versions of a terrible design.

IMO, of course.

I think most of you guys are into C&V too deep to see the real world picture. Demand (and prices) for old bikes will continue to drop as time goes on and progressively less of the younger generations have interest in them.

Agree about the big possibility that C&V buke values will never recover to the levels it was at a few years ago.
The economy had vastly improved since then, and we do not see any corresponding improvements on component and whole bike values in the market.
Unless the C&V/Retrobike movement has a big resurgence in the coming years, things would just either remain stagnant or continue to go down, especially as the generations that related to the older bikes slowly get too old to ride or die off.......
All we can hope for now is that many who stashed bikes and components looking for a future windfall reselling them will start putting them on the market for us to buy for reasonable prices.....

These are good points and similar in ways, basically it seems it will eventually fall on the type of bike and rarity. Most will have some kind of value (which is fine), but few will be major money or highly coveted. Some bikes are bought on the emotional aspect (prior ownership/childhood), some for current or future profit, some just because riding is a passion, and others own a current model and want something Old School Cool. The things is; there are low, mid and high range bikes varying in uniqueness and quality. And there are people in each income range. That's what makes this difficult to pin as it is a broad spectrum.

There will always be bike collectors. And the seventies and eighties pretty much changed the world of riding. Not only Road, but Bmx and Mountain, so that should stand the test of time for some special collector items. Not saying all, but a decent amount.

There are antique type special bikes that have some value, but I think not many people go after the sixties or earlier due to the cotter crank, inefficient parts, too heavy (even for steel is real guys :-)) etc. I have seen bikes like Schwinn (sorry guys) boom (ties to history) but that crowd got older and those were either kids bikes, cruisers that you rarely ride, or from what I recall as a kid (again sorry), lower end bikes (Paramount and some road exception). The other thing I noticed is BMX. I rode BMX into my early twenties until family duty called. Being young I thought I would never stop, but I did. I saw the prices of bikes when guys my age started having flash backs and they sky rocketed. I personally could not bring myself to get in on that, as I knew I would not ride. But now, that crowd is thinned due to them being small bikes and I see decent BMX on CL here and there. And they're not 2k and up, but in the hundreds. There will always be some highly sought after, but the collectible ones are thinned to mostly the best of the best.

Anyway that's all I got, my .02 :-) Just my opinion from what I have seen.

I respectfully disagree.

High end production bikes roads bikes from Specilized and Trek are not all that crazy valuable either, the top S-works and some of the crazy treks from that period will likely become collectable to some extend, not as much as the pioneers of mountain biking like potts, breezers, ritcheys, bontragers, but then I would argue that those pioneers are a little more akin to the first treks and cannondales (also not particularly valuable). Lots of vintage MTBs are selling for extremely high prices including, Kleins, Yeti, Fat Chance, anything titanium, Kona explosif or hot, rocky mountain thunderbolts and ti-bolts, the list goes on, and components from Paul and precision and other CNC companies are quiet valuable, Tried to buy a first gen syncros stem with noodle lately? The price would make your jaw drop. Got a second gen 29.4 syncros seatpost? $150 no problem. How about any ringle? Some ti holey skewers in 3DV? $100 no problem.

There was a boom in the 1990s of run of the mill mountain bikes and they are relatively worthless but so are all the crap bike boom 10 speeds from the 1970s and mid to low end road bikes from the same period and into the 80s. The phenomenon is no different. In both eras there was high end racing stuff and nice hand built frames and production stuff that was for everyman and doesn't hold the same cache or market value.

Are you disagreeing that an 80s era road bike from Trek is worth more than an 80s era mtb? Ditto for specialized, miyata, etc? Because if you are, that is contrary to my experience in buying and selling vintage bikes. Both in buying and selling bikes for myself and in seeing the prices for bikes in the C&V valuation forum, road bikes as a rule go for more than equivalent quality mtbs. To use one example, last year I bought two vintage Treks: a 1984 Trek 610 frame and a complete 1992 Trek 950. Roughly comparable quality bikes and I paid exactly the same for both ($125 each). I think that's FMV for both and the road bike was considerably more expensive since it was just a frame.

Or maybe you're saying that top end mtb from a major manufacturer like Trek or Specialized is just run of the mill stuff like the "boom bikes." I've seen Trek 950s/970s and Spec stump jumpers go for not a heck of a lot locally and I think they're really nice made bikes with high quality seamless chrome moly tubing and good quality shimano or sun tour running gear.

Again, I'm not really sure we disagree so much as we're talking about different parts of the market. Some vintage mtbs have become collectible; most have not and that works for me. I'll keep buying the boom era vintage mtbs out there and keep riding the heck out of them, .

These are two of my favorite bikes; I paid $125 for each. One is a 1992 Trek 950; the other a 1988 specialized stump jumper comp that I modded with a drop bar conversion:

Y-foil. Want. The Elvis gold edition.

Not everything it returning to one's childhood.

I'd love to get a Cambio Corsa based bike. If I found the right bike at the right price. And, nope, I didn't have one as a kid

Part of the appeal would be the unique engineering. And, of course the value has to do with the rarity. How many survivors are there? A few hundred? A few thousand? The number of bikes that Trek produces in an hour?

Yes, but you have to wear the gold Speedo, the sunglasses, and at least 3 chains...



The 15.1 lb UCI minimum version is shown in the attachment.....

Mountains of western NC. He will ride a skateboard down the hill, stop, pop it into his hand, walk up the next, without looking. Repeat until he's wherever they're doing what he wants to do...which in Asheville, I'm not sure I want to know.

Best thing going for C&V with my son's crowd is cost. Pure and simple.
Cost of bikes, cost of parts, cost of tools. Simplicity, not technology.
They also consider public transit and bikes differently than previous generations.
Lowest rate of driver licensing in years. They know the future is not rosy.

An indestructible 5-sp IGH at low cost.
A steel frame with a quill stem.
This would sell.

I think the technology topped-out about 15 years ago. As for younger riders, I think they'll come around once they get some more years under their belts. I can easily see some huge C&V events in say, 2050, but they will be attended mostly by riders who are in their 40's and on.
I think it would be a bit too much to ask any teen or 20-something to ride anything that isn't hot-off-the-press. The song remains the same.

I see what you're saying and yes I am essentially saying the later. That unless it has XT or XTR it's akin to a boom bike because it was produced in such large numbers and sold to people who never used them so they have limited value even though the quality is good. I think also Trek and Specilized were quiet large by that time and their earlier road bicycles may carry more "hand built" cache that was gone by the era of the mass produced MTB. In the early 1990s other smaller american brands filled that niche/position that Trek had in the 1970s and that those MTBs are valuable and will continue to be so. I think we'll also see some of the higher end models from big 1990s companies appreciate and indeed some already have.

What technology topped out? That is a crazy statement. Technology in the industry has exploded in the last 5 years alone. 15 years ago disc brakes were just starting out and suspension was in it's infancy. Now they are incredible. Not to mention hydraulic road brakes, electronic shifting, carbon wheel technology, 1x drivetrains. plus size tires. tubeless systems.

Tech will always improve. But I kind of see what you mean as I tend to agree most improvements beyond the 60's are negligible to an average person, other than styles. The thing about bikes that makes them cool is that you have to pedal them, or they are no longer what would typically be considered a bicycle. Therefore, in it's raw form, many are alike and technology will never fully own them. You can add or subtract all kinds of things, but unlike a car, a bike will run without electronics. At least I think those new fangled ones will.

I agree Robbie... I have two such spawn myself, who think much the same way. For them that will be the bike consumers of the future, it may be that C&V bikes will compete with newly built, simple, functional city commuter bikes. And within the same equation that's calculated now... is this C&V bike a better buy for me? For some, the hard-to-quantify vintage-ness may be the decider, for others, the decider may be that a new bike might be less hassles (because new comes with a warranty). That being the case, a super nice vintage ride may not have much more value than something mid or even a lower bike-shop-quality bike.

I remember when model T Fords collectors started dying off. For a while the prices fell on the really old cars.... as the price for the more recent (then 1950's cars) went up.

But after a few years.... the real classic cars (pre-WW2) skyrocketed (as did more recent collectable cars). I expect similar activity with bicycles.

I like classic and vintage bikes because they are durable, serviceable, not overly complicated, easy to work on, a good value, and pleasing to the eye. I've been drawn to early-mid 1980s Treks for their build quality and timeless design. Some c&v bikes look dated to me but I still appreciate them. I just prefer the ones that hold up. I also like the Shimano 600, early Deore, and early 105 groupsets. Solid with no frills and easy to tune. I'd like to find a mixte for my fiancée and plan to build cruisers for my recently retired parents. Bridgestones amongst others have caught my attention. Anyone have any they want to relinquish to a caring youngin'? I intend to use them for another 30 years.

My 1985 Trek 620 and 600 are older than I am. They're not 100% original but could be returned to that state. I like to think I've made upgrades that incorporate new technology but maintain the classic aesthetic. Especially since I use them to commute.