"If you could afford a quality modern bike, would you choose it over a quality classic bike?"

No. I'll stick with my 1969 Raleigh Competition with Reynolds 531 frame and chrome Nervex lugs. That bike, to me, is just right.

Fenders and tanks, people, fat ones.

Funny how evolution leaves behind what it doesn't need and we keep pulling it out of the garbage...

I got to biking last year to try a double century here in PNW. Got an ok aluminum with all Sora and got a fit with a local bike shop. Super nice guy that rides a lot himself and owns its own shop.
I learned a ton with him about steel, aluminum, carbon and the style of riding I would be doing from what we talked. Nutrition, hydration, cadence than speed, safety and so on.
Got my saddle from his store and have my handlebar switched to narrower one at 38cm.
After couple of visits he suggested me a steel frame - I always had an idea that steel is heavy, period.
Fast forward, beginning of this year I as looking CL and scored my Nishiki. After bunch of questions to and opinions from this forum, Sheldon Brown, youtube, I went ahead to replace all to modern parts (105).
Had my bike shop to do the final tuning and handlebar, and all in all was a great experience.
Next, I am planning on re-building the Sekai with modern comps too. I did clean and tune with the original comps, downtube shifters, but it is not working for me.

Those guys are building some wicked bikes.

No, for me not really. With 10 or 21 gears I feel I'm in the wrong gear much more often. With 5 gears you have to adapt a little to gear you're in or available and I don't mind that. Don't particularly like close index shifters either.

Disc brakes for road bikes is an improvement, I'll give you that. But my drum brakes are strong enough to lock the wheels, so there's not really a margin for gain. Mechanical drag has already been minimized many decades ago, I don't believe modern ball bearings are better. Aluminium and carbon are probably less safe.

Of course if you are competing all the marginal gains in road bikes do count, but they still are marginal and most of them about weight which only really counts when it's pretty hilly. I think people tend to underestimate the degree to which the bike had already developped decades ago because of the (commercially important) idea that new is better. Especially the roadsters have made little progress since the 1930's. Mine is build to last, and it does, I've got a simular bike from the same brand that's only 10 years old but it was already in worse shape than my 40-year old before I did some work on the latter. I could buy a modern one that is build really well, there is brand that does again, and I'd like the very fat tyres and the rigid frames, but it wouldn't have rodbrakes but cables which is just not very practical in busy bike racks. If there was a modern bike with rod brakes (titanium rods?) I would be tempted.

I have the same attraction (possibly addiction).

Also environmental concerns. Fixing an old bicycle so that a new one does not need to be manufactured. Saving the planet one bicycle at a time. I am pretty sure it's working, I'll be putting Giant out of business in no time.

My watch is on my wrist; it's hands-free. I pay for it once (well, once every several years, depending on how long it lasts), not monthly. The battery will never die, it'll never catch fire, and it works in the deepest ravine in my woods.

Hmmm. Waiting for the OP to suddenly reveal that he/she is a psychology student gathering info on obsessive/compulsive behavioristic tendencies. Of all that's been posted so far, mind you, I'm squarely in that bracket of interest...

Pure poetry. This will stay with me forever.

:roflmao2:

It's a bit like professionals in the digital era who have a fascination with old, expensive mechanical Swiss watches... sort of keeping a foot in reality as an anecdote to the subjectivity of human existence in an abstract world...

I like it here because I had a career in the bike business from the '70's into the '90's. Things really transitioned from steel to aluminum and carbon fiber, friction to index, road to mountain bikes. It was a heady period when lots of things were being tried... most failed, of course. I learned a lot and every once in a while I get to dust off old memories and share them with you kids.

My garage now holds 3 recumbents, 2 Schwinn fillet-brazed uprights, and an off-brand mountain bike converted to a cargo bike. Specialization is for insects.

Did your watch enable you to post your reply?

:)

No, and neither does my phone. When I look at how so many forum posts and Emails sent from phones are so badly composed, and polluted with ads, I'm glad to post only from a computer.

Now there is evolution. The physics of electricity turned into a vacuum tube, into a transistor...

f) If you have to think about it, you may never get it. Just Ride It.

I haven't got anything for ya; I'm still trying to understand this forum :)

DD

The original question is baffling to me, honestly. It's like asking "Can you please explain to me why men are attracted to beautiful women?"

And then you list reasons...

Well....if you need it explained to you...

....them damn Samsung smart phones assplode like plastic carbon fiber bikes. I'm using a flip phone to protect my 'nads.

I'm mostly in it for the chicks. Women just love a middle aged guy in spandex on an Italian bike. I start talking about the difference between lugs, and tubing, and they can't get enough.

Many of us like older and newer bikes.

I have a flip-phone, but I honestly never thought of using it that way....

:roflmao: See that's another reason I'm in it, for the endless humor on this forum.....

This is very perceptive of you. Thanks for enlightening us. 😉

C because it's a bike