My girlfriend replaced her Schwinn with a Trek 510. It was found by a friend of ours who's a Vintage Trek Guy. From what I can tell by looking at the catalogs online, they made a comprehensable line up of medium to high end racing, touring, and sporting bikes. Even the low end Treks look to line up with other brands mid-grade offerings.

I picked up an '84 Trek 610, and it seems like a really nice commuter. It's comfy, seems to like high speeds (but not aggressive acceleration) When you wind it up to 14 or 15 MPH it gets nicely floaty and "wants" to stay at a higher pace.

But I've seen guys who LOVE Treks and collect only Treks, and guys who HATE them. I could see if you had a bad experience with a heavy Schwinn that might color your opinion of Schwinns. But Trek doesn't seem to have ever made an anchor.

I myself don't have any Schwinn interest but I know some were made in Japan and VERY nice. And I love Miyata's but I realize that while very well made they aren't exactly what you'd call light.

So what's the deal?

Ever had a Trek Earl?

Having owned several, I settled on the 760 as my fave. You just have to ride one to appreciate it.

I've seen threads about newer Treks were people disagreed about them. I've never seen a thread where people argued over vintage Treks. People like them on this forum a lot.

How bad of polarizing feelings could one have?

Not joking here, I once showed up at the hardcore single track / off-road trails with a minty 'Huffy USA' Kathy Ireland edition -non suspension ATB. Thats right! Rode all day and got all sorts of looks and comments, more so pissed-off some guys high on Red Bull with there fancy do-dat bikeys. haha

the problem is the the "guys who LOVE treks". Whenever one thing is loved exclusively and .. well sometimes irritatingly...there comes a backlash against that sort of smug.. whatever it is- elitism of their own mind? I have the same reaction with people who LOVE their sports teams to much... just hearing about them all the time makes me want them to lose and root for the rivals...

Had a Trek 830 MTB that I picked up cheap. I loved it (but gave it to a friend when I moved about 4 years ago). Also had a Trek 760 that might have been nice, but it was too small. Also, a Trek tri-series that looked nice enough, but felt dead as a doornail when I rode it. I sold it on very quickly.

My first good bike was an '83 Trek 620. I loved that bike and would love to find another in great condition.


So I'll always have a fond spot for old Treks.

I haven't noticed Treks being polarizing, or controversial. They make a lot of bikes at all levels, some high end, some not. I don't give them any branding bump over their competitors, nor do I think any less of them. The older Waterloo bikes were very nice, but there are a lot of nice bikes.

Treks are white bread.

I think Treks are likely the *least* polarizing brand out there.

Now Raleighs on the other hand . . . .

OT, but when I saw this I had to comment. I got an email from Flickr the other day informing me that a rep for Kathy Ireland somehow noticed that I had that photo on my Flickr account and that they'd deleted it as it was a copywrite infringement. I had another ad with her likeness on my account, too (in which she's holding an Alan with Campy SR), which I immediately deleted before I got into more hot water

That dude must be pretty busy chasing down shared/copied pics of her on the internet!

DD

hey now...

I've never encountered a vintage steel Trek hater and from what I've seen (never owned one) they look to be quality bikes. I owned an aluminum Trek 1000 (hated - unfairly in that it was poorly equipped, too big, entry level) and aluminum Trek 8000 MTb (liked a lot).

I think the love/hate applies more to the modern bike crowd. They are fairly ubiquitous, can be a nice enough bike, but maybe connote a " well it was this or a Specialized". I will admit to looking down my nose at a modern fancy Trek, thinking the buyer could have put more effort into it and gotten something with a little more pinache to it, but hey that's not important to a lot of folks.

I live in Trekland, and I sell a lot of 'em. They're the hometown favorite. I don't run into any Trek haters - quite the opposite.

Now for vintage lovers, Trek stopped making steel road bikes in the late 90's (I don't count the Belleville mixte from a few years ago). I suppose if you're heavily into steel, you might wonder why Trek switched to alu and then carbon frame tubing. Steel going out of fashion? Cheaper production with alu? Carbon the next wave?

The last steel frame road bikes Trek was making in the late 90's (370 and 470 models) were not exactly high-end. Pictured below is one of those last steel models, a 470 from 1995, that I recently sold.

The only frames Trek currently make in the US are high-end carbon at the Waterloo plant. I understand Aegis had a hand in helping Trek develop their carbon frame technology.

Maybe you had to be there.

The early Treks were designed by Dick Nolan to take advantage of the precise machine tool technology in cutting/mitering tubes, competent lo-temp silver hand brazing, modern de-flux/rust proof and durable Imron paint in current styles to produce light & durable frame-sets at lower cost than the Euros with consistent QC/QA.

They rode/handled very well in both racing and sport touring designs for the US consumer of the time, and still do.

Other than that....

-Bandera

I think it was impressive that in the middle of import mania, while Schwinn was getting gutted, you had a US company making a quality, competitive product.

Huh, I got the impression people loved or hated them, suppose it could just be "the internet". People love to have opinions! I dig my '84 610 and just saw an '85 470 on the Craig's. Not a lot of info about that one, sold for one year and wasn't listed in the catalog.

My girlfriend doesn't like the fit of hers, it needs a longer steering stem. But she finds it racy and fun! Especially compared to her Miyata 210, the daily rider. The top tube is just a half inch longer on that frame but it makes all the difference.

Speaking as somebody who dropped out of cycling about the time that Trek was the incredibly neat new kid on the block, then came back 28 years later when Trek is the big mother***ing 800lb gorilla in American cycling. And they're supporting (dare I say his name) Lance Armstrong.

To me, Trek is the bicycling equivalent of the Chevrolet Corvette. Wonderful performance and quality for the buck, but absolutely no snob value whatsoever. Any schmuck who wants to pedal around the neighborhood, and has a quality bicycle shop within reasonable distance, can own a Trek.

At the risk of pissing off a lot of long term friends that I've got here, there's a certain liking of snob value in the bikes you own. Thus, a good bit of the resistance towards the marque.

The fact that their top of the line bikes are every bit as good as all those super-expensive Italian and French marques, and hell, they're just as good as a lot of the get-on-a-two-year-waiting-list custom marques definitely annoys some people.

I've never heard of Trek opinions being polarized.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the old "vintage" treks. Over the last month we've fixed up at least a dozen of them. They always come flocking in in the spring. From 510s to 870s. Even the cheaper ones (#00s and #20s) are nice enough bikes and I really enjoy working on them. (I think that's how their "numbering" system works.) Their paint seems to hold up pretty well as well.

Back when I was In College in Wisconsin, I noticed that there was quite a bit of prejudice against Treks, as they were just looked at as something local and overpriced, while French, Italian and Japanese bikes seem to have more of an exotic air to them and their lower to mid level models seem to provide more bang for the buck. But I also noticed there was an almost cultish following with Treks. With owners seeming to agree with each other that Treks were the thinking person's bike for people that do not get swayed by bright paint jobs, frilly pantographs and flashy graphic, just good, solid quality and design. Sort of how we might consider Phil Wood products.
I never bought a Trek back then as mostly because I could not afford most of them. That's why ended up buying a Peugeot and ended up staying with mostly that brand.
Call me guilty too as I was easily swayed by the awesome looking lion graphic on the head tube which looked so much cooler than what Trek had for headbadges.....

Put a Schwinn guy and a Raleigh guy in the same room...

And then you've got those who spent years working for a Schwinn/Raleigh dealer . . . . .

Exactly.

I would agree I don't see the vintage Trek's as polarizing. They're not the first thing I look for, but I also don't ignore them. I had a Trek 510 that was just a tad too tall but road really, really nice. The comfort from the long wheelbase always made me smile. [MENTION=131041]mountaindave[/MENTION] has it now.

The 87 Trek 800 Antelope isn't real fun but that's because it's so stinking heavy. Just rides like a slug so I don't ride it much and will probably strip the parts off and give the frame away.

The '93 950 mtb is the one I ride the most on gravel - I usually grab it before my Klein. Comfortable and fun to ride.

The hate part may be more obvious on the mountain bike side of things, although I'm sure there are some Klein and Lemond (especially Lemond) that hate Trek.

But on the mountain bike side you had 2 early pioneers and innovators in Gary Fisher and Keith Bontrager and when Trek took over they are seen as minimizing those bikes. It probably makes no difference if they probably would not have survived, a Trek 9xx would always be inferior to a Bontrager race frame. Trek was no longer that small town Midwest manufacturer, they were the conglomerate that was taking advantage of the other grassroots bicycle companies.

John