Congratulations, a book could be written to address all of your interests. And yeah, I am one of the C&Vers.


I like motorcycles too, but there is something more primitive about bikes, connecting me more directly with the road and the ride.


All of my bikes are either actual C&V or newer interpretations of them and all of my gear trains run on 8-speed chain.


Bicycle technologies have in some ways become better and in some ways worse.


In addition to the pleasure of riding, cycling keeps me healthier and feeling younger.

I am 68. I ride for the exercise. My usual ride is 20 miles and ride about 4 days a week for about 6-7 months since I live in Minnesota and there is snow the rest of the year. I own about 15 bikes. All are vintage steel except a 2008ish Look 585 plastic bike. All my bikes get ridden the same amount. I just hop on the next one that is in line.

Just turned 65 last month.

I "still" ride because it feels good and the scenery changes at the right rate. Also, many times I have started a ride feeling anxious, or angry, or upset, or depressed, but I almost never feel that way at the end of the ride - even playing dodge-em with a Tesla at 25 mph this afternoon didn't spoil my mood.

I ride C&V bikes because I like old stuff. Not just any old stuff, though. It has to be old stuff built for a purpose, and still capable of fulfilling it. I like that I can take a basketcase bike and make it functional and fast again.

I don't ride C&V bikes exclusively, though my main bike is a 1995 Litespeed with 2021 components. Mostly I ride my modern bikes for any real distance, but every bike in my garage has to be good enough to do a 55 mile Sunday ride without me hating it by the end.

I like to.

Nope

Yep, left knee blown out long ago and toast, no new one for it as the crooked ankle makes it a no go, right knee has taken the brunt of the work load as the left couldn't be trusted.

Right one took a couple of serious falls/blows a couple of years ago and became the "bad" one, ef me.

Realized it wasn't going to self correct as it normally does so started collagen, calcium, magnesium, vitamins, etc. and snake oil g*d awful expensive Instaflex.

It all made a big difference and has helped keep me riding, working on the cars, house, yard and all else, also retired a year ago which of course helped but wasn't really what I wanted.

So here I am, could be a lot worse and probably will be down the road. :twitchy:

Today it is only 60 degrees, overcast and damp. Nonetheless. I am going for a ride. I find the exertion to be healthy, healthful and helpful. See ya when I get back. ;-) :thumb:

"Only 60 degrees"? I assume tongue was firmly in cheek for that one.

Years of track & field plus marathons took a toll on my knee joints. Doctor advised to do swimming or cycling. Guess which one I chose.

I find being in the gym really boring too.

No tongue in cheek intended with that phrase. It is the beginning of winter but is unlikely to ever get much colder than that during daylight hours. January can be down right bizarre - as high as 90-something degrees. Still, unless it rains, I can ride year-round. I rode in the rain enough when I was on the east coast.

The sun just came out and dried off the roadways. It's time for that ride I mentioned.

Different outlooks on the weather are often hard to fully grasp. 60F looks great, if there's a blizzard outside your house, but compared to 118F from last summer, it's pretty nippy. 😉

It's 55 here in Sac town, but raining cats & dogs, for at least a week. But it's better than the drought we had here. I think. 🤔😉

Oh, I lived in the SF Bay area for eight years, so I know how nice the weather can be (and how cold it can feel in the winter in the poorly insulated houses I lived in). But it’s been over 30 years for me in the Boston area, and I’ve adjusted. I rode on Monday; the high was 20F. I rode today; the high was 58F. In fact, I rode four out of five days this week because I’m off from work for the holidays. I won’t spend as much time on an individual ride in the cold, but I still ride outside year round. Lots of people do.

When I lived in NYC, I used to ride almost year-round - as long as there wasn't snow on the roads. I'd wear a wind break layer, an insulation layer and a wide muffler crossed across my chest and gloves. I was young and crazy, I guess.

I'd ride from home to school and back - Queens, thru Brooklyn then to lower Manhattan and take the ferry and then on thru Staten Island. I'd ride to Central Park and do laps around the Park just because it was closed to autos on the weekends and it was a non-stop circuit.

I'm older now but I still enjoy the riding, quite possibly for all the same old reasons. The Bob Jackson is still with me as my main ride.

I spent eleven years on Beacon Hill where pahkin' a cah was more trouble than it was worth, put on some 1,500 miles a year as a year 'round cyclist commuter and dealing with downtown Boston traffic was always an adventure, never a dull moment. Now I am in the town of Northampton of Hampshire County in the Pioneer Valley of Central Western Massachusetts where on the western bank of the Connecticut river the roads to the north and south have only moderate hills and eastwards are mostly flat but to my immediate west are the Berkshires with many miles of steep hills and all of my bikes have low gearing to deal with those hills.

This region is very bike friendly with city and town roads often having dedicated bike lanes along with many miles of formerly railroad rail trails, but no, the rail trails are not kept clear of snow in winter yet most cah drivers around here are watchful about pedestrians, occasional joggers and cyclists. In the City of Northampton, population of about 20,000, pedestrians can walk across main street crossovers at any time of day or night and cahs must, can and do stop for them.

Let me add that nobody in western Massachusetts speaks with a Bostonian accent.

it's easy for you and you feel free