A question for Nlerner
 

Are bikes your livelihood or your hobby. I saw the pic's of bikes you posted earlier today, what a collection. The oldest bike you have whats it worth.
CP

Hopefully he won't mind if I answer.

Bicycles are not his livelihood. He is a successful educator at a prestigious institute of higher education.

Hey, like others on the list, I made my living as a bike mechanic back in the day. I like to tell my students that my first full-time job with benefits was as a service manager in a bike shop (and they shake their collective heads and mutter, "There he goes again.").

Thanks for the kind words about the collection. Definitely a labor of love. As far as value of the oldest, that would be my 1937 Raleigh Sports, which I bought for $32 (an eBay, local-pickup-only buy). It's worth a lot less than what Pastor Bob will often find at the dump.

Neal

:roflmao2:

The dump has had slim pickings for most of this year. I do hope to pick up a girl's Raliegh Sports tomorrow. Anyone interested?

neal is also a hell of a nice guy from the dealings i've had with him here. (hopefully we'll meet for lunch someday neal, i get up your way once in a while. we can talk raleighs!)

here's my question for you neal- sorry if this is a hijack... but you've got all those old bikes, and then you buy a kogswell. why? the reason i ask is that there are days when i'd also like to have a kogswell or something similar to my raleigh sports- all three of them. the vintage rides can be great and i'd hate to get rid of any- but they can also require a bit more maintainance than a new bike. is the kogs that much better than the old raleighs? certainly they're lighter, but that's not much of an issue for me. i guess i'm asking for a good reason to buy another bike, and a new one at that. after all neal, you're my "go-to" guy when my partner tells me "no more bikes".
"but honey, look at this guy, he's got twice as many as me!"

Is it my imagination, or are there a disproportionate number of ivory tower types in this forum? Not that there is anything wrong with that...

jim

well, i'm guilty. but it's not so much an ivory tower as a windowless concrete block office.

Ivory otwer types... what are those? I seem to be missing something.

Is a white clapboard steeple the same as an Ivory Tower? Just curious? :lol:

Oh--- but I never go up there! I'd rather spend my spare time at the dump.

Definitely, Vaughn. Come on up!

Well, the Kogswell is a new bike but built per the geometry of old French porteurs (though it's TIG welded). The concept is intriguing, and it serves lots of purposes for me. On Sunday, I attached my trailer to it and took it to the grocery store. With four full bags of groceries, it handled well. Then, on Sunday night I converted it to upright bars and commuted to work on it yesterday. I need to dial in the stem length and handlebar height, but I like the new feel. It's a very versatile bike (with 650B zing).

I actually thought the dominant group was engineers on this list. I know of only a couple of other academics (seems that a bunch of folks are grad students though). As far as my tower, I do have a window in my office, which is more than some colleagues have, and the roughly 80 sq ft I have are quite cozy. No ivory in site, however.

Neal

Engineers make sense. Pretty simple to see why they would find the mechanical simplicity of older bikes interesting. My dad was an engineer, and I can kind of hear echoes of his voice in a lot of the discussions we have around here.

But it also makes sense that dusty old scholars would find dusty old bikes appealling. In my case, other than the appeal that it has for me as a latent engineer, I suspect I just like that they are different. And professors are nothing if not different.

jim

p.s., and yes, Pastorbob, you count. Your tower is pointy at the top, but we will make sure to bring you along to the monthy egghead meetings.

If you're serious about that, my daughter has expressed some interest in her first 'adult' bike. She rides a Specialized Hot Rock right now that is beginning to get too small for her. And get this, she wants a bike with fenders!!

She keeps complaining that almost all my bikes have fenders and hers doesn't. Still, at her age (preteen) I thought image was everything, and that fenders would be uncool. I'd been considering getting her a Sports, but was waiting until the prices dropped.

Neal, I thought your Clubman bikes (Clubmen????) would be your most expensive. Maybe not when gauged by what you paid for them, but surely by what you could sell them for.

That's probably true given their rarity, Yohann. I figured the OP wanted to know the value of my oldest bike, the '37 Raleigh Sports.

The value of my collection is a trifle compared to what many other BF members hold, however. I'm not complaining about that, for sure, and I'm good with my highly patina-ed and mostly highly used fleet.

Neal

I was a grad student, but now I am just a "Master of Science". I am pretty sure Jon was/is in grad school as well. Anyway, now I'm just a full time bike mechanic. I plan on spending another year as such and seeing how it goes, perhaps there is room for me to grow in the bike world. If not I think I will seek professional work in line with my education... but no ivory tower for me, we don't have those in Canada anyway, except maye at Queens.. haha

Whoops! I guess I misread his question. Still, I'd wager that you could sell your '37 Raleigh for quite a bit. Heck! I'll give you a 100% more for it than you paid. :D

Dumped Grad School for the work place where I was learning more anyways (at least for the moment). I'm one of those engineer sorts, if you consider software development engineering anyways. One of my majors does have the word engineer in it... have I used the word engineer enough yet?

"As far as my tower, I do have a window in my office,"

a window?!? oh, jeez...