I can't blame people for making money if the opportunity is there, unless it is very much at other people's expenses. No one owes me an original vintage bike at a low price, so is it at my expense?

I have mixed opinions on the pantographing. It often increases the prices considerably.

There is a lot of pantographed Colnago stuff out there. I have to wonder if over half of it is aftermarket equipment of people just buying nice parts and scribbling Colnago on them. Anyway, if it is your cup of tea, it is easy to pick up.

On the other hand, there are other panto parts that are much more rare. Gios panto? Perhaps it even detracts from the value since the number of buyers is quite restricted.

Still, it is nice to see a beautifully finished COMPLETE bicycle. And, still nicer to actually ride it.

Why not do both?

You and me both [MENTION=190941]jimmuller[/MENTION], unfortunately many guys don't follow that line of thinking. The point has been raked over the hot coals here many times, but it still raises some hackles on both sides. This same thing is a sore point in the motorcycle world, I watched in motocross bikes many times.

And, Tom and the others have the most important factor to consider, in their replies, its their bike to do with as they feel best suits them. The drillium and/or pantographed factor tickles me, prices for even factory modified pieces are asking serious prices over the stock things, sans pantographing or milling done to it.

Bill

Nothing I have is stock.

Except my wife's road bike and my youngest's vintage purple Fuji MTB.
But that's a temporary condition, you dig?

A tale of two Merz's, part deux.

The second Merz to come to me was a early one built in 1974 and was his personal bike JM027.

It also came from Sellwood cylcle and somewhat not original.

It was most recently outfitted with Ultegra 3x9 brifters, deraileurs and brakes to go with the Dura Ace AX crank

that had been converted to a triple by Merz when this frame was sold to the owner before me. It is also outfitted

with Salsa short and shallow bars in a wide size and Nitto tall stem. All of these things suiting me just fine, best of

both worlds, great, cool old frame with modern drivetrain and bars and stem that fit. But the story doesn't end

there, this frame started life with Mafac cantilever brakes and full Campy. At some point Merz reworked the frame

as he removed the cantilever studs and repainted the frame the color it is now and sold it. So the custom racks on

it that were built for the cantilevers are in the way of a regular sidepull on the back that is now mounted on the

front side of the bridge. A lot of this is not original from way back and is just fine with me, it makes one heck of a

rider.

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Build and ride what makes you happy.

Or let someone else build it. ;)

I have few opinions on pantographed parts. I won't argue with anyone's right to make money. But it's true that an assembled bike is worth less than the sum of its parts most of the time, and it bothers me to pay high ptices to reassemble a bike that someone else just took apart. On the other hand it provides a source of parts.

The pantographed stem I mentioned wasn't just a builder's name on the side. Rather, the bike was highly decorated with a style and color scheme, and the stem was obviously part of it. That stem would have looked out of place on another bike. The bike builder was a small-volume Italian whose name I've forgotten. Not Gios nor any of the other reasonably common names you see on eBay. So the bike and stem really belonged together. Just my opinion.

I suppose it all comes down to whether you're more of a collector or a practical cyclist; each have their own criteria to meet with any given build.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I admire people who meticulously restore beautiful Italian & French bikes of the '50s & '60s; but do they ever ride those bikes or just hang them on the wall? On the other, there's the homeless man I saw one evening who'd repurposed a (likely stolen) Basso Viper as- effectively- a shopping cart to carry all of his worldly possessions as he limped along collecting aluminum cans; who could deny his need? It brought to mind a scene in the 1984 film version of Maugham's The Razor's Edge, where Larry (Bill Murray) begins to understand the 'Way' when he burns his sutras in order to stay warm on a snowy mountain top.

Personally, at the end of the day (a dreaded but very useful phrase), I'm on the practical side of things; a daily bike-commuter, but lucky enough that I don't have to have a single bike to fill all possible roles. However, as a professional designer, I can't separate the aesthetic aspects of my bikes from their functionality; my design background leads me to believe that in most cases aesthetics & functionality can be one and the same.

Of course not everyone will agree with my component choices ("How dare you not use 6-arm crankset on a Toei!?" What would this contingent have thought of that transient's Basso?), but my bikes tend to be 'lookers' regardless of whether they match traditional perceptions of their type or the factory specs of their OEM condition. Fwiw, my XO-3 is in fact factory-original (more-or-less, with nicer mustache bars) and my Panasonic is vastly modified, right down to custom brazing on the frame; the rest fill a wide spectrum in between and I ride them all with equal enjoyment.

There is always a trade-off between authenticity and practicality. To be 100% authentic is extremely difficult and expensive, and unrideable in many cases. To be 100% practical you probably wouldn’t have a vintage bike anymore. Nearly all of us settle for something in-between, and just where that point is depends on the person and the particular bike. There is no standard that anyone has to meet. I enjoy the challenge and the learning process of finding old bikes and parts but I try not to obsess over anything. If something is proving to be too expensive or difficult to find or I just don’t like it for whatever reason, then I back off and go with something else.

Why do you think the two need to be mutually exclusive?

As for the meticulously conserved Italian bikes of the 30s, 40s and 50s I have or have had, I ride/rode them. A lot.

Incredibly incorrect.

80 year-old tires?