hankaye

Howdy All;

Went back to the beginning to see if there was a defining time frame for bicycles, couldn't
find anything.
Thanks for your help.

hank

leicanthrope

My theory: When a person reaches middle age and has the disposable income to finally scoop up the formerly unattainable bike(s) of their youth, "classic" becomes whatever the age of the bike is.

Loose Chain

Pre 1990. I am not sure it is a floating point. Steel, friction, threaded, square cranks, when ten speeds included the front two, pre-disposable era when many of the frames still had some human touch. I dunno. I do not see an auto shifting cf bike as ever going to be classic, just disposable.

obrentharris 

You will find almost as many definitions as there are members of this forum. You decide!

Being born almost 4 decades before 1990 I have a hard time thinking of a 1986 bike as vintage, but many members wouldn't agree with me that a bike built by Bruce Gordon or Mark DiNucci in 2016 with modern components is classic.

Most of us are pretty lenient about those definitions around here.
Brent

Doohickie

More than 20 years old.

There's a fair amount of talk about "pre-disposable" bikes. In 20 years any of today's bikes that are still around won't be considered disposable.

ThermionicScott 

And you won't. It's left somewhat nebulous here because opinions differ and are subject to change with time.

repechage

If electronic message boards existed in the Cambio Corsa era, the old guys would be complaining about those new fangled cable controlled shifting mechanisms too.
The first cutoff in recent times is probably before Shimano DuraAce SIS. Then you have to decide to include that, followed by integrated brake/shift levers. Those integrated levers are a good demarcation line for me. While carbon was really yet to dominate, the Kestrel drums were getting louder.
Classic is more nebulous. Not all vintage is, some is just old.
The C&V forum is pretty tolerant compared to some other stern groups.
While I like the top tier stuff, I am happy that others get a kick from the mid range bikes, even some entry level bike shop bikes. I have little tolerance of some AMF, or similar bike shaped objects, I do not see the pleasure there.

Bikerider007

I also lean toward pre 90's, but who knows, a few to 10 years from now it will probably be pre 2000 as vintage is usually considered something over 20-25 years of age and antique is something like 100 if I recall correctly.

Andy_K 

I noticed recently that my brain has been categorizing anything that happened since 1995 as recent. Of course, that doesn't make 1994 a long time ago. It's a pretty gradual slope going back from 1995. I think this illustration from BikeSnobNYC is pretty helpful.


The Dachshund of Time

For me, 1995 marks the transition to "back in the day." "Old school" probably ends about 1980, and "olden days" probably wrapped up around 1950.

As for bikes, I think there are certain technologies that mark bikes as "not classic or vintage" and bikes without those modern features are more C&V. Limiting my perspective to road bikes, I think a steel frame with a threaded steerer and a quill stem is a rough benchmark (the reason I incorrectly think of my 2001 LeMond Buenos Aires as C&V). The bottom bracket should be cup and cone, and it should have friction downtube shifters. Non-aero brake levers and single-pivot caliper brakes round things out.

It's probably worth noting that I've just described a road bike that would have been state-of-the-art when I was 12 (just past the "old school" period). Others will likely see things like brazed on cable guides, integrated derailleur hangers and perhaps even side-pull brakes as "modern" features.

It's probably also worth noting that I don't have a single bike that isn't corrupted by some modern feature or component. I love the look of classic steel bikes, but bikes are for riding and so I've made even the classic bikes that I own less classic. Sorry.

daf1009

To me...it is all about the individual bike...but...that is just me! I have seen many definitions...and none of them are completely accurate...as others have said, this forum is very tolerant! We simply like bikes!

mapeiboy

I have a Marinoni slx frame with Campy friction shift chorus components / regina 7 speed . Will this consider a classic or not ?

Pawlus

I have complete Shimano Dura-ace 7402/7403/7410 groupsets with double pivot brakes, brifters and 8 speed cassette. Is it vintage? Hell no! Is it classic? I think it is given it's meaning to Shimano history.

I had an old (about 1978) Motobecane Prestige. It's fair to say it's vintage, but I don't think it's classic.

I also had 1978 full Dura-ace 7200 Nishiki Olympic build with Tange Champion No.1 tubes. Chromed chainstay, dt shifters, 5-speed "gold" dura-ace freewheel. Yes, I can honestly say that bike was both vintage and classic.

Lazyass

If it has a quill stem >8 speed then it's classic. So '97 or so is about the cutoff. Friction shifters/freewheel/non-aero levers would be vintage. If it has 9+ speeds and threadless stems then it's modern.

roccobike

There are so many different opinions on this. Here's mine.
Vintage: I subscribe to the 25 year rule. I believe this is the most common time frame used by states in the US to determine if a car is a Vintage car so I use it for bikes because they are vehicles too.
Classic: Pretty much in the eyes of the beholder. I think classic has more to do with the quality level of the bike and how unique it is. Some consider a Schwinn Varsity to be a "classic" because of it's wide popularity. I don't. On the other hand I have a 1997 Lemond Maillot Juane that's not yet 25 years old, so it's not vintage, but to me it's a "classic". I don't think a bike has to be old to be a classic. It's possible some new bikes are instant classics.

easyupbug 

It depends on the audience. The above posts are from devotees, at the other end of the scale where I run in to Huffy riders or others at a park I find skinny frame tubes will generate C&V comments like "Wow, that's an old one".

himespau 

I put vintage at >25 years old. Classic is much more subjective and nebulous.

qcpmsame 

You could follow the 1983 cutoff that Classic Rendezvous set:Classic Rendezvous web site timeline , if you absolutely need a hard and fast year. Or, if you want to go into the 90s, Velobase uses their 15 year rule: "We have a generally accepted age cut off of 15 years old, so approx the mid 1990's.", Help and About, FAQ, Velobase, circa 2007. VeloBase.com - Help & About Us (This one has changed to a 24 year rule, on time elapsed now.)

I am in the school that several mentioned, flexible, since this is just an internet discussion forum I see no need to have a hard and fast cutoff. What is either Classic, or Vintage, should be purely up to each individual. You will need to be tolerant of those that differ from your set points, or lack of them, or just skip over anything you disagree with. Its just the internet, after all.

Bill

DMC707 

i agree with this for the most part, From my perspective. I started riding MTB's at age 19 in 1989 and road bikes in 1991- so right at the start of the brifter/dual pivot era so i look at bikes from that era as my definition of "classic" also

But--- not evry bike that is old is classic. Chevrolet for instance, made a lot of other cars besides the Corvette, Camaro and Malibu in 1969

i remember my first group ride, an older gent had a bead blasted finish Merlin outfitted with purple anodized Topline cranks, matching King headset and the rest in tri color Shimano that matched the frame. --- i thought "Wow! You cant possibly get any tricker than that!"

I used to see so many Centurions, i never thought they would ever be considered a classic machine, -- but the Ironman is a popular bike still-- a bit like the GT Mustangs of that era. They made tons of them, the styling wasnt for everybody, they were kinda heavy, but had snappy performance and today, a clean un- molested v8 mustang from the IM era is a new school classic, as is an Ironman

agmetal

25+ years old = "Vintage"
50+ years old = "Antique"

"Classic" is really difficult to quantify

hankaye

Howdy All;

Thanks for the replies. Good food for thought and gives a somewhat forgiving perspective as to what is and isn't
a decent fit for this particular forum within a forum. I truly appreciate the " The Dachshund of Time" a visual aid is
always a "good thing".

hank

rootboy 

Whatever blows yer kilt up.

rhm

Bike technology moves forward whether we like it or not. Sometimes the new technology is an improvement; sometimes it is not. To my mind, C&V is the stuff that was made obsolete by stuff that wasn't really any better and, in many cases, is not as good. C&V is good stuff that is no longer made. It's good looking stuff that has been replaced by ugly stuff. And so on.

Andy_K 

I like this definition, particularly because (in my mind at least) it justifies my practice of wanting to put dual-pivot caliper brakes on old bikes.

AZORCH

This topic pops up every couple of months. At one point there was a lot of agreement with the CR cutoff of 1983-ish, so it's interesting to me to see so many in this thread citing 90's-ish dates. Myself, I tend to define my own personal C&V era as when high end bikes

...were built from steel
...were lugged or fillet brazed
...used quill stems
...had forks with a gentle bend.

Of course this is far from definitive, which is why I refer to it as my own "personal" C&V era. And - of course - you can still find small builders still following those recipes. (But they are kind of the exception, rather than the mainstream rule.) The 70's and early 80's also align with the age at which I lusted after (in no particular order) bikes such as Paramount, PX-10, Italian anything.

Bikerider007

There is also guidance by L'Eroica which uses a later date than CR.