My Colnagos from the 1990's seem better to be used as art pieces. My Vitus is really a project bike. It wears my Campy Nuovo Record groupo and 32 hole Ambrosio sew up rims on (Helicomatic hubs). BTW that is because the NOS Nuovo hubs have 36 holes. With NOS ALE toe clips on NOS Nuovo peddles, I must use a pair of vintage Dettos to operate. I sit on a period Selle Italia Turbo with black smooth leather. The cockpit is 3T, and though fun to ride like a Model T, it too serves best as a decorations, or in a bike parade.

I have a magazine article about the Master Bi-Titanio and there are plenty of rumors (russia welding, and flexing this and that on the web). So I'm unclear what signifcance it has as a collectable. The Colnago in Columbus Brain is a great example of steel. Chrome chain stay and lugs. Both have campy Chorus 9 speed, (pre-carbon), and 1inch streering (i.e., no Aheadset) ITM cockpits. Ambrosio rims with groupo hubs for wheels. The saddle is Selle Italia Flight black on the Brain and white on the Ti. I use Look peddles.

I need a couple more posts to upload pictures. So I ask, do I find a museum for them, or is there room on the road today for that discerning and appreciative rider?

Ride them. A bit gently in the case of the Bi-Titanio, I think they had a reputation for separating at awkward moments.

I have no problem assigning some of my bikes to the art category, although I do ride any/all of them when I feel the need to do so. If it feels like art, hang it up and look at it. Then ride it when a special need surfaces.

That is the plan for four of my bikes, the other two I will ride as often as opportunity presents itself. Not sure about the next one slated to join the stable - a nineties something Trek 2120, an alloy lugged carbon fiber steed that I am nervous about buying. Sorry, no pic yet.

I see no reason to own a bike you can't or won't ride. I bought a fabulous time trial or funny bike once and it hung in my flat for about a year and never got used. After I hurt my back in So West Asia I decided ti was never getting ridden, at least by me, and had to go. Even the broken frame of my beloved Sport SX went in the tip when I moved last year. I loved that bike but fixing it was more than the frame was worth.

Central coast? Monterey Bay area?

Ride on special occasion but keep in a nice visible place if you like as art.
Once you have multiple bikes it's not even about art for some of them, it's more time/occasion. I swap out a few favorites of varying types, but don't force myself to ride others just because they are there.

Be careful. You could disrupt the space/time continuum if you ride a relic bicycle from 20 years ago. While riding past the local Rapha group today I noticed that 20 out of 20 bikes had disc brakes. Fair to posit that none of those bikes was so much as one year old. That is how it should be. Pure herd behavior. When someone asked what kind of bike I was riding I replied it was an hallucination. Might as well have been. Sixty years old. Then I disappeared up the road.

Duegi shoes not Detto,


Front deraileur in Super Record, 62cm frame


Seat Tube extended, and top tube is Diamond shaped.


Double down tubes, and saddle is black, I have a NOS white for a spare.

And here I am looking for 75 year old bikes that will make good daily riders... Perspective, perspective, perspective!

Funny when I was in California I always thought:
S. Cal = Santa Barbara and south
C. Cal = Pismo Beach to San Francisco
N Cal = Mendocino county and north (also known as California Lost)
The central valley was always 'the central valley'.
But then I was Santa Cruz, a little whacked, but rational.

Keep Santa Cruz Weird

Those 2 could be 'Sunday only' riders.
Very nice BTW, both of them.

edit: Let the Roubaix get the abuse.

Well, you're more or less my size and I'm just up here near Visalia. Wish I had some reasonable cash to offer but I'm saving for a first anniversary trip with my wife next month! I've long admired Vitus but haven't had the opportunity to ride one. I'm not exactly a Good Will but if you're thinking about donations...

(p.s. Please don't take this seriously - I would never actually ask anyone, much less a stranger, to give me a nice bicycle.)

Vitus 992 certainly is a pretty bike...Its also a really nice Sunday rider.
P_20180805_082834.jpg

Those are lovely bikes, but there's no reason you shouldn't ride them rather than have them on a pedestal someplace. They're certainly not dumpster or donation material. I had a 979 I rode for a couple of seasons, it had it's quirks but I kind of miss it now. And a Colnago has always been on my list to own one day.

I remember trying one of the early Roubaix's, having only ridden a vintage Alan for many years. I was amazed at the ride quality and comfort. Your vintage rides still win the beauty contest.

Things have changed.
[MENTION=447870]jlmonte[/MENTION]:

Ride them. No one ever asks to see the exhibits in a private bike museum.

Well, I guess I'm gonna' disrupt it. I ride an '84 Peugeot PH10 that I bought brand new waaaaay back in '85. It looks and performs just as good as the day it was new. I ride it every Saturday morning for my weekly 20 miler and I always get a compliment or 2 on what a great looking bike I have. Some times I think the CF riders are a little envious of the c&v riders. Steel is KING! I'm just sayin'......
To the OP--RIDE IT!!! And be proud of it.
Did I mention it still sports the Lyotard pedals it came with? I use cages and straps and still wear the Dettos I bought with the bike. They have the '84 LA Olympics logo on the side.
Jon

I can't find the 'Where are the photos' emoji...

Troll post? I mean, this is the C&V forum. Do you really think we will tell you not to ride those bikes?

Btw, they are beautiful, and you should be happy and proud to have them. But does that mean a museum would want them for display? I don't think there are very many museums of that type, and I have a hunch the bikes would have to be truly significant, not just beautiful. Otherwise they would likely sell them and put the proceeds in their endowment, like NPR does with donated cars.

Those were once state-of-the-art bikes. Are they worse bikes now than they were when they were new?

If you are a blistering paceline type rider and/or racer, then you probably want modern equipment. I don't ride that way and have never gotten from my bikes all they have to give. And I am at an age where realistically I am probably not on a wattage up-slope. I figure if I'm not faster it's almost entirely not the bike's fault. Ymmv.

Bikes aren't art. We often like to think they are or say that they are but really they're just craft. Yours are pretty. Feel free to hang them on a wall, I do.